Dispatches from foreign lands
As our Twitter followers will know, we’ve experimentally decided to reserve Saturdays for light-hearted comic banter, as a bit of relief from the serious business of politics.
Of course, this week politics has been so absurd – from “Better Together” deciding it was Better Apart to Gordon Brown promising Scots that if they vote No he’d increase their taxes and send the money to England, and the still-ongoing Faragemageddon – that it hardly seems necessary, but we’ll stick with the plan.
With that in mind, then, it’s time for… British Loony Of The Week!
There have been some truly ridiculous stories in the media trying to somehow smear the SNP, Alex Salmond and the Yes movement in general over Nigel Farage’s farcical trip to Edinburgh this week, but two pieces from the right-wing UK press this morning had us rubbing our eyes and then standing up to salute a serious raising of the insanity stakes.
They’re so extraordinary we simply have to reprint both of them in full (one isn’t available online), so that you can vote in our poll to decide who’s the most completely and utterly batshit mental. Think of it as a warm-up for the Eurovision Song Contest.
Firstly we’ve got this magnificent Scottish Daily Mail editorial, author unknown:
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Signs that the Yes campaign is fading
THE mobbing and intimidation of UKIP leader Nigel Farage by Left-wing nationalist extremists in Edinburgh has done nothing for Scotland’s reputation as a forum for democratic discourse and civilized debate.
Whether separatists like it or not, UKIP is rapidly becoming a mainstream – and completely democratic – political party which has as much right to bring its message to Scottish voters as they have to hear it.
The notion that 50 loud-mouthed youths have the right to determine who may or may not communicate with the Scottish public is as dictatorial as it is absurd. The demonstration was allegedly ‘ anti-racist’ and, to illustrate that fact, the thugs involved bawled anti-English abuse.
On the face of it, this bullying intervention by members of an extremist minority group was no different from scenes frequently enacted on the streets of English cities when far-Right or leftist organisations attempt to compensate by violence and intimidation for their lack of electoral support. The bullies in this instance were drawn from Radical Independence, the significance of which is that it is an official participant in the Yes campaign.
So official and acknowledged is its participation that, at the launch of the Yes campaign in Glasgow on January 16, Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon shared a platform with Cat Boyd, of Radical Independence, who went on Twitter to spread the word about the anti-Farage demonstration. Those are the kind of allies the SNP has cultivated at Yes campaign launches from which the Scottish business community was conspicuously absent.
Apparently the SNP’s drive to break up the United Kingdom is now trailing so badly it cannot afford even to alienate such unsavoury supporters as Radical Independence. That would explain why Alex Salmond, when invited to condemn the violent silencing of another party leader on Scottish soil, used such weasel words:
‘If there’s been any law-breaking – and that’s yet to be established – then obviously we condemn that, as we always do in Scotland, but you’ve got to get things into context.’
What context would that be, First Minister? The context of free speech in a parliamentary democracy, or the context of silencing political opponents by force as an apparently acceptable tactic? Which would be the norm in the context of an independent Scotland? How would Alex Salmond and his colleagues react if a First Minister’s press conference was broken up violently by political opponents? One can imagine the outraged condemnations.
From the start of the referendum campaign, the SNP has kept strange company. The Yes campaign launches featured such icons of dinosaur socialism as former Ravenscraig trade union militant Tommy Brennan, Dennis Canavan, the Scottish Socialist Party, Solidarity and, of course, Radical Independence. With no counterbalancing presence from the business community, any claim by the SNP to be a party representative of Scottish society lacked credibility.
Historically, devolution was seen by the Scottish Left as an opportunity to ringfence Scotland against Thatcherite reforms and market realities. Today, independence is regarded as a chance to subvert Britain’s unity, expel its nuclear deterrent, reinforce the public sector and dependency culture and turn a small nation into a socialist theme park in which all the economic and social experiments that have consistently failed in the past century can be imposed again.
If Alex Salmond does not want voters to view his crusade in that light, he should be more fastidious about his political bedfellows. As for UKIP, it can reasonably regard last Thursday’s events as a backhanded compliment. Only a rising political party attracts such attacks: would those thugs have bothered with the Tories? Their emergence from the woodwork, however, suggests the Yes campaign is imploding fast.
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The entire Yes campaign is imploding because a few students shouted at someone from a fringe party that’s opposed by 99.1% (or more) of the Scottish electorate? That’s going to be pretty hard to beat, right?
Well, don’t rush to judgement, because we’ve also got this spectacularly heroic effort from Tom Gallagher in the Telegraph for you to cast your disbelieving eyes over:
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Nigel Farage and Scotland’s Left-wing media mafia
Nigel Farage has been discovering the hard way that politics in Scotland is often a rough business. He put the phone down on the BBC Good Morning Scotland programme on Friday morning, believing the reporter’s line of questioning displayed the xenophobia that had led to him being barricaded in an Edinburgh pub just around the corner from the Scottish parliament, the evening before.
It might be some consolation for the British nationalist to know that he is in step with a lot of Scots. Radio 4’s Today has at least as many listeners in Scotland as Good Morning Scotland. Shrill presenters and amateur programme-making has led to a mass desertion of listeners despite the quickening pace of politics as Scotland decides whether to opt for a post-British future.
Scottish broadcasting recoils from free-wheeling debate. Not a few of its top managers and interviewers have been recruited from the world of Left student activism which provided part of the flash mob that bore down on Farage in central Edinburgh. Nostrums about more Europe, the necessity for a big state, and the joys of untrammelled multiculturalism shape the contours of discussion. A Scottish David Starkey or a Jeremy Clarkson would soon be wanted men if they broke through the tartan media curtain.
The Scottish broadsheets produced from Glasgow and Edinburgh, the Herald and the Scotsman, are in an even sorrier state than the local BBC. Their circulation has nosedived in the last 20 years. Tiny numbers of Scots have access to them on a daily basis. Both rely on a core Left readership, especially the Herald, once the voice of the West of Scotland bourgeoisie. Iain MacWhirter is the Herald’s chief political columnist. This former BBC correspondent was until recently Rector of Edinburgh University. He has devoted much ink to painting Ukip and its Eurosceptic cause in lurid colours ever since it broke into front-rank British politics on 2 May.
The Scottish Daily Mail exceeds the combined circulation of these two newspapers, which may have to merge if they are to survive much longer. This ascendancy is not a cause for unbroken joy. The newspaper’s conservatism does not extend much beyond strictures about state profligacy, mollycoddling of violent criminals, and crushing red tape.
On issues like same-sex marriage, abortion, or radical feminism its stance is often low-key. It has no real wish to challenge the Left on the cultural terrain where it is dominant. The day before Farage turned up, its main opinion piece was extolling Gordon Brown as someone who had not lost his mojo, al least when confronting the SNP.
The BBC in Scotland used to be like the Mail – Protestant, insular and cautious. But since the 1980s it has cast off its petit-bourgeois trappings to become resolutely Left-orientated. The mainstream Left and its radical Marxist cousin shared the spoils. The glory years for Left journalism came after 1999 and the arrival of devolved government. There is a vast budget for special advisers and spin doctors and they made hay.
The SNP turned these media arms into shock troops after forming the government in 2007 and winning an outright majority four years later. Instead of creating a brains trust meant to devise policies for a new self-reliant nation, the army of spin doctors and advisers have been mobilised for special operations and dirty tricks. No other party in the English-speaking world devotes as much attention to online propaganda as the SNP.
It is quite likely that a portion of the ‘cybernat’ storm and fury that regularly greets articles from the doughty Alan Cochrane comes from the offices of MSPs at the Holyrood Parliament. Last October, 230 people engaged in media and public relations work on behalf of the Scottish state were grouped into a new Communications Directorate. it is widely seen as the propaganda division for the two-year offensive meant to bounce Scots into voting to quit the United Kingdom.
Labour and the SNP are essentially campaigning outfits with no ideas for transforming the country. Depicting themselves as liberation movements, neither really desire genuinely independent-minded people to make their voices heard. Labour is content to operate within a tightly regulated British sphere while the SNP is infatuated by managing a Scottish theme park for the commisars building a new European order on the continent.
The poor old BBC is stuck in the middle as the warfare between these two inauthentic change parties gathers pace. The dilemma of its staff is that of a great many Scots. They rely on core UK funding for their jobs but too many are stirred by tunes of nationalist glory.
News stories where a common Left narrative can be devised are understandably swooped upon. One of these was the Israeli interception of the flotilla to Gaza carrying Turkish Islamists and European Leftists in May 2011. Minuscule protests by scattered groups of Trotskyites were transformed by BBC Scotland News into dozen of demonstrations that had spontaneously erupted across Scotland.
Nigel Farage’s arrival in Scotland was manna from heaven of a similar sort. BBC Scotland’s Glenn Campbell described the action which led to his political meeting being cancelled in light-hearted terms. The student angle was emphasised even though it was clear others were involved and a 20 foot-banner was unfurled proclaiming ‘Vote Yes For Scotland’.
The next day Alex Salmond who, in the absence of any big idea, has been passing laws restricting personal behaviour in numerous ways, was nonchalant. Nigel Farage coudn’t take a bit of argy-bargy and besides since his policies are ‘obnoxious’ what’s the surprise.
He went on to say: ‘We are dealing with someone who actually says on radio that the BBC are part of a hate campaign against him. Now it would be a great mistake to take somebody with that mentality with any degree of seriousness.’
This is the same laid-back Alex who in February 2012 rounded on Ric Bailey, the BBC’s chief political adviser, for refusing to allow him to be a BBC commentator at a Scotland-England rugby match:
‘The political Gauleiter we shall call him now. He’s lost the plot. That’s what you get in a tin-pot dictatorship.’
Watching how the SNP and its leader operate, many Scots are increasingly nervous about the future. Nigel Farage and Ukip could be the beneficiaries, provided they realise that different tactics and rhetoric are needed to keep this disorientated northern realm within the British family.
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The Scotsman relies on “a core Left readership“? The SCOTSMAN? Blimey, that’s nice work, Tom. If you’ve managed to get paid for sneaking satire like that into the Telegraph, we well and truly doff our caps to you. But does it manage to surpass the Mail’s awesomely demented effort? Only you can judge, readers.
Who's the maddest?
- The Telegraph (66%, 330 Votes)
- Scottish Daily Mail (34%, 172 Votes)
Total Voters: 501
Loading ...Polls close at midnight on Sunday.
All of the above- hard choice indeed but I’ll go for th sdm
Both pish
I never heard any anti_English sentiments apart from those Farage quoted and isn’t it amazing how much ASSUMING has been going on. Telling someone where to stick any flag is not racist or anti anything unless you are one who thinks English = British
That’s a trick question as they’re as mad as each other!
Difficult choice – my vote went to SDM. The amount of free publicity provided by the MSM to Farage over this incident is amazing. Those screaming about freedom of speech etc would do well to consider what is more undemocratic and detrimental to the constitutional debate: a small, loud but non-violent student protest against a politician outside a pub in Edinburgh, or a quiet, coordinated media campaign against one side of the independence argument, with the MSM choosing to grossly exagerate minor problems for the yes side, whilst ignoring and downplaying any good news that supports Scottish independence. Which is the real challenge to our rights and freedoms?
Both items put me in mind of the Fast Show character Gideon Soames, the television historian who spouts absolute rubbish with an air of great authority and certainty.
Now Rev, I hope you are not putting the Monster Raving Loony Party in the same category as UKIP?
The former has a sensible manifesto by comparison.
http://www.loonyparty.com/about/policy-proposals/
I understand from the yellow colours, they are liberals too.
I voted for the Telegraph, but the thought occurred to me, who actually writes anonymous Leaders? Are They the same people who rail at cybernats but are too ashamed to reveal their own identity? Does anyone know a prominent Leader writer?
Is it not about time our more erudite posters start making up stories in the opposite direction? will not be published in the anti-independence MSM but it will be circulated on the ever growing internet readership. If you cannot beat them then join them at their own game. A bit of fun as well.
My guess at the author of the demented Daily Mail editorial would be John MacLeod, someone who these days really should be kept away from sharp objects.
The editorial, incidentally, has more than a hint of the flavour of that same paper’s editorial praising Mosley’s Blackshirts in the 1930s.
I can’t decide.
I’m actually gobsmacked at the extent to which some of these people are so completely out of touch with Scotland. They genuinely don’t have a clue.
I’ve actually had a couple of conversations with “Prof” Tom Gallagher conducted via comments on various sites over the past few years.
Unfortunately they appear to have disappeared into the ether as the sites have either disappeared or changed their comments systems but he holds some extraordinary views ranging from the SNP being a front for radical moslems to Alex Salmond controlling the Scottish press from his lair. A story he’s repeated in this article.
I have to say this Telegraph article is nothing new and pretty par for the course for Tom if you’ve read any of his other stuff.
The really extraordinary thing about him is that many in the mainstream media actually think that he’s talking sense.
I wish we could clarify once and for all whether the anti-Farage demonstrators were “right-wing anti-English fascists” or “far-left extremists”. Most articles I’ve read seem to be using the terms interchangeably, which strikes me as a bit odd.
When will the Bow break and the people of Scotland say enough is enough. Both Articles are short of any Sanity.
I voted for the Telegraph, only because they are presumed to be a more “reputable” paper, and you would think they would know better.
But when you align yourself with a party which has NO elected reps. in Scotland over the SNP, you have lost the plot.
I’ll have what they’re smoking…
It was hard to make a choice – they are both so mad. Had to go with the Telegraph in the end – it was just so off the wall. Can anybody tell me why my comments are never posted on either the Mail’s or the Telegraph’s on-line reports?
Love it / UKIP are mainstream……?WHAT?………….
Are both these writers in these rags Scots? if so it would be nice if they had the courage to be interviewed along with a fellow independent thinking Scot to exchange their views and their prejudices for all the viewing public to see and hear.
Is there an option for both??
If not there should be!
Tom Gallagher’s early academic work on sectarian politics in inter-war Edinburgh was interesting, but over the decades his loathing of the SNP has led him to make increasingly bizarre pronouncements. A few years ago he suggested that the party was pursuing a sinister alliance between Presbyterianism and Islam, to what end I am not sure.
To Farage(v) to bring upon oneself a predicament.
A derivative of the Scots word fankle possibly. “You’ve got yourself in a right fankle”.
“if you persist in voicing your views when all others are objecting, you may have misunderstood your situation”. Close to whatever RK wrote?
Thanks for these! They’ve eased the pain of this morning’s hangover.
After the Farage incident, two people were arrested, one was ENGLISH!
Comments were made not least when suggesting racial abuse towards the English included remarks about the Union Jack.
Hmm I did not know that the Union Jack was English! However, I suppose it is hard to make a case for racial abuse of just the English when Scotland and Wales also own the Union Jack, but Gordon Brewer got smugly away with it. Maybe by spinning this as racists could make a case for him exciting racism!
There is also some evidence apparently that this was a Labour inspired stunt, if so, it was a good day for them ie Farage gets his, and almost all blamed on the SNP. A winner for labour, two birds with one stone!
This is definitely a trick question. The Telegraph article is littered with items that can be checked easily and rewritten, only if the writer found out they were in fact a product of being such a lazy arsed writer.
The Mail one however is a fabulous reason why Shredden Wheat adverts don’t tell you to put magic mushrooms on instead of strawberries.
I’m voting Mail and can I have a P please Bob.
Really sorry Rev, I couldnt read more than a paragraph of either article, as such I’ll abstain on which is the worst.
Were there an honest Scottish press Tom Gallacher would be exposed as resolutely bonkers. He has been spouting utter nonsense for years but still regularly gets a media platform to spout it from.
As a matter of interest the Scottish Sun absolutely thrashes Farage in today’s editorial
In the end I voted for Tom Gallagher in the Telegraph. The Scottish Daily Mail editorial is cynically calculated. I think Gallagher actually believes what he has written.
I’m with David Purves. Peace Studies!
The Mail’s contribution was more of the same lies, distortion and thinly-veiled anti-Scottishness we have come to expect from that quarter.
Tom Gallagher’s piece in the Telegraph, however, was simply jaw-dropping lunacy. It was the wide-eyed ravings of the delusional, a poor man trapped in a dystopian alternative world in his head, unable to see reality beyond the confines of his padded cell.
Black is white. Up is down. The Scotsman is left wing.
It got my vote.
Rev Stu
I don’t know why you bother with the two newspapers above. Neither have enough readers in Scotland to have any effect on the Independence debate and all Scots (and English apart from the right wing loonies) are well aware that the Daily Mail is a laughing stock as a newspaper.
I’ve read most of that first piece somewhere online in the past 24 hours, and it’s attributed. Unfortunately I closed the tab after reading so I’ve no idea who the author is. I’ll have a quick mooch through my browser history to see if I can find it.
Derick Tulloch says:
18 May, 2013 at 1:13 pm
I’m with David Purves.
I think you may have confused me with my father, Derick!
Textbook journalism.
The poor old BBC is stuck in the middle as the warfare between these two inauthentic change parties gathers pace. The dilemma of its staff is that of a great many Scots. They rely on core UK funding for their jobs but too many are stirred by tunes of nationalist glory.
Core UK funding? Nationalist glory? This twisting of the facts and once again calling a democratically elected first minister a dictator is stooping pretty low. Desperate indeed. These people of the rightwing press in Englandshire really do think they can manipulate people’s actual thoughts.
It’s already been pointed out that had the protest against Farage taken place in any English city, the so called ‘thugs’ would have been locked up and the key thrown away for quite some time. To be free to protest is essential, unless you live in a totalitarian state…more and more evidence for this from south of the border for sure.
The next day Alex Salmond who, in the absence of any big idea, has been passing laws restricting personal behaviour in numerous ways, was nonchalant.
Restricting personal behaviour? That just doesn’t make any sense at all, what are they suggesting? That word nonchalant, it’s soooo last century!
Utter tosh both articles.
Tough call, but the only certainty after reading articles from those papers is that of needing a shower …
They are equally barking mad, long winded & mind numbingly boring.
“Only a rising political party attracts such attacks: would those thugs have bothered with the Tories?”
Yes. We did. We shouted “ratbag” at Iain Duncan Smith, and made our presence felt where David Cameron was speaking at Thales Optronics. We never got near the PM of course, as the police had to stop traffic so that his motorcade could speed away down the wrong side of the road.
The only difference between the anti-UKIP demo and similar anti-Tory demos, is that UKIP didn’t bother with security or a police presence. From what I have read, they didn’t even bother to get in touch in advance with the pub where they were holding their press conference! Their own incompetence is the reason they didn’t get to complete their press conference, not the non-violent direct action of protesters. Maybe they’ll have more luck once they actually manage to locate Aberdeen….
“It is quite likely that a portion of the ‘cybernat’ storm and fury that regularly greets articles from the doughty Alan Cochrane comes from the offices of MSPs at the Holyrood Parliament. Last October, 230 people engaged in media and public relations work on behalf of the Scottish state were grouped into a new Communications Directorate. it is widely seen as the propaganda division for the two-year offensive meant to bounce Scots into voting to quit the United Kingdom.”
thought I was going to pass out laughing
read doughty thought dipshit
“Those are the kind of allies the SNP has cultivated at Yes campaign launches from which the Scottish business community was conspicuously absent.”
On the week Business in Scotland announced 350 members to start, followed fast by another 100. Somewhat beats the 50 students, doesn’t it. Hmm, I think I can see the political agenda shining through now: the BritNats are terrified of business moving to Yes and want to scare them off by demonising the radical left agenda.
“scattered groups of Trotskyites” wins it for the Torygraph I think.
Gallagher used to make regular appearances on SNP Govan Westminster candidate Osama Saeed’s blog spouting his deranged New Labour neoconservative anti-Islam tosh. So I’ll go with Gallagher as loony of the week.
ps
I would have thought George Galloway’s tweets this week would have earned him a contender spot in any British Loony of the Week competition.
pps
Remember and vote Romania in the Eurovision Song Contest tonight just to piss off Farage.
Is that Charlie Drake wearing the big yellow rosette?
Read on facebook that a ‘Farage’ is in Malayan (phonetically) a ‘C**t’. Usual facebook veracity warning comes with that.
Incredibly though, it seems that most of the people I know down here, English and Uncle Tom Scots alike take this BS at face value! it’s really is astonishing how easily deceived people down here are.
In truth it’s only because of sites like this that I have any idea myself what’s really going on.
I’m starting to understand what living in East Germany must have been like with it’s constant diet of propaganda media and twisting of facts together with the notion that public displays of dissent are somehow now unacceptable and borderline criminal behaviour.
The rUK is now collectively sectionable!
I think that this Farage episode will focus the UK media on the forthcoming by-election in Aberdeen. It looks like quite a safe seat for the SNP but I hope we get the vote out and show UKIP and their supporting cast of swivel eyed loonies what we think of them again.
In the English edition of the Daily Mail the commentary is written by Gerald Warner. I’m not sure if it’s available in the Scottish printed edition. It contains similar themes to the piece reproduced on Wings. In Warner’s piece the Conservatives, in alliance with Labour and the Libs are planning to give quasi-independence, so called Devo Plus to Holyrood. That’s news to me. Apparently Conservatives in Scotland are appalled and after the Yes vote is defeated by the No vote there will be a swing to UKIP……or something like that. Who is this guy Warner?
Read on facebook that a ‘Farage’ is in Malayan (phonetically) a ‘C**t’.
It’s true. It’s spelt ‘faraj’. ‘Ni jil’ would be ‘this “Jaringan Islam Liberal”‘ or ‘this “Islam Liberal Network”‘. So to Malaysians he’s some liberal Muslim c*nt.
Perhaps the plans for a Presbyterian Caliphate have not progressed as quickly as Tom Gallagher anticipated because the Rangers Board have been busy with more pressing matters? Anyway, I trust that he remains vigilant.
@Jimbo
At 2;16pm
More to the point is that not Boris Johnston that he is cuddling or is it the real thing?
@Cath
On the week Business in Scotland announced 350 members to start, followed fast by another 100. Somewhat beats the 50 students, doesn’t it. Hmm, I think I can see the political agenda shining through now: the BritNats are terrified of business moving to Yes and want to scare them off by demonising the radical left agenda.
Yes, that is what I thought about straight away when the business comment came up. There is some amount of propaganda being churned, or spewed out by the UK MSM at the moment. Tom Gallacher’s comments about Iain McWhirter appeared to be the result of a massive amount of jealousy on Gallacher’s part. McWhirter is a far, far better political commentator than Gallacher will ever be. He obviously cannot deal with this.
Cath, I am afraid it is not just the radical Left than large elements of the MSM are demonising. They and elements within the No parties have been trying to portray the SNP as extremists for decades. As we approach the referendum this is now intensifying. At the same time, the much promised positive case for the Union is still not forthcoming. This means that Gallacher and co are having to become more and more hysterical about the SNP, and independence supporters in general.
i wouldn’t assume that the Monster Raving Loonies are cuddlesome by the way.
I’ve seen their website decrying subsidy junkie Scots before now
Daily Mail is cynical. The Torygraph is actively bonkers. Has no-one told poor Tom of the existence of Business For Scotland?
If it is the same Tom Gallacher I am thinking of, who opposes Scottish independence because it will lead to an anti-Irish theocracy run by the Church of Scotland, then it has to be the Telegraph, because Tom is genuinely unhinged.
I fell down a hole the other day following a white rabbit, I found this strange tale which might be a report from the DM or DT, concerning the Mad Hatters recent adventures in Wonderland
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
To me it makes more sense than any of the nonsense reported above.
Now look what we’ve done
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22396690
farages head exploded
I knew we took it too far
am gaun hame afore the polis come
I feel sorry for the bats. Their small bodies spend a lot of time and energy with the waste products and then it is compared to the Telegraph and the Scottish Daily Mail. Grossly unfair on the batshit.
I voted for the Telegraph article…it made me laugh less than the SDM one…
“Read on facebook that a ‘Farage’ is in Malayan (phonetically) a ‘C**t’.”
sound of penny dropping
CLINK
”
Jimbo says:
18 May, 2013 at 2:16 pm
Is that Charlie Drake wearing the big yellow rosette?”
I thought is was him that used to be on corrie?
That was quite pedestrian for Tom Gallagher.
“I understand from the yellow colours, they are liberals too.”
what? I thought they WERE the liberals?
“Can anybody tell me why my comments are never posted on either the Mail’s or the Telegraph’s on-line reports?”
possibly for the same fu**ing reason my fu**ing perfectly respectable posts are never fu**ing posted
Ok.. On the crazy scale you start with “nuts” then move on to “mental” and finally “bag shit”… clearly there isa whole new level which requires quantified and named. ..
Can we try to classify this new level of crazy?
Balgayboy, Jiggsbro and Chic,
Greetings Infidels, If it looks like a jackal, walks like a jackal, and sounds like a jackal, chances are it’s a two headed serpent called Naj Al Faraj! He’s a Jihadist sleeper from a powerful Libyan clan. He aims to create ethnic unrest and hatred anywhere he can in your green and pleasant land, with the ultimate goal of creating a Caliphate based in the North of England, and establishing Sharia law in Westminster.
He is the right hand man of his cousin Abu Faraj, currently ensconced at Hussain Obama’s pleasure in Gitmo!
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/87933-interrogation-file-of-abu-faraj-al-libi.html
FWIW, I think the Gallagher piece ‘wins’, if for no other reason than he’s barking enough to put his name to it.
Presumably both authors dictated these efforts – it’s not possible to type while wearing a straitjacket.
Re the guy on the left:
It’s that well known weirdo tory Michael Fabricant… him with the special hair
Melissa Murray says:
18 May, 2013 at 12:43 pm
I voted for the Telegraph, only because they are presumed to be a more “reputable” paper, and you would think they would know better.But when you align yourself with a party which has NO elected reps. in Scotland over the SNP, you have lost the plot.I’ll have what they’re smoking…
When you read the DT online, click news, click Scotland you’ll soon see how biased and out of touch they are.
Oh me, I have to say the daily Mail article is just plain shite, but the telegrath article is completly oot the ball park for insanity, so I have to give it to the telegrath.
Its hard to believe that people actually get paid to write shite like that, its even harder to believe that a newspaper would publish it.
Yet again another good reason to Vote YES.
Poor BBC Scotland; there is the upper management tongue lickiing the Labour leadership only to find there are ugly forces, much bigger than it, out there beyond the borders of Scotland, watching it and drooling.
I voted for the Telegraph because I would expect the DM to back right-wing fascists any day of the week. This has shown the lunacy that’s developed to try and take down Alex Salmond. It’s not only dark days of journalism but it is also dark days for the British State. All the imperialist-minded are now feeling threatened in a way they’re not used to, from within British borders itself. Everyone is now a target from the SNP/YES (a given), to the BBC and other newspapers. It can only lead to end of the British State itself.
I see the Telegraph is winning comfortably at the moment.
However, the question is, will there have been a sudden surge and an extra two thousand or so votes cast when I come back after watching Eurovision?
I’ve just read some of the comments on the Telegraph article.
Never again! Who are these people?
I can’t decide as they’re both utter pish!
@ Dcanmore
“It can only lead to end of the British State itself”. I wish it’d hurry the f***up as I can’t take this crap every day for the next 16 months.
16 months!
p.s. the Romanian effort is currently on the box and it’s…….truly awesome!
Vote Romania!
Hail Alba
In fact, bugger Scotland. I’m off to live in Romania. I hear there’s going to be plenty of cheap properties there soon.
Hail Alba
i and they wonder why the papers are going to the wall good ridens
Yesterday, I had the joy of debating the referendum with an employee of BBC Scotland. To be honest I knew I was in a bit of a predicament from the instance my boss landed me right in it, by stating that my “wee box in the van had something different to say”(obviously I have no wee box, and there is definitely no space in the van for any such sort).
I literally began to tremble at the thought of countering such a behemoth that I do actually hold much respect for, regardless of their political/geographical stance. Instantly, they declared that “such a small country does not have enough potential to stand alone, after such a length of dependency on a greater union (England)”. And at that point my digits were totally outwith my control. I grabbed a quick swig of my brew and made a stance.
“How so” I asked, knowing fine well that they had 100 + 1 reasons why we are basically shit.
I predict the usual MSM bias guff that I smell floating around; too wee, too poor, to stupid (which certainly did follow).
But naw. I am told that our politicians don’t hold the heavyweight titles that Westmunster display. They sound like your average punter on the street, and that when speaking with AS he is “a shit”. I realise AS may not be everyone’s ideal leader, but – Christ on a bike – he has done more to represent the Scottish people than 300 years of Westmunster would even consider feasible. Also, is that not what we would all like to see, politicians in touch with their people?
Sometimes, I think people forget the purpose of governments.
(I think I may have lost us a big contract (no a smiley))
Vote Yes
I spent half a day on one of the English newspaper Websites yesterday, to try and see what they made of the Farage incident.
First, they like to be called ‘Ukippers’, and there was quite a few of them. Some folk in England, like ourselves, don’t like UKIP. They were certainly arguing amongst themselves over English politics.
When I mentioned that I was a Scottish Nationalist, I found that some of them were curious, and they were actually astonished at what I told them. They believe that Scotland is sending out a resounding ‘No’ to the referendum, and that we are all waving the Union Flag up here. They were therefore baffled at what happened to Farage.
When I tried to explain that the polls sat at around 40% ‘Yes’, 40% ‘No’ and 20% Don’t Knows, they refused to believe it! Utterly!! They said that the Yes campaign was trailing badly from what they had been told! I’m telling you now, this has all the hallmarks of the Scottish Elections of 2011 when the SNP utterly annihilated everybody. England could be in for one helluva shock come the 19th of September 2014 – expect fireworks down south!
When I asked them about the attraction of UKIP, it seems to come down to 2 things
1. They do see it as an English National Party (and therefore the equivalent of the SNP).
2. They are seriously angry about immigration. As far as they are concerned, there are too many immigrants who have not taken up the English way of life, and that there are ghetto’s in England where it is like another country. They want all these immigrants out, and from what I could make out, it’s basically the Asians from the Indian sub-continent. Bizarrely, for an anti-EU party, hardly any of them talked about leaving the EU, or had a dig at the Europeans.
That second part of point 2 therefore, made me wonder. Yes, there are millions of English folk who want out of the EU, but it is not high on their priorities (which then makes you wonder why the Tories are running around like headless chickens over the EU and UKIP). If it’s not the EU, then it comes down to the main hot topic; immigration.
They all said that Farage is not a racist (I stayed out of that arena – I can neither prove or disprove it), but if immigration is the number one topic, then his party does bear sinister overtones of being one.
I sit and wonder then. Say, Scotland is independent by 2014 and we are well out of it. I wonder what the hell is going to happen in England, if …if …UKIP do gain power (even if it is with the Tories). Will they stick to their word and sort immigration, or will they bottle it?
Are we going to see mass rounding ups of immigrants – police raids on houses in the morning, on work places, arresting folk as they beg on the streets. I mean, this literally is Nazis tactics. I wonder where the line in the sand will be drawn; where does it stop if England does decide to ‘clean house’.
…and this is where my fear kicks in. I know this is hypothetical, and I’m purely speculating, but stranger things have happened – if it does go crazy down there with deportations, I hope we don’t get an influx of ‘refugees’ (I’m not meaning thousands lined up as they cross the border, but instead, we see a slow trickle of a few hundred enter Scotland each month. That becomes my fear. We are a very small population (there is only 4.5 million Scots out of population of 5.4 million), and it would not take much for the percentages to change. It certainly puts a fear into me. Just as we are meant to get this Nation kick started again, we end up with a problem we were never expecting.
I hope I’m wrong, but with a Tory-UKIP coalition looking pretty much on the cards, it makes me wonder.
@JLT, I concur my friend,
Imigration was a subject that could not be spoken about in England, without the person breaching the subject, exposed as ‘racist’, this caused a growing simiring resentment in England, with myths put around by far right groups, that could not be properly challenged because the subject was off limits.
This resulted in many English voters turning to the far right BNP.
Once the BNP began to grow in popularity, the major parties began to broach the subject.
Being typical Westminster politicians however, they simply lied to the population, telling them that the numbers of imigrants were falling.
Unfortunately it wasn’t long before the media exposed these politicians lies which has caused even more anger.
So we came to Gordon Browns ‘British jobs for British workers’ attempt to claw back Labours credibility with the voters.
It did not work.
Now for the first time, England has a party in Ukip, that not only reflects this anger and resentment about immigration, but more importantly, does so in a way that the English and the English media, can support without feeling they are joining a far right party.
Just watch Ukip’s popularity grow and grow, as the English become convinced that Ukip are a mainstream party, who are standing up for the ‘ordinary Englishmans’ rights, that the English feel have been trampled on for too long.
I genuinely believe that Ukip’s rise will have a huge impact on the referendum result, and I mean in favour of Yes.
UKIP …………..U Know It’s Pish