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Panic stations

Posted on January 18, 2014 by

When we started the week with news of the UK government’s statement on debt, we wondered aloud whether it would be a game-changing moment. Judging by the No camp’s reaction since then, shrieking and flailing and lashing out blindly in all directions simultaneously, our question’s been answered.

paniczombies1

It’s been hard to keep track of it all, but we’ll have a go.

The most spectacular outbreak has been in the Telegraph, where complete insanity has taken hold. Today’s paper carries a full-blown tinfoil-hat frothing-at-the-mouth rant from columnist Damian Thompson. At first it looks like it’s going to be another tired run-through of the SNP’s supposedly Nazi history from the 1930s, but in fact turns quickly into something much more demented and sinister, openly claiming the current party – and Alex Salmond in particular – to be fascists.

“If Scotland votes for independence, will its government confiscate the estates of English landowners? The SNP is talking about a tenants’ ‘right to buy’ – three such innocuous little words! – even if the landowners don’t want to sell. As my colleague Charles Moore pointed out in The Spectator, ‘one great independence leader who played this issue politically was Robert Mugabe’.”

(We’ll pause just for a brief moment here to observe that the ‘right to buy’ for tenants has apparently now become a signifier of terrible ideological evil to Tory commentators, despite the fact that they regularly present it as Margaret Thatcher’s great act of empowerment to the working class when it concerned council houses.)

“Cue shrieks from cybernats, the digital wing of the SNP, masters of coordinated outrage. They always go bananas if anyone compares Alex Salmond to a dictator. Which happens a lot these days. There’s an authoritarian streak in the Scottish government that is making people nervous.

It’s funny – words like “apparatchik” keep attaching themselves to the First Minister’s retinue. Meaning that he’s an old commie? No: it’s a reference to leadership style. Another rude word you hear, sotto voce: “fascist”. Again, no one thinks Salmond has far-Right sympathies. It’s a reference to the SNP’s cult of the leader.

No politician in the country craves power so desperately as Alex Salmond. He would never behave unconstitutionally, says the Yes campaign. But what if he has his own constitution to play with?

The SNP has persuaded commentators that it has achieved a natural fusion of nationalism and liberal social democracy. But nothing in 20th-century history suggests that these two ideologies complement each other.

As the referendum nears, Alex Salmond’s jovial grandiosity has acquired a menacing edge; so has the behaviour of his lieutenants. If, say, you work in Scottish media or creative circles and you haven’t made up your mind how to vote, then you can expect to have your arm twisted sharply by one of the First Minister’s artistic commissars.”

Quite the picture, isn’t it? One might suggest, if one still had at least a token grip on one’s senses, that fascism is quite a tricky thing to pull off in a country with a proportional electoral system which makes majority government a once-in-a-generation rarity, but Thompson appears to be hinting that after a Yes vote the “desperately power-craving” Salmond will pass some sort of Hitler-esque Enabling Act outlawing opposition and that’ll be the end of that.

And he’s hardly alone. The Telegraph has carried numerous articles in a similar vein in recent months, many of them spewing from the green-inked pen of the equally deranged Professor Tom Gallagher. One of them this week suggested:

“Scotland seems poised to veer further away from the north European norm of personal liberty, guaranteed by representative government, to a cool and drizzly Third World where these rights are at the discretion of the ruler and his henchmen.

(It is, in fact, the UK that wants to withdraw from the Human Rights Convention.)

The SNP leader is the kind of nationalist who is obsessed with territory and woe betide anyone who dares get in his way as he bids to remake the social geography of the north of Scotland.

Surely only months remain before Alex Salmond will have his own mighty jet, sleeker and more comfortable than any puny royal aircraft. In the future, he will be able to take his wife, his pals, and sycophantic officials to gatherings across the world where his presence is felt to be indispensable.

Many who have been softened up to vote in the “Braveheart spirit” in the referendum of September 14 are likely to flee in whatever direction they can once it is clear how little their wellbeing figures in SNP plans. Not only does Salmond dislike English devotees of country sports who dare to fetch up in Scotland, but he doesn’t like the still numerous Scots who fail to sign up to his every whim.

The wind turbines which snake their way across numerous Highland glens are already a monument of sorts to a runaway ego. Scotland’s man of destiny surely has other gargantuan plans for his plucky little nation which will leave any Scottish Willie Shakespeare of the future not short of imaginative and (dare I say) terrifying plots.”

If stuff like this appeared on some random anonymously-penned blog it’d be roundly (and rightly) mocked as the paranoid ravings of gibbering cybernats, yet one of Britain’s most august broadsheet newspapers apparently considers it serious and reasonable political commentary.

To be frank, we could spend all day just quoting the Telegraph in this vein. (Heck, we haven’t even mentioned Alan Cochrane or Simon Johnson yet.)  But those two were only the most extreme examples of an epidemic of unhinged scaremongering which seems to have been triggered by the crumbling of the main pillars of the No camp’s argument around debt, Europe and currency, ranging from mere warnings of economic challenges to the very collapse of world civilisation.

torch

Actual politicians have been no better than the maddest hacks of the right-wing press. Yesterday no less an eminence than the Foreign Secretary, ably assisted by his Scottish Oompa-Loompa Ruth Davidson, calmly suggested that a Yes vote would facilitate the rape of women and children in African warzones, while over on the (notional) left, Harriet Harman insisted that independence would be a cataclysmic disaster for the working poor, with the minimum wage slashed.

(Just like it, um, hasn’t been as a result of Ireland sharing a land border with the UK.)

Hague also found time to insist that an independent Scotland would lose billions of pounds in EU funding, a particularly audacious claim considering how recently his government stole almost £1bn in EU money from Scottish farmers. Alistair Darling was sent to terrify schoolchildren with bogey-man warnings about how they had “the most to lose” from independence, while apparently today Margaret Curran has been delegated to the task of frightening women.

The Liberal Democrats didn’t want to be left out either, with the Secretary of State for Portsmouth compiling no fewer than 20 reasons why his countrymen shouldn’t run their own affairs like a normal nation.

So, where are we? Vote Yes and Scotland will be awash in poor women working for 50p an hour (except in some other unknown currency) while their children are sent up chimneys to stave off starvation, uneducated because our colleges are empty and our universities are populated only by English students getting free degrees (although actually we won’t be able to afford free education at all), and hungry and clad in rags because we’ll have to pay VAT on food and children’s clothes.

The countryside will be confiscated by Mugabe-esque decree and turned into collective farms, and the streets will be roamed by black-uniformed goon squads “disappearing” anyone who dares to disagree with Alex Salmond, any Scottish citizens who flee abroad will find themselves imprisoned in foreign jails, while everywhere else in the world the defenceless are being raped en masse. And all because Scots wanted to elect their own governments.

Don’t you just love that positive case for the Union, readers? All of this has happened in the last five days alone, as the No camp frantically tries to distract Scots from the disintegration of almost everything it’s been telling them for the last 18 months. Whether it be the shattering of another great myth or a further descent into hysteria, we can hardly wait to see what’s coming next week.

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115 to “Panic stations”

  1. Marcia
    Ignored
    says:

    As I have said before, the more the No camp kept ‘telling the truth’, the sooner rather than later they would be found out. That time has arrived and they don’t like it.

    A flattering photo of Ruth by the way.

  2. Alan MacD
    Ignored
    says:

    Outstanding.

  3. blunttrauma
    Ignored
    says:

    What happened to the “love-bomb” campaign of the English slebs.

  4. Craig P
    Ignored
    says:

    Apparently he eats babies too.

  5. Jimmuckmc
    Ignored
    says:

    I agree the past five days have been horrendous for the naysayers and I look forward to more visits from cabinet ministers to show us the error of our ways

  6. Schiehallion! Schiehallion!
    Ignored
    says:

    They don’t like it. Up them.

  7. croompenstein
    Ignored
    says:

    Just watched flipper’s interview with Ponsonby and it seems the new tack from MSM is to deflect cowardly Cameron’s refusal to debate and turn it to Alex Salmond not debating with flipper. What they aren’t getting is that Alex Salmond is not the leader of a campaign he is the duly elected First Minister of Scotland and as such should have the right to debate with the Prime Minister of the UK. Last time I looked flipper was not one of the signatory’s of the Edinburgh agreement. If we are really sadistic let’s set Nicola on him she would tear him another arsehole like she did with the Secretary of State for Portsmouth. Another thing was that flipper reffered to the FM as Salmond, how disrespectful, Alex Salmond has more respect from the people of Scotland than flipper will ever have.

  8. Baxter Parp
    Ignored
    says:

    Oooooh, Jack Kirby, good choice.

  9. cath
    Ignored
    says:

    The problem is there are people actually stupid enough to believe all this nonsense. Thankfully most of the vocal ones in Scotland seem confined to the lunatic Better Together pages.

  10. titchyboy85
    Ignored
    says:

    I was revelling in the disintegration of their case on the NO Facebook pages. These sort of baseless attacks are the fall back positon when they need to distract the bitter and small minded. I took great joy in dismantling their cries of “ethno-nationalism” and “dictator”. How any Labour supporter can feel comfortable amongst the hateful smears and right-wing doggerel of these pages I’ll never know.

  11. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    That has to be one of the silliest articles I have read on Scottish politics in a long time. In fact too silly to bother commenting on. Has the Telegraph taken leave of its senses publish this pish? Has anyone told this chap he can take his tin foil hat off?

  12. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    The lassie on the left in the photo has an attractive upper body but appears to only have half a left leg. Will our legs fall off if we go for independence? Have you left that bit out?

  13. Roddy Macdonald
    Ignored
    says:

    Hilarious! I wonder if Dr Gavin Bowd is still hiding under his desk?

    http://logicsrock.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/comic-trumps-academic-in-evil-cybernat.html

  14. Schiehallion! Schiehallion!
    Ignored
    says:

    Flash Cameron must come to the rescue, and debate hand-to-hand with this northern menace!

  15. croompenstein
    Ignored
    says:

    is that Chairchoob and the Secretary of State for Portsmouth in the background and the guy in the foreground has to be Beavis Milliband

  16. Albert Herring
    Ignored
    says:

    The two guys at the back are not doing a great job of trying to save their pints.

  17. croompenstein
    Ignored
    says:

    And the wummin has to be the zombie of Mags Curran tryin tae catch Milliband to get her photie taken wae him

  18. William Duguid
    Ignored
    says:

    Honestly, what’s the point of satire any more if this is supposed to be serious journalism?

  19. Juteman
    Ignored
    says:

    What these nutters don’t seem able to grasp is that Alex Salmond was elected.

    When they insult him and the SNP, they are insulting the intelligence of the folk who voted for them.

    The more I read and hear their bile, the more I want to escape from their vision of reality.

  20. kininvie
    Ignored
    says:

    In the Spectator piece you link to (almost as mad as the Telegraph), Charles Moore implies that Alex Mugabe will distribute all that confiscated land to his followers…

    Personally, I think I deserve a nice wee stretch of midge-free coastline, with a salmon river and a good view of the hills. I shall be writing to claim it, just so soon as independence comes along. 🙂

  21. iain taylor (not that one)
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s what happens if you’re not sure where “north of Watford” is, never mind what goes on there.

  22. Roddy Macdonald
    Ignored
    says:

    Croompenstein

    I dunno, but the woman looks a lot like Kezia Dugdale.

  23. kendomacaroonbar
    Ignored
    says:

    I must be a member of Eck’s LAFFEN SS as I haven’t stopped pishing myself at Damian’s GUFF piece.

  24. Papadocx
    Ignored
    says:

    We, the people of Scotland elected Mr Salmond, and the SNP to govern us. So what are you trying to insinuate about Scotland and it’s citizens. Why is a foreign and hostile media trying to stir up trouble in our beautiful wee country, and encourage fifth columnists to create division in this peaceful nation.

    Take your vile sordid rubbish and feed it to your nasty nationalist types (NF EDL), you and your ilk are sick and certainly not wanted in Scotland.

  25. Conan_the_Librarian
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for the heads up Stu.

    A target rich environment, as the yanks say.

  26. Bruce
    Ignored
    says:

    Outrageous and fearful hate. Superb deconstruction by the Rev though, as ever.

  27. croompenstein
    Ignored
    says:

    @Roddy Macdonald
    Or a thin Jackie Baillie !

  28. Iain Henderson
    Ignored
    says:

    To be honest the unionist parties are to the right of the fascists. They are arguably less authoritarian but that’s only arguable.They are certainly just as xenophobic,and show similar lack of compassion toward people (the German NAZI party was clearly more violent and I do not want to make an invalid and flippant comparison to that – which makes me different to the torygraph).

    Meantime as a centrist party the SNP is a bit to the left of the fascists. It’s a whole lot less authoritarian. It is inclusive, as are most Scots – and on both sides of this debate (though I note the Orange Order the SDL and the Scottish Branch of the BNP all support BT). There is possibly some similarities in terms of public transport and infrastructure projects. There is certainly a comparison in terms of national pride, but it is invalid, we see the rest of the world as a place to go and visit, to make friends as much as do business. Fascists see the rest of the world as a place to exploit, to conquer and to exclude.

    People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. All the charge of fascism lobbed at wee Eck does is makes our opponents look desperate, and expose the inverse comparison as I have done. It will remind doubters what governance a no vote will return them.

  29. Frazer Allan Whyte
    Ignored
    says:

    As the saying goes “scum always rises to the top” – but the “always” here is not always true. At times men and women of principle and ability also rise despite the hindrances honesty and conscience face in the world of politics. It was no secret that the Scottish voting system was designed to ensure that no party – read SNP- would ever gain a majority. When this came to pass and wise, able and honest heads started bobbing on the surface of the cauldron, the scum were naturally taken aback at this inexplicable occurence and – sorry to mix metaphors – the scum reacted like rats in corners, viciously attacking that which they neither understood nor could overcome. When evil meets good it reacts and particularly so when it is confronted by what it should be and could have been. The vicious libels against the first minister and those around him are merely the expression of the libellers’ true nature.

    In psychology there is also something called transference where someone, unable to accept some negative quality in themselves ‘transfers’ it to others and sees them practising the badness they do not want to accept as their own.

  30. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Roddy at 11.21

    Can’t be Kezia. She was the latest corpse from Kirkhaven in Silent Witness this week

  31. Doug Daniel
    Ignored
    says:

    “The SNP has persuaded commentators that it has achieved a natural fusion of nationalism and liberal social democracy. But nothing in 20th-century history suggests that these two ideologies complement each other.”

    That’s true, of course. Well, except for Norway, which became independent in 1903 and is now a liberal social democracy. And Finland, which became independent in 1917 and is now a liberal social democracy. Oh, and Iceland, which became independent in 1943 and is now a liberal social democracy. But yeah, apart from those, nothing at all.

    Well, maybe Czech Republic, Slovakia, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and, well, loads of other countries.

    “The SNP leader is the kind of nationalist who is obsessed with territory”

    As opposed to all those UK leaders who vehemently opposed the idea of going to war because of disagreements over land borders and the like. Nothing nationalistic about the Falklands War, for example.

    “Surely only months remain before Alex Salmond will have his own mighty jet, sleeker and more comfortable than any puny royal aircraft.”

    Well, I suppose to be entirely fair I would class the US as being a bit fascist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_One

    “The wind turbines which snake their way across numerous Highland glens are already a monument of sorts to a runaway ego.”

    “Renewable energy = fascism”. Well, of course. After all, how are energy companies supposed to continue their god-given right to make billions out of us if they can’t completely monopolise the energy supply at source? Any old knobber can stick up a wind turbine and start undercutting the energy giants – how fair is that?!?

    “Salmond dislike English devotees of country sports who dare to fetch up in Scotland, but he doesn’t like the still numerous Scots who fail to sign up to his every whim.”

    That’s got to be approaching actionable defamation, surely?

    This stuff is just utter fucking pish. You want to shake these people, give them a slap in the face, then another slap, then another slap, then get someone to stop you slapping them because it’s so fucking satisfying, then say “take a step back and consider what it is you’re actually saying here.”

    The more violently reactionary the No side become, the more off-putting they become. The more ridiculous they are, the more people start to think “haud on, I don’t recognise this situation at all. See all that stuff you said before that I kind of believed? I’m having second doubts about that now. I’m going to see what the other lot are actually saying.”

    So, KEEP IT COMING, UNIONIST DIMWITS!

  32. Mosstrooper
    Ignored
    says:

    I’ve just read both articles. Do people get paid for this bilge? Really? I mean REALLY? God Help us all.

  33. jingly jangly
    Ignored
    says:

    Somebody needs to pull Haig up re his statement about Embassies and Consulates post Yes Vote, if England is still in Europe we can still use them or any other EU members facilities if we don’t have a consulate in that country. Quote from EC

    What happens to an EU citizen in a country outside the EU where there is no embassy or consulate of his/her own EU country? He/she is entitled to request the consular protection of any other EU country under the same conditions as the nationals of that country. Moreover, measures are being taken to further reinforce consular protection for EU citizens

    http://ec.europa.eu/justice/citizen/consular-protection/index_en.htm

  34. Graham
    Ignored
    says:

    I like how Tom Gallagher got the date of the vote wrong. Sharp guy. To be kept away from sharp objects.

  35. Juteman
    Ignored
    says:

    Everyone in Scotland should be forced to read the BTL comments in that Telegraph rant.
    I only managed the first page.

  36. Sunshine on Crieff
    Ignored
    says:

    Regarding the photgraph…

    You’re running from a fate worse than death, but you’re still carrying what’s left of your pint?

  37. Erchie
    Ignored
    says:

    my partner, who is wise and insightful said

    ‘The SNP can’t be Nazis. If they were then the Telegraph would love them”

    correct. I would add the Daily Mail to that!

  38. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    Let’s face the article is just one massive Damian’s ATL Godwin trolling exercise. Unashamed clickbait.

    Who would trust someone called Damian anyway?

  39. caz-m
    Ignored
    says:

    I have a feeling this is calm compared to what will follow the meeting on 29th January in Edinburgh between Mark Carney and Alex Salmond. I personally think this is the most important meeting of the whole Referendum debate. Link below.

    http://tinyurl.com/puewjpr

    After that meeting, I think a joint statement will be made announcing that it would be beneficial to all, that Scotland continue to use the Pound Sterling after Independence.

    The Unionists can’t accept that their Governor, of their bank, is actually going to walk on Scottish soil AND have talks with HIM.

    That will be the game changer moment and when the shit definitely hits the fan.

  40. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Was at a YES meeting hosted by Michael Russell in the village hall at Lochgoilhead last night. My confidence continues to rise. 65 people in the audience which represents a very significant proportion of the population of the village. Huge interest, no aggression, car stickers and badges flying off the table, White Paper phone number handed out to many interested people, supporting speaker Jeanne Freeman OBE (FM Jack McConnell’s adviser)a huge asset to the cause.
    On ye go (as they say in Glasgow).

  41. Roddy Macdonald
    Ignored
    says:

    The big guy at the front just begs to have Blair MacDougall’s puss photoshopped onto him. Sadly, I don’t have the skills.

  42. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    I hope you are all reasonably thick-skinned. If you think the unionist language and insults are bad now, just wait a couple of months when they really start ramping it up. BT are in early panic now, because, contrary to their own spin, they now realize they have a real, hard fight on their hands. By Easter, they will realize they are losing and they go nuclear.

  43. john king
    Ignored
    says:

    Ive been having a wee tet a tet with a bumptious clown called
    Colonelbonkers (good name)’on that ludicrous article,

    who seemed to think that David Cameron was being treacherous to his country for “allowing that bogus referendum”
    turns out our litle Englander is a Scottish expat
    I asked him if he felt the people who live in Scotland shouldn’t have a right to decide who actually governs them and used the analogy by that token the Falklands should be handed over to Argentina as the Islander should have no say in it,
    he responded by calling me an illiterate troll.

    I kinda think you might agree with one half of that accusation rev. 🙂

  44. Training Day
    Ignored
    says:

    ..and then you win.

    I’m with others above. This stuff is great, it’s turning people off BT and their proxies the MSM in droves. While the Scottish people were safely contained within the Union and no prospect of self-determination existed, the foreign MSM were content merely to patronise us. Now that the notion of independence has taken hold (and taken hold for good), the sheer hate and undisguised fury that the self-styled ‘master’ reserves for his uppity ‘servant’ pours forth – hate and fury based in incomprehension and astonishment that the ‘servant’ rejects the ‘master’s’ natural order.

    Oh, and on the subject of dictators – Dennis McShane MP compared Salmond to Slobodan Milosevic. The former is now doing bird for fraud. He may or may not be typical of those attacking Salmond in this fashion.

  45. David Agnew
    Ignored
    says:

    imo the job of the no camp was to create an atmosphere of reasonable doubt. Hopefully people would err on the side of caution and then vote no. Sadly they gave the campaign into the hands of Scottish Labour, the Scottish Tories and what’s left of the lib-dems. Funded by English money they took their brief to mean the selling of dependency. As this clearly wasn’t working they decided to make shit up. Didn’t matter how idiotic it was, they just had to keep pissing in the well of public debate and cross their fingers that they would win by default. Anyone on the unionist side with a functioning brain and questions this approach, is immediately denounced as an SNP front and shouted down. Henry McLeish found this out to his cost when highlighting that constantly talking bollocks is not going to fool the Scottish electorate.

    This week the no campaign plunged new depths of lunacy. No sooner had Lamont denounced free meals to schoolchildren, she then; to the cheers of Scottish Labour, announced that Scotland does indeed need English money to survive. Ruth Davidson infers that an Independent Scotland would condone rape. One crusty old lord says that Scotland having an embassy is simply not credible. Darling insults the intelligence of Scots, by implying that within the union we we can enjoy the thrill of voting out the Tory party.

    Yet they are oblivious to the fact that all this frothing insanity, is simply creating division, not just in Scotland, but in the rest of the UK.

  46. Jimsie
    Ignored
    says:

    Brilliant stuff Stuart, good to have a laugh on a wet Sat morning.Seriously though,I don”t think the few dozen Telegraph readers in Scotland will make much impact on the referendum vote.

  47. Alex Grant
    Ignored
    says:

    THe Salmond dictator shit is just incredible I find it hard to believe that anyone with a modicum of intelligence swallows this pish. But then ‘millions’ do pay for the Daily Mail. We should remind the of the bit in the Declaration of Arbroath which suggests the opposite ie
    ‘Yet if he should give up what he has begun, and agree to make us or our kingdom subject to the King of England or the English, we should exert ourselves at once to drive him out as our enemy and a subverter of his own rights and ours, and make some other man who was well able to defend us’
    I have always said that the Yes campaign should run an ad with a picture of Eck and and a headline
    ‘IF YOU DON’T LIKE THIS MAN VOTE YES’

  48. john king
    Ignored
    says:

    Conan says
    “A target rich environment, as the yanks say.”

    Tell me about it I’ve been on there for an hour and got myself a few o them redskins scalps,dammit wheres the spitoon?

  49. john king
    Ignored
    says:

    Keep my place Im a goin back in.

  50. E.A. Cameron
    Ignored
    says:

    On the subject of Fascists and Nazis.

    Bavaria lost its Independence in the 1860s. Come the 1920s as the Nazis grew, despite having formed in Bavaria, they showed no interest in Bavarian Independence. Their policy was a united German speaking fatherland, which arguably made them Unionists!!

    Adolf Hitler wrote in ‘Mein Kampf’ that he did not want to be part of a small country like Holland. I suggest that if he were alive and well in Scotland today he would support ‘Better Together’ because like them he had an attitude problem towards small countries.

  51. john king
    Ignored
    says:

    Training day says

    “Dennis McShane MP compared Salmond to Slobodan Milosevic.”

    Is that no a line ye’ve goat up there Training day?
    rev, training days goat a line HOUSE!

  52. Chic McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    I think its called projection.

  53. HandandShrimp
    Ignored
    says:

    Darling was whining about Nationalists being nasty and that things would get worse. The thing is the parisan Muppet doesn’t even seem to consider for second that articles like this are setting the pace for abuse. Take the plank from your own eye Darling before you address the mote in ours.

  54. john king
    Ignored
    says:

    Handandshrimp says

    “Who would trust someone called Damian anyway?”

    Certainly not Rodney 😉

  55. Alba4Eva
    Ignored
    says:

    I can just imagine these so called ‘professional’ journalists, beetroot faced bashing their keyboards, as much steam coming out of their ears and froth from the mouth, as respectively pluming from and dribbling down their oversized mug of superstrong coffee.

  56. Ken MacColl
    Ignored
    says:

    Dare we hope that some principled Scottish journalists may have read today’s Telegraph and might give this poison the oxygen of wider publicity it so richly deserves?

  57. John grant
    Ignored
    says:

    Total and utter dangerous pish , I did laugh at first reading that idiots warbling , but then you read btl the hatred being whipped up is palpable , oh well , we ain’t seen nothing yet

  58. The Penman
    Ignored
    says:

    I was watching the Godfather last night when it struck me why Bliar McDougall looked so familiar.

    Luca Brasi, played by Lenny Montana.

    No?

  59. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    The UK media is nothing but a far right loonybin. Most mad unionist media reportage of the week here in Aberdeen? LibDem liar liar Carmicheal says YES vote will wipe out Scots fishing industry. Next up, expenses fiddler/MP Alistair Darling pleads with young Scots to vote no and for extra extra BBC weirdness, on Radio 4 this morn HRH Princess Michael of Kent summons Irish comic/reporter JP Devlin to her Palace to tell the world she’s a princess that likes to sing.

  60. Frazer Allan Whyte
    Ignored
    says:

    Chic McGregor says:I think its called projection.

    I stand corrected.

  61. Dal Riata
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry for swearing, but those disgraceful right-wing tirades-dressed-up as-articles get on my fucking wick and really fucking piss me off. Those disgusting accusations and smears may be directed at Alex Salmond, but underneath it all you can just feel the xenophobia and borderline- (if not open) racism aimed at Scots who would have the temerity of even thinking of leaving the Land of Hope and Glory. By insulting and sneering at Scotland’s First Minister in such onerous terms they are, by association, also doing so to the people of Scotland.

    Independence will bring about a renaissance in Scotland, free from the likes of those who have chosen to deride our country and its hopes and aspirations for a better future. Those pro-UK unionists are but maggots feeding on the stinking, festering corpse of a long dead ‘United’ Kingdom. Now is the time to bury that corpse before its rabid right-wing stench becomes unbearable. A ‘Yes’ to Scottish independence on September 18th will do it,

  62. BuckieBraes
    Ignored
    says:

    As somebody commented here some time ago, the principal objective of Better Together and its media chums between now and the day of the referendum must be to stop independence from becoming normalised in people’s minds; even those minds not initially inclined to agree with it.

    Hence the hysteria: because to this end the only tactic the No campaign appears to have available is to continue pushing the ridiculous lie that the quest for Scottish independence is All About One Man. The hundreds of thousands of us who simply want our country to govern itself are dismissed as the shrieking, ‘digital wing’ of the SNP (even though most of us have no party allegiance).

    Alex Salmond is a politician, so it’s not compulsory to like him; but any rational person, even one who fundamentally disagrees with independence, must surely see the Mugabe comparisons and such like for the drivel they are.

  63. David McCann
    Ignored
    says:

    Just a wee reminder folks. Please, Please dont give click revenue links to the likes of the Torygraph.

    Use http://archive.is/ to convert the link.

    It could not be easier

  64. Hetty
    Ignored
    says:

    The stupid unintelligent article here by the tory telegraph is there to fuel the hatred of first minister Alex Salmond and to attempt to belittle him and anyone who is a member of the SNP. It is designed to detract from the stupidity of the no campaign and their lack of willing and lack of ability to engage in intelligent discussion, about anything really. It is also attempting to insult and belittle the people of Scotland, nothing new.
    I think we all know exactly who it is that holds onto land rights and who would really rather the ordinary man and woman had no access to it all thank you very much. They see it as their playground, that really will get up their noses, if that is threatened!

  65. Les Wilson
    Ignored
    says:

    When they think of land reform, it is in fact a plan to make more land available for agriculture, and reduce these huge estates which in the main historical and hereditary.(?) They employ some people to keep things in order and of course pander to the blood sport elite, it is nowhere near enough.

    The vision is to make the Highlands more productive and create employment.This further creates growth back into this area and will with other industries that suit the purpose, re create a much stronger Highland community. The re population of decimated areas that have for a very long time suffered de-population, as we all know.

    With reasons to come and to stay will bring better infrastructure, and communications, more housing and associated facilities, such as schools, hospitals, and the like.
    Personally I love the idea of breathing new life into the Highlands, and do think land should be used to enhance the lives of people who stay there and those who will choose to stay. It makes much more sense than grouse moors and huge tracts of unproductive land. Let it be!

  66. JLT
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s been a wonderful week! Another two folk who were ‘No’ers, are now asking me what Independence will really mean!

    And I am so happy to oblige!

    Yep …keep it up Unionists …keep it up!

  67. alexicon
    Ignored
    says:

    @David.

    “imo the job of the no camp was to create an atmosphere of reasonable doubt.”

    I don’t think its ‘reasonable’ it usually comes as nonsense simply to muddy the waters.

  68. Yesitis
    Ignored
    says:

    It seems the independence referendum is to be won or lost by means fair or foul.
    So, with comparisons to nazis and outright lies, slurs, insults and smears, this side of a Yes/No vote is the ‘fair’ part?

  69. Bugger (the Panda)
    Ignored
    says:

    I just wonder how long we have to go before the Tartan Terrorist card is played?

    There are two levels, the newspaper basic scare one and then one and the black ops ones, just before the Referendum.

  70. msean
    Ignored
    says:

    RE those wind turbines,yes,they are everywhere,but you need power right? Nobody is really a fan of them,but they can be taken down and recycled and the land used again immediately when someone finds a better,clean way of generating power.

    Whereas nuclear costs so much even the UK has to go begging to a one party communist state (lol,remember them?).

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_state

  71. SquareHaggis
    Ignored
    says:

    Most folk would say, so what? Honestly, who actually reads the Telegraph in Scotland anyway?

    Project fear is heading south, target Englandshire, designed to stir it up among their increasingly disenfranchised public a sense of unfairness.
    A decoy for when it all comes crashing down, a blame game no less. They’ve tried hard to browbeat the Scots but we’re just not buying it. So, they shift the onus on to their own.

    The key to all of this lies with that late Sunday announcement regarding the UK Gov taking on ALL the debts including “Scottish” debt? It was akin to taking a sledgehammer to the faces of an otherwise sleepy English electorate first thing Monday morning. Since then the forums have been full of panic and “concern” as can be seen from the largely confused and ill-informed commentary on fora such as the Telegraph attacking Scotland and the SNP from all directions. “oh the outrage, oh the cheek, why should WE pay Scotlands’ debts!” But what debts? The only debt Scotland has is the one we owe to ourselves, our freedom.

    The sleeper is being awakened for it’s true purpose (English Nationalism) and this utter tripe from the Telegraph is stoking the fire.

  72. Richard
    Ignored
    says:

    I read this article. I couldn’t find the bit about the independence of Scotland bringing about the ‘Balkanisation’ of Europe (the world?). Presumably that will come in part 2?

  73. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    Pillars of virtue and principle have no truck with ‘dictators’.

    ‘It was dark…’

    When Jack met Robert –

    http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/jack-straw-robert-mugabe-handshake/

  74. zeldomzeen
    Ignored
    says:

    “Flipper” Darling…..

    “The Worlds One and Only Glum Dolphin!”

  75. Dick Gaughan
    Ignored
    says:

    Don’t give this pish the courtesy of taking it in any way seriously. All it deserves is ridicule and lampooning.

    In the last three days, by simply replying to the question “How are you going to vote?” and explaining why I’ll be voting “Yes”, I have watched 2 Don’t Knows shift to probable Yes and one determined passionate No move to “I’ll have to think more about this”.

    If we all make a determined, calm effort to persuade 2 Don’t Knows to Yes every week, we’ll romp home. Keep at it. And keep laughing and poking fun at the eejits.

  76. Dal Riata
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry, O/T

    @ heedtracker

    So they got you, too, eh!…

    I’m talking about the Guardian’s CiF [sic] monitors! I hadn’t seen you for a while over thonder and was wondering where you’d got to. I read on another article here BTL you saying that you’d been put on the Guardian’s pre-moderation naughty-step and thought, Ah-ha!…That’s what happened!

    Aye well, me too! This is my third time – first time for ‘disagreeing’ with Severin Carrell; second, for ‘questioning’ lownoise; third, for ‘having words’ with the Scotland must vote no ‘Slovakian’… Well, I believe it was, but who knows, it could have been the result of any number of ‘discussions’. They don’t tell you why you’ve been banished to the naughty-step, which is really, really annoying and frustrating.

    Anyway, I still post there occasionally and we’ll see how that progresses. I do miss your ‘exchanges’ with Rideroo, right enough. It was great to see him get ripped a new one after every piece of shit-as-a-comment he comes out with. Gave me lots of LOLs, so it did!

    Hope to see you back on CiF, even if it is in a slightly restrained manner until they judge you ‘free’ again! (And to keep on posting on Wings, of course!)

  77. Les Wilson
    Ignored
    says:

    When you look at the past, you will see we are having a repeat of 1979. Almost all the same stories, all the same tactics. We will get terrorism raised and possibly actually fabricated in some way, this happened back then via our own police. What this week means to me is the utter desperation they are now in,few are now listening to their fantasy stories now just the most gullible.

    The SG have played a blinder, along with the every more Indy groups they are breaking down the negativity of Bitter Together and debunking them. Expect even more fantastical claims and subliminal threats. However, we understand their desperation, and the more outrageous it becomes the more obvious it becomes. We are doing ok.

  78. Murray McCallum
    Ignored
    says:

    “Scotland seems poised to veer further away from the north European norm of personal liberty, guaranteed by representative government, to a cool and drizzly Third World where these rights are at the discretion of the ruler and his henchmen.”

    How does this ‘vision’ compare to broken and drowning-in-debt UK where the current PM says he would withdraw from human rights convention “to keep UK safe”.

    The people who have moved from ‘No’ to undecided, and those that have always been there, will have to decide what is reasonable information and what is not. Anyone reading this drivel in the UK press must be questioning everything they read about Scotland such is the level of distortion.

  79. Dick Gaughan
    Ignored
    says:

    Bugger (the Panda) says:
    “I just wonder how long we have to go before the Tartan Terrorist card is played?”

    Remember Scotch on the Rocks? It’ll happen once they run of other smears and outright panic sets in, probably about May/June.

  80. Dave McEwan Hill
    Ignored
    says:

    Bugger (the Panda) at 12.54

    We can expect the Love Bombing and the Tartan Terrorism cards both to be played.

    As long as we flag both of these up as the next steps of Better Together we ruin them as tactics.

    At least it will be diddy Tartan Terrorists we will be presented with (who will escape without trace)and not suicide bombers(though, as history should have informed us, it would be foolish indeed to assume that some really nasty stuff won’t happen).

    Can I have any nominations for suicide bombers or nominations for a “National” anthem of we vote NO

  81. Chic McGregor
    Ignored
    says:

    Franz

    “Chic McGregor says:I think its called projection.

    I stand corrected.”

    Huh? Oh I hadn’t read your comment I was just reacting to the Rev.’s post.

  82. ronnie anderson
    Ignored
    says:

    We ve goat, The Telegraph / The Herald. How,s about

    The Scottish TORCH, blazeing a trail over Scotland,much

    like WINGS OVER SCOTLAND.

    sos REV, no putting you oot tae grass.

  83. Patrick Roden
    Ignored
    says:

    “The problem is there are people actually stupid enough to believe all this nonsense”

    The thing is Cath, only a small fraction of people in Scotland trust the press, and even less trust the likes of Alistair Darling or William Hague.

    Don’t worry there’s always people who will believe anything their ‘betters’ tell them, but there’s far far more who are searching out the truth, and when they find it, all previous debates have shown they turn from ‘No’ or Don’t Know’ to ‘Yes’ in large numbers. 🙂

  84. Roboscot
    Ignored
    says:

    The ongoing character assassination of Alex Salmond reminds me of my my first experience of political awareness, around 1970 at the sge of 10 or whereabouts. It was a campaign of denigration of Archbishop Makarios of Cyprus. What the particular issue was, I don’t remember but the nastiness in the British media I do remember. Perhaps it was the incongruity of an archbishop having his character being traduced in ‘respectable’ newspapers.

  85. Jimbo
    Ignored
    says:

    These so-called journalists really need to sit back and reflect on what they are saying and doing. Alex Salmond being constantly likened to internationally loathed hate figures past and present. All supporters of independence, regardless of their political affiliations, referred to, not as people, but as cybernats, as a virus, as sewer rats.

    This language of hate from (what is to us) a foreign press is going to lead to grief in the foreseeable future.

    IMO it is only a matter of time before some nutter with a pro Union bent, wound up by the hate language in these newspapers, is going to seriously hurt some pro Scotland campaigner.

    These attacks, especially those on Salmond, are abhorrent, to say the least. This Unionist propaganda intended to demonise and dehumanise those of us who are in the pro Scotland camp is fast reaching the level of the 1930s Nazi anti Jewish propaganda.

  86. Billy Ross
    Ignored
    says:

    After what we’ve had to put up with from this government and its crony minions, a post-indy dictatorship almost seems like an acceptable alternative…

  87. setondene
    Ignored
    says:

    Thoroughly enjoyed this mad over-the-top stuff from the English press. More please. Looking forward to it getting even crazier as September looms.

  88. muttley79
    Ignored
    says:

    “They always go bananas if anyone compares Alex Salmond to a dictator. Which happens a lot these days. There’s an authoritarian streak in the Scottish government that is making people nervous.”

    Let me get this straight, this ‘journalist’ thinks it is good to compare a democratically elected leader to mass murdering dictators, and not expect there to be anger at this pathetic smearing? As for Tom Gallagher the guy is getting more and more hysterical. I can’t take the MSM seriously anymore.

  89. Dal Riata
    Ignored
    says:

    It really does seem more and more like the abusive husband/wife/partner threatening their husband/wife/partner if they should dare to leave analogy as we progress on toward the referendum.

    We are hearing the abuser ie Westminster, Better Together, Project Fear, the UK’s MSM, etc. get progressively shrill, insulting and demeaning as they realise their initial threats are not having the effect they thought they would have had. It may, or, as is most likely, get worse. In what form this will take we can only guess, but desperate people do desperate things so, as they say, nothing is off the table.

    When all the sneers, fears, smears and bribes of ‘jam tomorrow’ and whatever else awaits us fails, expect a reconciliation stage, where all previous behaviour will have been deemed to have been ‘just a show of how much the Union means to us all’… And then the love-bombing will begin. How we all get along so well and how much we need each other, how we are all just one great big happy family and how important and loved ‘the Scots’ really are by everyone in the UK, especially everyone in England!

    So far so predictable. The people of Scotland aren’t stupid. They can spot a con-artist from a mile away. We only need 50%+1 to be rid of these abusers for good. The 18th of September, 2014 is when it happens.

    “When you are the victim of abuse, the goal of your abuser is to keep you under control… But your abuser does not have to win! You can take back your power and move on and not stay stuck where you are.”

  90. Conan_the_Librarian
    Ignored
    says:

    I too, am on the Guardian naughty step now.

    Nae sense o humour, they lot.

  91. Mad Jock McMad
    Ignored
    says:

    Meanwhile, in the real world, the Westminster mob are being called to account for breaches of the Edinburgh Agreement by Cameron and Hague in a formal letter to Hague from Nicola Sturgeon – all to the deathly silence of the UK MSM.

    I have copied the letter from Nicola to my own blog because it is important it gets a proper airing:

    When you go, will you send me a letter frae Westminister

  92. Ian Kirkwood
    Ignored
    says:

    The reference to “MAD” sums it up nicely for me. The question was asked how can “serious journalists” write this stuff? What about the editors allowing it to be printed. It certainly does not do the BT argument(?) any positive good.
    “his plucky little nation” is another brilliant example of the contempt contained in the overall tone. It seems the MSM is indeed moving in the direction of YES. How else can such wedges of contribution to the debate be interpreted?

  93. Andrew Morton
    Ignored
    says:

    One of the most telling things I have heard recently was the revelation that Paul Dacre, Editor of the Daily Mail, has a 15,000 acre estate near Ullapool. Interestingly, this was originally published in the Daily Mail. Can there be a connection?

    There surely can.

  94. creigs1707repeal
    Ignored
    says:

    The MSM north and south of the border has, for decades, (wrongly) painted Scots as “subsidy junkies” and now they are getting all uppity and all het up because they are about to lose their “subsify junky”? WTF?

  95. Heather McLean
    Ignored
    says:

    croompenstein says:
    18 January, 2014 at 11:32 am@Roddy Macdonald
    Or a thin Jackie Baillie !

    Silly man!! Theres no such thing as a thin Jackie Baillie !
    You’ll be asking us to believe there’s a positive case for the union next! hahaha!

  96. Jamie Arriere
    Ignored
    says:

    In the end, you just have to laugh. No matter how angry or apopleptic I feel at this gross misrepresentation of my country and my government by these so-called journalists, I could never come close to becoming as unhinged as that.

    Full speed ahead Macduff!

  97. iain taylor (not that one)
    Ignored
    says:

    Pretty good picture of my ex. Haven’t seen that one before.

  98. A2
    Ignored
    says:

    “Surely only months remain before Alex Salmond will have his own mighty jet, sleeker and more comfortable than any puny royal aircraft.”

    Now if we assume that the author doesn’t think this will happen if we vote no, what does that tell us?

  99. Michael
    Ignored
    says:

    And as I said on another thread none of this makes sense to people who actually vote. It has zilch relationship to their actual experience. As a Yes voting customer said to my partner yesterday. ‘I can’t stand that Alex Salmond. But I tell you what he’s brilliant, a master at what he does, the best politician in the UK.’ They are talking to themselves while we are out there talking to the voters – our family members, friends and colleagues. To them it is we who represent indy campaign and we look nothing like the disgusting and grotesque caricatures constructed by the desperate elements of unionism.

  100. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    What is that picture at the top anyway?

  101. fairiefromtheearth
    Ignored
    says:

    So let me get this right Mugabe is the boggie man, was it him and hordes of his kin that invaded a Contenent and carved it up and murdered and raped the women, men, children and the land. Strange that one mans freedom fighter is anothers terrorist.

  102. Marker Post
    Ignored
    says:

    @caz-m

    From your Telegraph link:

    “Last month, [Mark Carney] told a House of Lords committee that Scottish secession would undoubtedly “change the effectiveness of the monetary union”

    Doesn’t that imply that Carney believes there will still be a monetary union after a Yes vote?

  103. Marker Post
    Ignored
    says:

    Admission in the Telegraph too that I’d missed:

    UK’s credit rating could be threatened as Treasury guarantees Scotland’s debt

    http://archive.is/CMYhz

  104. Graeme McCormick
    Ignored
    says:

    Dave. Re the photo. Obviously no prosthetics in an independent Scotland!

    Ament land reform, I suggest a Clan Act to make clans democratic. Every member of a clan can vote as to who should be the clan chief for a time limited time, say ten years and he or she is the custodian of the Clan lands during their term in office.

  105. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dal Riata. Greetings from Guardian less Aberdeen! Yep I got Guardian blocked on third pre-mod which after years, is not so bad. I can CIF but nothing comes up so that’s that although am sure I didn’t break their rules, stretch them a bit maybe:-)

    Oddly enough I got a Guardian customer survey request email this morning…

    “You have been selected to be invited to participate in an online survey to help us improve the reader experience. The survey should take about 10-15 minutes to complete.”

    So CIF blocks could be down to the mood swings of one mod but am not buying it after getting treated like garbage.

    Actually and more oddly, days before getting blocked I got a very nice email from Guardian intern saying ” We launched recent callout asking commenters to talk about their favorite Cif debaters”

    and “I’d really like to feature you for this edition of BTL”

    But I didn’t do it as you can sense the growing irritation London hacks like Severin Carell have for Scottish democracy and my CIF block was rather imminent. Plus I right click googled the Guardian intern that sent me that call out email and turns out she’s New Yorker with loads of lovely photos of herself on Flikr, in separashunist NewYork, NY. Go figure, as they say over there!

  106. Albert Herring
    Ignored
    says:

    Jackie Bailey’s got very thin arguments.

  107. SquareHaggis
    Ignored
    says:

    @morag

    Looks like London commuters on Monday mornin after the treasury announcement…

  108. Mark
    Ignored
    says:

    There are rather a lot of independence supporters who are genuinely unnerved by the implications of the Children & Young Person’s Bill currently going through parliament. It does indeed suggest that there is a statist control mentality at work in the Scottish government. You can’t just laugh that one off.

  109. muttley79
    Ignored
    says:

    @Mark

    What are your concerns about the Children and Young Person’s Bill?

  110. a supporter
    Ignored
    says:

    They are now having another attempt to discredit the Cybernats because they know just how effective we are. Deerin’s article was one such and the absolute rubbish in the Telegraph today is another. They are loonies, and everybody knows they are loonies.

    Hague’s visit was a disaster as he has hardly been mentioned apart from the usual few paragraphs and interviews on the No supporting media and even they haven’t been very enthusiastic. Anyway EU and foreign matters are WAY beyond the interests if not the inderstanding of ordinary voters’.

  111. Tarian
    Ignored
    says:

    I feel that the no campaign are increasingly driving into dangerous territory. The horrendous vilification, constant smearing and shameless propaganda they are engaged in will have radicalised so many Scots that any No vote will be a pyrrhic victory. Win, lose or draw they are going to be picking up a massive tab and there will be no hiding place.

  112. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @a supporter –

    Good point.

    What was the point of Hague and Alexander’s visit anyway? What did it achieve?

    Has anyone actually seen any images of Hoddit and Doddit in action in Glasgow? Were they there at all?

  113. Raphie de Santos
    Ignored
    says:

    An alternative view from me under my pen name:

    http://socialistresistance.org/5805/debt-guarantee-corners-snp

  114. Jim Monaghan
    Ignored
    says:

    Fundamental problem with the article is that the only party leader in Holyrood who actually supports the right-to-but when landlords vrefuse is Johan Lamont, not Salmond



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