THEY are the band who are on course to inherit Runrig’s contemporary Celtic music crown and now Skipinnish have revealed their unlikely inspiration for one of the tracks on their new album – Tony Blair’s former spin doctor Alastair Campbell.

Angus MacPhail, the band’s founder, accordionist and songwriter, said the former Labour strategist “sparked the flint” for the song Still We Run on their latest album, Steer By the Stars, which has just been released.

The men know each other through family connections. MacPhail was born and raised on Tiree, home of Campbell’s late father Donald, and is a close friend of several members of Clan Campbell.

Campbell, a keen piper, performed with MacPhail at an award-winning Celtic Connections concert, Tiree Songbook, three years ago. MacPhail said: “Alastair has always fascinated me. I don’t belong to any political camp but I like his approach to life and to politics. Since we were introduced, I have had lots of conversations with him. One night we were sitting talking in a ‘meaning of life’ kind of way and I asked him how he managed to keep looking young and energetic – over 60 and still running every day – and to live with such bad depression from time to time.

“He said he never thought life was about happiness in the moment, and that we only really know if we lived a happy life when we get towards the end. And then he said, ‘and there’s exercise too!’. I just kept thinking of what he had said and what it meant. And then the first line of the song just came into my head, ‘forever young, and still we run’.”

MacPhail had the song in his headphones as he ran the Great Manchester Run half-marathon yesterday, but it was another song on the album that inspired him to lace up his running shoes. Wishing Well – released last year – was written in memory of Eilidh MacLeod, from Barra, who died in the Manchester Arena bombing.

The song was released to raise money for a permanent memorial on Barra. As part of the fundraising, MacPhail also completed his first run, the 2018 Manchester 10K, and the Edinburgh Half Marathon the following week. This year, in further fundraising for the cause, he is running both half-marathons.

At Campbell’s suggestion, MacPhail has sent the song to Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, who also took part in the run. MacPhail said: “I heard him talking about the impact of the bombing on young lives like Eilidh and was impressed by the empathy he showed. I wanted to send the album to him as a small token of respect for the way he handled things.”

Campbell said he had listened to the album and added: “I love it. There are some fantastic running tracks on there but also some good Gaelic gloomy stuff which I like too.”

Skipinnish play Edinburgh’s Usher Hall this Friday.