And finally… #31
Posted on
April 13, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Readers! Scotland on Sunday’s Euan McColm – who is a proper, mature, grown-up journalist, unlike we scurrilous, anonymous blogger types – has a message for you with regard to modern developments in the financing of alternative media sources.
(As we’re aware that some people are uncomfortable with robust language, we’ve blurred out part of the text for sensitive viewers. Click the image if you have the sturdy constitution necessary to read the uncensored version, along with some more pithy wit from this cuddly, avuncular figure of the “quality” press.)
You should find out who MrMcColm is talking about, in case he wants to raise a defamation action
Offer the hand of friendship and invite him to do a guest article for WoS.
I see that there is a more balanced running in the Sunday Herald.
http://twitpic.com/cj4ujf
He seems like a nice boy.
As Marcia rightly suggests, I’m sure that a guest spot on here would go down well.
Euan” WE got a badass here’ McColm- a typical internet ‘big man’ What an arsehole. Did someone steal his lunch money off him when he was at school. Or more likely just in from the pub.
Aaaand the true face of the Scottish quality press reveals itself. Well done to Mr McColm for confirming absolutely everything we’ve ever suspected about your title. I’m sure that his employers will wish to thank him suitably for this priceless gift of publicity.
Has there always been ludicrous, loathsome figures in the Scottish press-corps writing biased crap? – but that pre-interweb we just didn’t know/realise?
Or is it that we – and he – are particularly unfortunate timing-wise?
I think we all know what fear looks like, don’t we folks? Can you not just smell it?
i don’t want to jinx anything, but it may be that in a few months we’ll look back on this week as a crucial one, as one end of a tipping point. Just maybe.
Why has he accused you of being a racist Rev Stu? Was it because you accurately quoted from BT about “real Scots?” Have you been drinking while being on the internet McColm, you wee rascal, you? What a prize plum you really are. The SoS/Scotsman is going down the plughole…
This has been the week that the Unionist Establishment began to feel its grip loosen. Its mouthpieces are panicking, and foul language and lies are all they can manage.
Euan McColm = The Mouth of Sauron?
What I like about Euan is that he’s a great example of Scotland’s past.
Not nice to watch him soiling himself in public though.
OT: BBC Scotland reporter Catriona Renton challenged at scrap trident rally for under reporting attendees.
It occurred to me today that since Better Together included the graffiti attack on the Scotsman building as part of their Nat anti-BT dirty tricks campaign, then logically that means they consider The Scotsman to be a part of BT.
Which we all knew, but it’s nice that it’s official now.
I wonder if there is any chance of his employers finding out about this wee gem of tactful advertising? Would they care? I know that if my titles were in trouble and one of my staff publicly acted in such a fashion I’d be looking to have a somewhat terse chat with said employee PDQ. Still, nothing for the wee soul to worry about eh?
can anyone say ‘smears and fears’?
It irritates me no end that people believe the twaddle these people peddle.
Oh dear.
It’s a bit like Ronan Keating on his recent solo tour – apparently he made a point of using the ‘f’ word several times of an evening. No Daniel O’Donnell, oor Ronan…
Of course, he can curse until the proverbials come home, but he won’t be remembered for his edgy onstage persona – he’ll be remembered for this:
What a silly, silly boy. In the old days, when it was still allowed, his Mummy would have smacked his bottom. These days Mummy just sits quietly and wisely, knowing that the tantrums will gradually pass and he will cry himself to sleep, thumb in mouth.
And instead of putting an extra hard-earned penny in the pot for the good Reverend, she will put in TWO pennies!
Mummy always knows best.
@Macart
It’s certainly common practice, particularly for organisation in the media spotlight and with a public image to maintain to insert clauses into employment contracts about behaviour that might bring the employer or clients into disrepute . . .
Truly pathetic.
Sadly I doubt the Scotsman/SoS care these days to even discipline McColm. Standards have fallen immensely, as both parts of the paper used to be very good. This was the newspaper of Ascherson, Kemp et al. Now McColm…
Oh. Tweets like that from a supposedly “real” journalist is proof they’ve lost. It’s trolling of the worst kind. Seems like he might be drunk.
Anyway, I’d recommend treating him the usually recommended way of treating trolls and not rising to it. Nothing irritates a troll more than being ignored. OTOH, the Rev might have a case for libel.
@alasdair
You’d be absolutely spot on about that alasdair. I’ve seen this very clause in action within print media and have one in my own contract. And I have been that guy having a terse chat with a staff member in times past. Wonder if they use such a clause at Scotsman/SoS? This paragon of the Scottish media has just insulted members of the general public in a public forum. I’m just wondering out loud what kind of employer allows their staff to do that these days?
He might want to check how many bedrooms he’s got – you need to tell them that stuff when you try to sign-on.
@ cach,
If anyone has a case for libel, it would be the f***ingidiots that funded the campaign. Perhaps we should all pull together to lodge group action and a warning letter. Or on the other hand, just ignore him. Wee smily thing.
“OTOH, the Rev might have a case for libel.”
It’s a stonewaller – could barely be any more clear-cut defamatory, in fact – but Euan knows fine that a non-millionaire individual has zero chance of bringing a libel/defamation case to court anywhere in the UK.
Wonder if he’s trying some deflecting from a news story in the Sunday Herald? Certainly don’t think he writes much that is relevant in the real world.
Cath – Sorry miss typed your name.
@Marcia
First with tomorrows front page as always 🙂
Well done Sunday Herald.
I know that it isn’t important but where on earth did they get the photo of the Tank.
It certainly is not British and it certainly is not modern. At a guess and I cant be bothered to enlarge the photo. I would say probably Russian circa 1960. Difficult to tell with all the bods standing around the turret. Looks to be in a bit of a state. Possibly a leftover from Russians in Afghanistan. The rest superimposed.
I can say though if I saw this in a previous life I would have fired!
Plenty of photos of Scots Greys Challengers flying the Saltire during Iraq war or would that distort the intended meaning.
Dear Mr Stewart,
I am sure that Scotland on Sunday, like most reputable organisations, issues guidelines to its staff over their use of social media.
I would be surprised if these encouraged your employees to term members of the public and potential readers ‘fucking idiots’
Certainly, as one who has supported the crowd-funding of Wings over Scotland, I take grave exception to being called a fucking idiot by one of your journalists, and to being told that I am associating with a racist cybernat.
It does the reputation of your newspaper no good at all.
Yours etc.
That Sunday Herald front page is astounding, given the context
Wow.
@Rev Stu
It’s a stonewaller – could barely be any more clear-cut defamatory, in fact – but Euan knows fine that a non-millionaire individual has zero chance of bringing a libel/defamation case to court anywhere in the UK.
Should the law not be changed so that ordinary people can mount libel/defamtion cases? Why should it be only the rich that are effectively allowed to do it (I know nothing about libel: declaimer)?
To make comments like that, McColm must have a massive inferiority complex.
Could it also be the case that he’s a wee tad jealous that the Rev Stu has more readers than he does?
Never mind, Rev Stu, you might be in luck.
Ian Smart appears to be offering his legal services to those who may have had lies told about the on the internet…..
Well, there goes dummy out oot the pram! Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t it the unionist crowd and BT that say Scottish isn’t a race? That’s some real pretzel logic Mr. McColm is using there.
I agree with others, he’s a wee bit jealous of the Rev’s success. Poor diddums…
Yay! I helped crowdfund the pain in Euan McColm’s arse. #fuckingresult
The Man in the Jar
I think the photo in tomorow’s Sunday Herald is an antidote to last week’s SoS. A good bit of subliminal mesage as to the direction of the paper. I may be wrong but I hope not.
Kenny F has just tweeted that SoS has an article in which ‘Henry Macleish says that £500,000 donation from Ian Taylor could harm pro-UK cause.’
@Jiggsbro – I’m totally stealing that hashtag.
Brilliant!
What was it that made him kick-off anyway?
anbrotherhood
A little while ago he took exception to our good Rev’s forensic comb over one of his articles.
What was it that made him kick-off anyway?
The ‘Through the looking glass’ pie chart/questioning whether Ian Taylor lied about where he was born. It’s almost as though he took ‘through the looking glass’ as an instruction manual.
Off the top of my head I know that there has been successful fundraising activity for:
Wings
Newsnet
Bella
National Collective
What fundraising at a grassroots level have the Brits secured in Scotland?
Anyone?
You could be right, Marcia. The Sunday Herald editorship (yes, even Marcus Gardham, perhaps) must be reading the runes. It would be madness for it to go down the same grubby path that the ScotsmanSoS have. This past week’s extraordinary events may force it into taking a much more balanced approach from now on – if only to differentiate itself from its rival and hopefully pick up a few readers from the bunch that will undoubtedly have deserted the SoS after Swastikagate.
But I will judge it after I have read it!
@Marcia
I know that I’m being picky but considering the wording. “Blueprint for an independent Scotland’s armed forces” They could have found something a bit more up to date. It’s a bit like “Blueprint for an independent Scotland’s railways” and using a photo of an old steam train in a breakers yard. 🙂
I recognise that 99.9% of people just think, “It’s a tank!” The paranoid may think that it is a subliminal message. “You’ll only be able to afford a couple of very second hand T62s”
just sayin like!
Just noticed the time of his Tweet, 6.21 am – 13 Apr 13.
Maybe we shouldn’t be too hard on him.
Perhaps he’s more to be pitied as a wee, sad, lonely individual who’s got nothing better to do with himself at that time in the morning except play with his Tweeter?
Could his wee Tweeter be all he has?
Is he so friendless, that at that ungodly hour in the morning, his wee Tweeter thing is his only companion?
Has it become his substitute for a real human friend?
Perhaps he’s in need of being shown some compassion?
But just in case I’m wrong – I won’t be buying a copy of Scotland on Sunday tomorrow.
The Man in the Jar
How very male. A tank to me is a tank. I do like steam trains, I miss the compartment coaches. They were the norm when I was young all those decades ago.
He must be painfully aware that were he ever to run a blog he could never hope to achieve such crowd funding. Sad, isn’t it?
LMAO @Jimbo.
o/t I saw this tweet from Kenny F a few minutes ago:
“A number of ScotLabour MPs to boycott party conference this week in protest at plans for more powerful devolution.Full story in SoS”
Just seen Andy Wightman tweet this:
“The title deeds to Mrs Thatcher’s house in the British Virgin Islands c/o Collyer-Bristow http://wp.me/p2wHxu-Do”
Thatcher, Taylor, Rangers…were they Jimmy Saville’s lawyers as well?
The Sunday Herald having a wee dig @ Scotland on Sunday.
When I saw it my first thoughts were Iwo Jima . Rutherford, Oh no it’s an armoured vehicle not a mountain, a saltire not a swastika.
As for Euan McColm , he’s just a glaikit wee laddie and probably blootered. He’ll pay for it in the morning.
When the day is one we’ll need a new anthem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nLGKFTH5sw
@Marcia
I spent many years crewing and fixing the dam things. Tanks not trains! Same here with the coaches. I avoid train travel at all costs. I always get a crowd of guys with a cary-oot that would float the Bismarck sitting opposite. If I wanted to spend several hours locked in a small compartment with a load of drunks I would get myself arrested on a Friday night.
Elizabeth
When I read that, i thought of Alec Douglas-Home in 1979 and the empty promise of ‘better devolution’. Too late for them, devo-max is not on the ballot. They had their chance and blocked it.
Dunno about “just male”, my wife has a rough appreciation of military hardware and I know a few women who find the topic interesting, just as I know guys who do needlepoint
It’s not a Warrior, not with that backside, and the gun barrel is too thick and the wrong shape.
Hmm, not sure
Talk about tanked-up! This new technology is just a tad too revealing for many folks. Anyway, I wouldn’t be buying his employer’s paper so it’s no loss from me. Does point to something stirring however!
You know what would be quite funny? Finding out Euan’s salary and then trying to get the Wings fundraising to surpass it.
Then again, maybe that’s already happened, and that’s why he’s so pissed off…
Off topic but still topical. I hope Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead makes it to number one later today.
For a number of reasons, there is political significance in this. Yip Harburg, who wrote the lyrics for all the songs in The Wizard of Oz, was a lifelong socialist. In 1953, he was blacklisted during Mcarthyism in the US. How telling, that 60 years later, the British state, through its principal medium the BBC, should censor him by restricting one of the least political songs he wrote.
Harburg wrote the classic, ‘Brother Can You Spare a Dime’ in 1929 at the start of the Great Depression. Even at the age of 80 he never lost his radical edge. In the crisis of the 1970s, The New York Times invited him to update the lyrics of his classic and he wrote:
Once we had a Roosevelt
Praise the Lord
Life had meaning and hope
Now we’re stuck with Nixon, Agnew, Ford
Brother can you spare a rope.
Good piece in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/13/ding-dong-song-thatcher-bbc-china
“As for the BBC, what is there left to say about it? Can it show TheWizard of Oz again? Can it only run the film after the 9pm watershed? Must the announcer warn: “This children’s story contains Munchkin choruses that some viewers may find offensive”? Its decision to ban every part of the song except for a five-second clip in a news report shows clearly something that many people outside the media rarely understand: the BBC folds under pressure.”
@Adrian B,
Thanks for the link. Excellent article. Nick Cohen is right of course. This is just another example of the supine BBC caving in to political pressure from the Tories, in this instance, the blue Tories.
But we can only speculate about what the Tories’ next demand will be. If Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead does make it to number one, will our teachers be instructed to discipline children if they sing it in school playgrounds? Will W.H. Smith’s move all DVD copies of the Wizard of Oz to the top shelves in its stores? Will the British Board of Film Classification change it from a ‘U’ to an ‘18’? Irrespective of whether the song makes it to number one, maybe we should start a campaign to get the Wizard of Oz to number one in the DVD charts before the buggers withdraw it from sale?
In another thread I talked about journalists using their ‘real’ voice on the likes of Twitter to tell one and all their true feelings about an independent Scotland, then writing about it in the MSM in a supposedly fair and balanced manner (Well, that’s what the UK’s MSM maintains anyway!) – utterly hypocritical and fake.
I just don’t know why they do it. Is it vanity? Arrogance? Trying to be ‘cool’? Thinking that being abusive in tweets (‘Come on, it’s only Twitter!’) absolves them and their employers from any repercussions? Are they unaware that those tweets don’t just disappear into the ether never to be viewed again and will still be there when they wake up the next day? Is it ignorance of how the internet works? Some kind of dissonance, perhaps, between what’s real and what isn’t?
… And what do you know, up pops Mr. McColm as a fine example! Lots of potty mouth, too! Was he pished?
@Dal Riata,
From what I’ve heard, I think the more pertinent question would be, was he sober?
Is he an adult?
Was he pished?
Was he sober/
Is he an adult?
No – He’s obviously one of those real Scots they boast of who are leading the Better together campaign. You know, the kind who like to scaremonger and denigrate their fellow countrymen who have aspirations for a better Scotland.
There is no doubt in my mind that McColm means Rev Stu because he uses the singular “that” rather than the plural “those” in his tweet.
cath @ 11:03pm said:
” Oh. Tweets like that from a supposedly “real” journalist is proof they’ve lost. It’s trolling of the worst kind. Seems like he might be drunk. Anyway, I’d recommend treating him the usually recommended way of treating trolls and not rising to it. Nothing irritates a troll more than being ignored. OTOH, the Rev might have a case for libel. ”
Adrian B @ 11:10pm said in response to cath:
” If anyone has a case for libel, it would be the f***ingidiots that funded the campaign. Perhaps we should If anyone all pull together to lodge group action and a warning letter. Or on the other hand, just ignore him. Wee smily thing.”
Rev Stu @ 11:11pm said in response to cath’s ” OTOH, the Rev might have a case for libel.”
” It’s a stonewaller – could barely be any more clear-cut defamatory, in fact – but Euan knows fine that a non-millionaire individual has zero chance of bringing a libel/defamation case to court anywhere in the UK. ”
Rev Stu is right. In any event, the Rev’s time, efforts and funding for the cause are best concentrated on just that for now, unless we can come up with a legal eagle prepared to take on the case on a ‘pro bono’ no win no fee basis, which by definition must be a certain win. And thus one the Scotsman would want to wipe their feet and wash their hands of as they would any employee guilty of bringing respectable organ of the (cough) truth into disrepute. It might also encourage others to cut the fascist crap conflation out too.
Moreover, if such a prominent wig – having examined the facts – stepped up to the plate do so, as Adrian B suggests, it might still be better a class action in defence of our freedom of speeech as crowd founders who are not f***idiots and not prepared to put up with McColm’s labelling and libelling us as such in his “yay! well done everybody who crowd funded that racist cybernat.#fuckingidiots” tweet. As a donor who takes great exception to McColm’s doing so, I for one would be a willing part of that group in my own name.
The question then becomes, would the foregoing be the right course of action to support the YES cause? Are there other ways to seek the maximum publicity for this NO hoper’s libel and by association cause?
In both as well as, or instead of cases, this post by Rev Stu could be just the start if it can be R/T’d – like Ian Taylor’s doings – to get McColm’s vile tweet out on the streets to take it to the fair folk on all sides of the argument we’re having.
I hope folk at large do, ‘cos if any of us put up with this shit, we don’t stand for independence and/or union; we stand for nothing.
Please re-read my para beginning ” Rev Stu is right. …. ” as this:
Rev Stu is right. In any event, I suggest he too might agree his time, efforts and funding for the cause are best concentrated on just that for now, unless we can come up with a legal eagle prepared to take on the case on a ‘pro bono’ no win no fee basis, which by definition must be a certain win. And hence one the Scotsman would want to wipe their feet and wash their hands of, as they would any employee guilty of bringing their respectable organ of the (cough) truth into disrepute.
It might also encourage others in future to cut out the fascist crap conflation too, including the No Better Together ConLabLibservative rum crew from top-down.
When I replied to Euan’s tweet in question calling him a potty mouth, he came back at me with a torrent of profanities.
I have no idea of how to screen capture and post it here, but it’s on twitter for sure. Save to say it makes the original post seem tame.
and this just in from the Bitter Together Arms at 6:21 am FFSake!
That must be Eastern Standard Time?
ianbrotherhood says:
13 April, 2013 at 11:45 pm
What was it that made him kick-off anyway?
I think a smell of the barman’s apron; he looks a novice drinker. Alternatively he to mistook the rev Stu’s “looking glass” suggestion and used the botoom of a few beer tumblers to gain his insight.
Ian Roper Taylor allegedly married Cristina in 1982 in Tunbridge Wells Registration district. Findmypast.com have all the details and of course it gives a fair amount of info on where he came from….allegedly of course….!!!! all in the public domain.
Coincidentally, the 3 Ian Taylors born 1956 in Scotland, let alone just Feb, came from Kincardineshire, Fraserburgh and Dundee west. All the rest had a middle name other than Roper.
Perhaps Euan would like to comment about this fact?
Keef: your exchange is already included in the full screenshot.
I see Mr McColm has a piece in today’s SoS frantically trying to damp down the Taylor furore with a two-pronged “it’s no big deal”/”they’re all at it” line. Good little impartial reporter.
Good morning good people. I thought I’d point out that on the BT Facebook page, in the first “discussion”, someone links to a WOS article. Immediately there are claims that Wings is “infected” and should report rotted to Facebook as spam. I thought you’d like to know how low these morons are prepared to stoop.
Hail Alba!
Racist cybernat?
Well you are ‘cyber’ but you aren’t a racist or a ‘Nat’ so I suppose one of out three ain’t bad for Mr McColm.
Apologies for the typos in my last post folks. I hold Apple responsible.
Hail Alba!
You must understand the frustration of the likes of McColm and Lord Ffoilkes. They have a hate distorted picture of YES campaigners in their head and the bounders
refuse to be shoehorned into THEIR distorted view by remaining decidedly non racist,emphatically civic nationalists and firmly social democratic. Fffoulkes in particular is being driven demented by this unfair fairness and is convinced we are doing it on purpose.
Herald reports that Brian Wilson was a paid adviser for one of Vitol’s subsidiaries.
Also how Labour MP Jim McGovern ran up a £27,000 bill to taxpayer
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/political-news/taxpayers-landed-with-27000-legal-bill-for-mps-2390-expenses-claim.20788554
@ Another London Dividend. That would perhaps go some way to explaining Brian Wilson’s aversion to wind farms. Or am I perhaps reading too much into it?
Hail Alba!
Rev,
From a first glance, I thought he was talking about yourself and this website …or have I got the wrong end of the stick.
(personally …I’m chuffed to bits for you if he is! Means your getting to them!!!)
When Mr McColm gets older and gets a proper job, maybe these Tweets will come back to haunt him and he’ll get sacked.
You’d think that he would have learned from the Youth Police Commissioner.
I’m astonished that a ‘proper’ journalist would make such an error of judgement.
Pleased as hell, but astonished all the same. 🙂
Brian Wilson is being laid bare for the opportunistic, illogically deluded, cynically beset, former nationalist ‘wee’ person that he is. Born again socialista torag perhaps?
As someone once said what goes round comes round
I see that the online Herald has several articles on Independence; all of them fair and none of them pejorative!
I’m gobsmacked and delighted simultaneously 🙂
Brian Wilson from his Wikipedia page.
He has been closely identified with regeneration of the Harris Tweed industry in the Isle of Lewis,where he lives, and is chairman of Harris Tweed Hebrides
Let me see now, who also has a largish investment in the Harris Tweed industry. Could it be Ian Taylor perhaps?
Another connection then, apart from Wison’s period as a consultant for a Vitol company earlier this decade.
So who also was present when Darling met Ian Taylor to discus the “investment” in the NO campaign?
Tick tock,
I’m just annoyed that i can’t sue, even though i’ve donated.
Was Brian Wilson not involved in some way with nuclear? I may be wrong but he doea appear to have more than 10 grubby wee fingers
This type of behaviour tends to show itself when one beings to realise that they are losing the argument and they having nothing to lose by going absolutely mental.
I am sure we will see many more insane rants from foul mouthed unionists in the run up to the referendum.
Mato
Google Brian Wilson and Cuba and you will see that he is raking it in over there as well.
To answer my own question
Former energy minister Brian Wilson is now a non-executive director of Amec Nuclear, a client of BNFL, the government-owned nuclear reactor operator.
Since 2004, BNFL has used lobbyists Weber Shandwick to help it push the case for new nuclear plants
Thanks Seasick he is a busy bee is he not
I think he may have been in the CND,although I cannot find a reference. Perhaps some of eldern CNDers can comment on that. He was actually a member of the SNP for a short period.
Interesting he went to Dunoon Grammar School which could place him there at the same time as George Robertson, although there is a reported 4 years of a difference in their ages.
Sequi pecuniam, as the say in Sunny Govan
Lurker in the Wings says:
When the day is one we’ll need a new anthem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nLGKFTH5sw
Brilliant choice! Love this Song .. one of my favourites to sing and Dick Gaughan one of my all time favourite singers!
I don’t think I have ever read any of MCColm’s work. Who does he write for, Hustler?
It is all very street perhaps he was having a commiseration drink with Paris Brown and decided to demonstrate solidarity with her.
The morning after the night before…
Most of us have done it, eh? Sent a message we later regretted. So, why doesn’t Mr McColm just come on here and give us a wee apology?
Well, two wee apologies really – one for Stu, for the ‘racist’ slur, and one for the rest of us ‘fucking idiots’ who lobbed anything in the pot.
I am a f**kingidiot who used to buy The Scotsman, glad to know I’m still a f**kingidiot for bunging a few hundred quid to wos and nns…
NNS have put up a good piece on BTs ‘daily sabotage’ claims. If they can’t prove these claims this could turn into a disaster of a week for BT. It may even be seen as a real watershed moment in the campaign.
The Sunday Herald in contrast to the weekday Herald or Hootsman/SoS seems to having a more even handed debate on the forthcoming Referendum. Scotland decides:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics
I’ve just had this baffling exchange with him: https://twitter.com/robotincognito/status/323367128512212992
Still following the money. There is an article in the Scotsman today re Dart underground methane extraction at Airth. Dart are reported to be pulling out of other places in Asia and concentrating on UK thanks to George Osborne’s budget.
I am pretty certain that Dart has links with Vitol and the Tory donations from its CEO Ian Taylor.
Some links Rev..
http://frack-off.org.uk/dart-shareholder-hired-hitman-broke-sactions-paid-tories-550000/
and
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/21/conservatives-links-fossil-fuel-lobbyists
Please note however that there is a retraction in the Guardian article.
“This story was amended on 2 November 2012 to remove incorrect references to the Vitol Group being a shareholder in Dart Energy and to include Vitol’s denial that the Foreign Office brokered a deal to supply oil to Libyan rebels”
Murky goings on indeed.
However on 7th April we have
http://www.scoop.it/t/yes-for-an-independent-scotland/p/3999479619/vitol-dart-shareholder-hired-hitman-broke-sanctions-paid-tories-550-000
Perhaps the Frack-off people have not had a lawyer’s letter yet.
More digging required.
Or perhaps the Guardian is correct but there are “weasel words” being invoked.
You can see one of the drilling rigs just north of the M9 where the M876 from glasgow joins, before the kincardine turn off.
“Dear Mr Stewart,
I am sure that Scotland on Sunday, like most reputable organisations, issues guidelines to its staff over their use of social media…”
Love it. Did you actually send that, or is it just suggested wording?
😀
@Rob
Brilliant. Just read the exchange with Euan McC. Keep up the good work, Tweeters.
The journo has been foxed – because he knows full well there isn’t a single example of racism he can point to, after throwing out the accusation in a fit of boiling rage. Now, having been caught out, he tries to pretend that he is “bored” and “tired” of the dialogue.
I am sure we will all move on in due course, and let’s face it, there’s a ton of work to do. But for now, let’s just savour the moment. 😀
Weird accusation to make. Surely makes more sense for him to argue against a point you’ve made rather than throw insults around if he disagrees? Did make clicking your donate button all the easier though.
Marcia
I loved the old compatment trains as well. The fast train from Woolwich to London Bridge took half an hour and had no corridor. I walked in a boy and walked out a man. Don’t know if I should have paid any more for my ticket after I had arrived.
Man in the Jar
Think the Greys have now done their last battel run in Challenger 2.
Euan McColm must have wakened up as Scotland on Sunday have removed all comments to his article, which included some choice references to his twitter activities.
Manic Monday @ 3:37pm
” Euan McColm must have wakened up as Scotland on Sunday have removed all comments to his article, which included some choice references to his twitter activities. ”
Anyone got a cached copy?
Euan Mccolm is probably trying to encourage abusive responses from readers of this site. Don’t fall for it ignore him now and in the future!
We’ve got to stop giving the dark side ammunition to use against us. So in the future
don’t give him and his like the air of publicity. We’ve got the arguments they’ve got nothing more than dirty tactics and traps.
We need to start self policing.
I think mr Mcolm needs reminding of his disgraceful slur whenever he has comments allowed on his articles. ‘They’ need to know we will not let them make claims without demanding evidence whenever we are given the opportunity.
He may end up having no comments allowed, but since the Scotsman is in desperate need of online advertising, they may not be too pleased with this mans comments.
It all adds up !
Dear Scotsman,
I was very disappointed to read a series of ‘tweets’ made by your Journalist Euan McColm.
In this tweet Mr McColm refers to a man running a blog as a ‘racist’ and yet after being asked repeatedly to provide any references to, or evidence of racism from this blogg or the person running it, Mr MColm was unable to do so.
Mr McColm also referred to anyone who had contributed financially to a recent fundraising event by this blogg, as ‘F**ing Idiots’.
Journalists must have some level of integrity as without it, their is the danger that the newspaper who the journalists work for will reflect this lack of integrity and honesty. People will quickly see through this and no longer trust the newspaper in question.
this would be financial suicide for any newspaper, as I’m sure you will be aware.
Do you at the Scotsman expect a level of integrity of your journalists above that of someone who would accuse a member of the public of racism (a serious crime) without a shred of evidence to back this up?
Does the Scotsman think that it is acceptable to call members of the public who support a view point different from that of a Journalist at the Scotsman ‘F**cking Idiots’ ?
Does the Scotsman newspaper have enough integrity itself to ask mr McColm to contact Wings over Scotland and apologise for his slurs?
I eagerly await the Scotsmans response,
Yours,
Patrick Roden
I will let you all know what response i get, if any !
Seriously, what’s the point in baiting McColm? The man spins webs of BS for a living. If he had a conscience, he’d be in a different line of business so there’s nothing to be gained by calling him on his lies. If the Scotsman cared about truth and integrity, they’d have packed it in years ago. Unionists will lie from now until D-day, because they have nothing else. We won’t be able to counter all their lies, so let’s concentrate on the ones the undecided voters might actually give a toss about. Let’s concentrate on telling the truth about the things that actually matter to people, while laughing at the sad man on the internet flinging faeces like an angry chimp.
Pretty certain that McColm is a freelance with a regular Scotsman gig, and not necessarily a Scotsman employee. So from a Scotsman pespective, McColm can curse and smear 24×7 without any sanction from them.
Paul Martin,
Sure.
But we are entitled to criticise his bullshit, surely?
The Scotsman is a dead parrot anyway…..
@ jiggsbro 12.25am,
My complaint isn’t about McColms Scotsman articles, it’s about his tweets.
I agree that if these people had integrity they would not be working for the Scotsman, but if you do decide to write to these people, then it is better to write with one eye on the impact of the contents, if the letter goes ‘up a level or two’
If the Scotsman does not take my concerns seriously, I will write to the Johnson Press organisation, and ask them about the character of people who write for their newspapers etc.
believe me, these letters do have an impact at the higher levels in large organisations.
All the hallmarks of a bitterly desperate man, akin to seeing a millionaire who lost his fortune now standing on top of the Glasgow Suspension bridge in his underpants shouting at passing buses through a traffic cone.
How utterly abhorrent and pathetic. look through history and you will see the same bullshot from critics of the Solidarity Newspaper in Poland pre democracy