We're taking over......

Now David McAllister, the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony in Germany, hopes to forge new bonds between the two nations when he visits Scotland next week.

Mr McAllister, who was born to a Scottish father and a German mother in West Berlin in 1971, will lead an official three-day visit to Scotland from Wednesday until Friday, during which he will meet Alex Salmond, observe First Minister's Questions and deliver a speech on Germany and the European Union at the David Hume Institute in Edinburgh.

He told The Herald: "We're coming to Scotland with a small delegation, mainly representatives of our universities. The main issue is energy research and especially the renewables.

"I think there's quite a lot we can learn from Scotland. The highlight will be on Thursday when I'm at Holyrood.

"I'm delighted I'm meeting the First Minister. I met Mr Salmond a few years ago when he visited Germany and I'm also meeting the new leader of the Conservative Party in Scotland, Ruth Davidson."

As a German politician, Mr McAllister felt he could not comment on Scottish independence, although he added: "I will be discussing a number of political issues with the First Minister."

The 41-year-old politician, who is a lawyer by profession and lives in Lower Saxony with his wife Dunja and their two daughters, Jamie Elizabeth and Mia Louise, became the Prime Minister of the area in 2010, making him the youngest regional Prime Minister in Germany.

The couple married in 2003 after Mr McAllister, who wore a kilt at the service, had proposed on the banks of Loch Ness.

He is a member of the Christian Democratic Union party, the same political party as Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, and is tipped by some as a potential successor to her.

His father, James Buchanan McAllister, first went to Germany when he fought with the 51st Highlanders during the Second World War and returned there as a civil servant, where he went on to meet Mr McAllister's mother, Mechthild McAllister.

Mr McAllister said: "My father was born in 1919 and grew up in Glasgow. The family lived near Hampden Park. I remember my grandparents lived in Ardbeg Street.

"Since my father married a German girl he decided to stay in Germany as quite a number of members of the British forces did."

The politician learned to be bilingual at home, attended a British primary school in West Berlin and speaks English with a Scottish accent.

While he is in Scotland he hopes to meet up with some of his relatives.

Mr McAllister added: "I still have a cousin who lives near Newton Mearns and she has two children. I hope I'll perhaps have a chance to meet with them while I'm here."

One of his official duties will be launching the 2012 Scottish International Storytelling Festival, which will explore the influence of the German story tellers the Brothers Grimm, with Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop at the National Library of Scotland on Wednesday.

Last year, when Rangers were training in Lower Saxony as part of a pre-season tour, Mr McAllister was invited to go along and meet the team.

He said: "I was very proud to meet Ally McCoist.

"My favourite team is Hannover 96 but I remember my father was a supporter of two Glasgow teams: Rangers, but his first team was actually Queen's Park."

 

David is the same age as me and lives in the Village "Bad Bederkesa" which is 25km away from my Home. Both, His home and mine, are part of the "Landkreis Cuxhaven".
David ist well known here. And even a lot of people here which are not going so far to call themselves conservative are a bit proud of the fact, that the primeminister of lower saxony comes from their Landkreis!

That he`s in for "97" i cannot believe. Must ask him next time.

 

I always thoght that he is a feverish supporter of Wolfsburg. :zweifeln: Anyway, it's a choice between pestilence and cholera.

 

To me it seems, that our prime ministers in lower saxony just say it for the press, their a fan of 95 oder Golfsburg - for these are Ligateams from out of lower saxony.