David Maddox: Good auspices for Homecoming Year

The auspices for the Homecoming Year look good if the desperate attempts by our politicians to take credit for it can be taken as weathervane on how well it will go.
As I blog the Homecoming 2009 is being debated in the main chamber in Holyrood. To remind those who do not know this is the idea of encouraging expat Scots, people with Scottish heritage and those with an affinity (liking or interest) in Scotland to come home this year. It has, of course, been timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the birth of Burns.
But almost every politician who gets to his or her feet seems to want to take party political credit for the idea.
Tourism minister Jim Mather has pointed out that the SNP government is pushing it forward and making it a key part of Scotland's economic recovery. Lib Dem Ian Smith has pointed out that the original idea came from former Lib Dem MSP Donald Gorrie and was in the Lib Dem 2003 manifesto. Labour MSP Margaret Curran has credited former Labour First Minister Jack McConnell for taking the idea up and getting it going. The Tories must be feeling a tad left out.
This rush to take credit for the idea can only mean that despite the economic turmoil in the world they think it is going to be a great success.
Part of this is what Nationalist MSP Roseanna Cunningham described as the "silver lining of the dark cloud of the collapse of Sterling." In other words Euro zone, North American and Australasian homecomers can look forward to cheap holidays in Scotland this year.
Hopefully the optimism is well founded, but it will be interesting to see that if come December there is a similar rush to take credit for the year. That will be the real political test of success.