High drama on road to Connery's knighthood

By BILLY ADAMS

Edinburgh - It could have been a scene from a James Bond movie.

There he was, the best 007 of them all, kneeling on a cushioned stool as his monarch gently tapped those broad shoulders with her father's naval sword, and pronounced him a knight of the realm.

"The name's Sean ... Sir Sean," a kilted Connery probably said to himself as he publicly declared it to be one of the proudest days of his life.

If this moment was captured on the silver screen, Connery's dashing secret agent would have been honoured for continually delivering his Queen and country from evil. In real life he was recognised for his services to drama.

And what drama. The story surrounding the silver-haired superstar's knighthood has more twists than any 007 caper, and tales of deceit and back-stabbing abound; all because Connery, a fierce supporter of Scottish independence, wants to disunite the United Kingdom of which he is now a knight.

"It is a great honour," he announced after the ceremony in his home city of Edinburgh at Her Majesty's official Scottish residence, the Palace of Holyroodhouse. "For me and for Scotland."

Those carefully chosen words would have meant little to an army of fans who think of the 69-year-old actor as one of the sexiest men on the planet or, according to Steven Spielberg, one of only seven genuine stars in the world.

In a career spanning more than 70 films, Hollywood licensed him to kill and make love to the world's most beautiful women. And despite his distinctive Scottish tones, many Americans think of him as one of their own.

But back home, the world's most famous living Scotsman is much more than just a superstar. He is a loaded gun in the high-profile campaign for Scotland to break away from the rest of the UK.

He is the Scottish National Party's biggest financial contributor, and their ace card. To the ruling Labour Party he is a dangerous opponent who the Prime Minister's spin doctors do not know how to tackle.

When Tony Blair was elected in 1997 he pledged to hold a referendum on the setting up of a devolved Scottish Parliament with tax-raising powers.

In the subsequent referendum, Labour and the SNP joined forces to campaign for a Yes vote. They had different motives. Labour hoped devolution would quell rising support for independence while the SNP believed it would be a perfect first step towards their goal.

Connery played a major role. He made his first political speech and helped bring political arch-enemies Donald Dewar, the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, and SNP leader Alex Salmond together for lunch.

But a few months after Scotland overwhelmingly voted for devolution, Labour's fears of the SNP, and Connery in particular, were exposed in the most embarrassing manner.

For years it had been suspected that the actor's long-standing support for the SNP had kept him frozen out of the Queen's honours lists. He had received the Legion d'Honneur, France's highest award, and the freedom of Edinburgh, but had consistently been left out in the cold when it came to a centuries-old tradition of conferring knighthoods and other honours on Britain's great and good.

When it was revealed in 1998 that Dewar had blocked a long-standing recommendation by the previous Conservative Government for Connery to receive a knighthood an almighty political row broke out.

Labour sources claimed the movie star's high-profile support for the SNP had nothing to do with the decision.

At first they said the honour had been refused because Connery had lived as a tax exile outside Britain since 1974. Then they claimed the decision had been taken because of allegations that Connery hit his first wife, Diane Cilento, and because of comments he made in a magazine interview more than 30 years earlier concerning violence towards women.

Connery furiously denied the beating charge, which resurfaced earlier this year when Cilento, mother of his actor son Jason, repeated the allegations in a new biography of the star.

Connery said his comments, made in an interview with Playboy on the set of the 1966 Bond movie Thunderball, had been misinterpreted. He claimed the Labour Party was conducting a smear campaign against him.

"I don't like the turn it has taken now when they drag up something from the past about my violence towards women," said Connery. "If they want to do a character assassination on me, that's their way of justifying saying, 'Well, we shouldn't give it to him.' And I am fed up being told I don't pay taxes. I pay taxes more than most people in the UK."

In another interview, he added: "I am disappointed that somebody like Donald [Dewar] did this. But then, that's the political animal. The big picture for them is what counts. I knew independence didn't sit well with a lot of people. But if anything, the news that they have stopped me will push people who might have been sitting on the fence into going nationalist."

In choosing to square up to Connery, the Labour Party scored a huge own goal. They seemed blissfully ignorant of the fact that he was hugely popular with Scots from all corners of the political spectrum.

It seemed only a matter of time before the Government would perform a spectacular u-turn, and at the New Year, Connery was finally announced in the Queen's latest honours list.

His decision to accept brought accusations of hypocrisy because he supported the breakup of the country the honour represented, but Connery rejected the criticism, claiming he would be proud to receive the knighthood from the Queen as he supported retaining the monarchy within an independent Scotland.