He has argued that the party should take a less dogmatic stance on abortion which it is gradually doing

He has argued that the party should take a less dogmatic stance on abortion (which it is gradually doing).Mr McCain would be the first to concede that one reason for his staying away from Iowa was his relatively weak support in that state. It is on record that he was offered his freedom on several occasions, but refused it on the grounds that it would break his solidarity with those who did not have his connections.In a book to be published in the autumn (to coincide with the start of the nomination race proper), he writes that there were times when he despaired and attempted suicide.A hawk on foreign policy and defence, but no isolationist, he is not a conventional Republican; some go so far as to call him a radical. The son of an admiral, he was a Navy pilot who was shot down over Hanoi in 1967 and held prisoner by the North Vietnamese for five-and-a-half years. Now 62 and a Senator since 1986, he campaigns as a "genuine American hero". He is one of the few presidential contenders from either party who has no lack of military credentials and no qualms about exposing his military record.

After initially condemning President Clinton for using insufficient force over Kosovo, he became one of the Democratic President's staunchest supporters, scattering his fellow Republican Senators to either side: those who opposed any involvement in the conflict and those who said ground troops were essential to victory.The Kosovo conflict put Mr McCain's candidacy on the map. Today he will offer his thoughts on the Iowa results on two television talk shows, and tomorrow he will set off back on the campaign trail, starting a bus tour of California.Ever since March, when he delayed announcing his bid for the presidency because, he said, it was inappropriate to do so when the country was effectively at war (against Yugoslavia), Mr McCain has set himself apart. Scotland's latest Tuscan visitor deserves a more lavish welcome, akin to that offered in his home to the British Prime Minister.. IOWA had been crawling with Republican presidential hopefuls for weeks before yesterday's "straw poll" But there was one notable absentee. Senator John McCain had announced weeks earlier that he would not take part, and he stuck to his decision, calling the proceedings "a sham". Through the past week, as his fellow Republicans braved torrential rain and furious farmers the length and breadth of the state, Mr McCain was relaxing with his wife, Cindy, and their four children at home in Arizona.

Less than a month after Mussolini's declaration, more than 400 British Italians were drowned when their prison ship, bound for Canada, was torpedoed by a German U-boat in the Irish Sea. But Mussolini's declaration of war in 1940 left Scotland's Italian shops wrecked by looters Their owners were imprisoned or deported. They had always been regarded as suspicious long before war: ice cream parlours where the sexes mixed were considered morally questionable in Edwardian times. There they will find the famous frescoed "Italian Chapel", whose white-columned entrance was built on to the gable end of two Nissen huts by some of the thousands of PoWs held there during the Second World War.It may also be where the Chitis learn of days when Italians were not so comfortable in Scotland. Fortunately for Oban, McCaig's Tower, which was supposed to have statues of dead McCaigs in the apertures, was never completed.But to learn the whole story of the Italians in Scotland, the Chitis must motor to the far north, to Orkney. One 40- room establishment, known as Villa Castelvecchio, was built there from money sent home in the 1920s by Italo-Scozzesi ice-cream kings.Mr Chiti should then drive on a little further west to the coast to Largs, where Pete Nardini, father of This Life actress Daniela and head of the family cafe business, will surely offer him an extra scoop at Scotland's most famous ice cream parlour.On then to Oban, where the Chitis can admire a west coast skyline bizarrely broken by a replica of the Colosseum, built by a local banker, John Stuart McCaig, in 1897. They may also meet Italo-Scozzesi originating from Barga, a quiet Tuscan town overlooking the river Serchio.

"Tallys", they used to be called in Scotland, whereas east coast Italians, originating from Cassino, south of Rome, were known as "Tonis".It may be that Tony Blair, during his many visits to Tuscany, has enjoyed the fruits of the "Tallys" from Barga who laboured in Scotland. If he is homesick for porcini, he and his family could join the deli's annual fungus hunt around Lothian forests.And he could have no finer cultural guides than from his own community. Who better than that grand old Italian/Scottish thespian Richard Demarco, co-founder of the Traverse theatre, to show him around the Edinburgh Festival? Perhaps the celebrated Scottish sculptor Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, whose family ran a Leith ice cream shop, will offer his welcoming hand.In Glasgow, where the Guilianos already had a chain of 60 cafes by 1900, Mr Chiti, his wife and 17-year-old son will find evidence of the Art Deco introduced by Italians in the 1930s. As a study in the Scottish monthly Caledonia concluded, they are "a fascinating community of 30,000 souls whose influence on our nation over the last 200 years has been out of proportion to its size".Indeed the Italians occupy a proud place in the history of Scottish nationalism - Rome was the birthplace and final refuge of Bonnie Prince Charlie, leader of the failed 1745 Rising.For refreshment, Mr Chiti should visit the Continis of Valvona and Crolla, the famed Edinburgh deli, which is gradually weaning Scots off lard and on to olive oil. An early visit to Edinburgh's Palace of Holyroodhouse, where David Rizzio, adviser to Mary Queen of Scots, was murdered in 1566, will remind him that the Italo-Scozzesi have been here a long time. That might not be the only shock: just think of all that rain, and the capital's famous foggy "haar" blotting out the summer sun.But the Chitis, who plan to spend their first three days in Edinburgh, may find more that is familiar about Scotland than they expected. Mr Chiti is paying his own way, OK? As the Chiti family samples Edinburgh, Glasgow and the B&Bs of Perth, Inverness and further afield, it will be able to test the conclusions of a recent Scottish Affairs Select Committee report which complained of a "Fawlty Towers" culture, of overpricing and "sticky linoleum".