Twin peaks: The politics of the Proclaimers

More than three decades since the Proclaimers first broke into the public consciousness with Letter From America, a political fire still burns within them

Craig and Charlie Reid of the Proclaimers: ‘It’s only been the last ten years that I’ve thought we had something going’

‘There was a showband here last week and they got double your crowd.” So went the gripe of a disgruntled promoter when the Proclaimers toured Ireland for the first time, three decades ago. “The place we played in Tralee was like a sports hall: there were guys walking in with sheepdogs and we only got a couple of hundred people,” recalls Charlie Reid, one half of Scotland’s most celebrated identical twins.

In the ...