And now over to the state broadcaster
Posted on
September 22, 2013 by
Chris Cairns
The world's most-read Scottish politics website
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Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
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A tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
The GGC are a gloody gunch of dishonest Gastards
Got back to son’s flat after the rally and found he’d been leafleted by BT. Not one positive statement in the entire 6 page A5 thing.
Son is going to return the wee pre-paid slip and ask for more info. BT seem willing to pay out for postage. Whatever they send is destined for the recycling bin.
and in Glasgow, George Sq, a small group of Unionists were chased away from City chambers chanting “You can stick your independence up your bum” – overheard the conversation of some of these charmers and it was clear to this reporter, that these champions of national unity did not know the pro-indy march was in Edinburgh.
In other news: Redevelopment of George Sq continues apace, with statues of Scottish figures from history who are now dead, being replaced with English figures from history who are dead. Among these are Robert Peel, and William Gladstone.
City fathers have decided to have an English-Fest in time for the celebrations for the start of a truly dreadful war.
Not only BBC,
STV, had an interview with Blair of BT, he ridiculed the Rally, then they showed what BT were doing. They showed a number of people walking about in a rough resemblance to a line with variations in order not to make things too obvious.
Each person then went over to  the person giving out BT leaflets, however, to me this was stage managed to show how keen people were to get their hands on a BT leaflet.
Everyone in sight walked over to get one. An unlikely occurrence for a start, if, as I suspect this was stage managed,then the MSM propaganda machine has reached a new low in deceit against the people of Scotland.
THERE HAS TO BE AN AUTHORITY SOMEWHERE THAT CAN PASS VERDICT ON STUFF LIKE THIS. Perhaps an international authority, perhaps a UN department, something needs done.
DEMOCRACY IT IS NOT!
AllyPally. Don’t be cruel. Send the leaflets back to BT headquarters.
But “don’t” forget the stamp!!
The gastards are fooling no one and I thought McDoom looked especially tired and implausible last night.
The coverage of the march on Russian TV channel was excellent at 22.00, including a short interview with AS. Followed by a snippet from Oxford saying that the “too wee” disparagement is an insult to all the other small (c5M) countries.
CallmeDave must have really peed off Vladimir Vladimirovich!
Hail Alba
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With each passing day bitter together sand and finish yet another plank for their coffin. It will be a joyful day next September when the people of Scotland hammer in the last nail and bury the bastards for good.
THERE HAS TO BE AN AUTHORITY SOMEWHERE THAT CAN PASS VERDICT ON STUFF LIKE THIS. Perhaps an international authority, perhaps a UN department, something needs done.
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There is not (and there will not be) any fair referee, or external international authority’s cavalry come over the hill to ‘give’ us a fair democratic (MSM and broadcast) playing field. In fact, get ready for far, far worse! We are on our own on this one.Â
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The good news though, is that the YES grass root campaign is designed exactly for the purpose of circumventing the blatant lies and unfairness of ‘our’ media’s reporting of the arguments, and is working perfectly to schedule.
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Hence the increasingly shrill and ridiculously exaggerated response from those self same MSM and Broadcasters. They are entering a spiral of credibility loss. The more they lie the more they publicly expose themselves the more they lose credibility the louder they lie the more they publicly expose themselves etc etc..
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On the 18th of September 2014 something will be done and it will be the full authority of the democratic voice of the Scottish electorate that will pass verdict on this.
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Vote Yes! (please)
I was ‘privileged’ to have a chat with David Torrance yesterday.
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Angry Yes supporter (me): What do you think of the event David, impressed by the turn-out?
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David: Not really, it’s a little disappointing.
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Do you have a view on Project Fear and the deliberate misinformation being peddled by BT and the BBC?
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David: This is a political campaign and Yes are also conducting propaganda.
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Propaganda is a systematic campaign of deliberate misinformation, can you give me an example of Yes acting in this manner?
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David: Erm, ahh, erm, ahh……..
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How can you defend such undermining of the democratic process?
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David: I am sitting on the fence because it is important that journalists report from a neutral position.
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Who does that help other than yourself David?
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David: Erm, ahh, erm, ahh……..
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I walked away at that point, before I embarrassed all assembled on the hill.
Nice one Chris. You forgot to add in David Cameron’s hand up Flipper’s backside but most of us will have added that automatically.
CameronB,
nice!
Radio ‘Scotland”s 11 o’clock news; several contrived digs at AS; no mention whatever of the rally, and this pearler – Johann Lamont and Margarat Curran will be addressing the Labour faithful at Brighton today.
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Lucky old Brighton…
Can complaints not be made to the press complaints commission and BBC Trust etc?
CameronB Â Your a better man than me, Torrance is a tory unionist who should know better and I may be tempted to say a rude word to him. Â As to his protestations of being neutral pull the other one Dave.
I have been shouting for a while now that STV are NO friend of Independence, after their coverage of the rally yesterday, I hope that the penny has finally dropped. THEY ARE PRO-UNIONISTS. Their money and agenda come directly from London. We are not supported by any MSM outlets apart from the odd Sunday Herald article. So with the help from sites like Wings, it is up to us to spread the good word and get it out there that MSM is full of bitter, biased, selfish and frightened journalists.
Also RT.tv ran a very positive piece on the rally and independence yesterday, link attached, this will go worldwide, so try looking beyond our own biased media when looking for the truth.
link to rt.com
@CameronB
“David: I am sitting on the fence because it is important that journalists report from a neutral position.”
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What fence is that? Buckingham Palace’s fence with their union flag in hand.
Rev, saw the banner as I edged up the slope but there were too many folk to get passed to say hello to you all. Brilliant day however…
For all the people undecided who read this site and for all the journalists who do not appear to be able to report ‘news’ (choosing instead to quibble about numbers )please take a look at the other rally which took place yesterday.
Is this the face of Unionism ? Do the BBC want to post the numbers up or down ? Could Tom Gordon or David Torrance noted at the Edinburgh rally yesterday please  go to Govan and tell us with their political expertise ,which part of this makes us Better Together ? In fact could they ask the OO if this is representative of their views ?Could they ask GCC why this rally was allowed or even why Better Together did not advertise this allowing the undecided to march if they want to vote for the staus quo for this to be maintained ?Â
I am loathe to give this ‘rally’ airtime but if this is what BT want to be maintained then let them justify it ? Not in my name-EVER !!
Govan rally 21/9/13 -on youtube
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link to archive.is
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Labour facing new revelations over Falkirk
Shirley says:
22 September, 2013 at 11:06 am
Can complaints not be made to the press complaints commission and BBC Trust etc?
Surely, If The Rangers support can complain to them over off the cuff remarks by Jim Spence, then Im sure you can complain , but more than likely it will be “lost” behind a filing cabinetÂ
Shirley,
You can complain to who you like – but organisations like OFCOM will just direct complaints about the BBC to the Trust. The Trust currently take around 3-5 months to process complaints and they want you to complain first to the BBC department.Â
It’s really a case of when the BBC itself haven’t satisfactorily answered your complaint, you are then ‘given permission’ for want of a better phrase to write to the Trust
To call it deliberately inefficient would be pretty accurate.
Whats most worrying is that new BBC Director General Sir Tony Hall (Labour appointed peer) said recently at a speech in Edinburgh that the BBC would struggle to be impartial with regard to the Scottish referendum.
Thats a statement we should all remember.
As for external media monitors from the EU etc, they usually have to be invited by the UK government to start doing their work. I know, absolutely crazy.
Sneddon
I might not have reported the entire conversation. 🙂
Edinburgh Rally. 2013. I can’t remember which one of the speakers it was, but one of them said words to the effect that in the event of a ‘No’ vote we would all just have to accept the result and get on with working together…as I understood it, more or less saying that we will just forget about the battle for independence and accept that the people have spoken for the last time on the subject and that would be the end of it.
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Well, it won’t be me. Like many others I’ve put in over a half a century working for my country’s independence. I couldn’t give a stuff if it’s a ‘No’ vote, I’ll battle on for my nation’s freedom till the day I die.
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Like Gandhi said, ”Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.”
I was gobsmacked by the coverage on Scottish section of The Politics Show. A full 20 minutes of coverage, with interviews on the hill from politicians and marchers. Superb!
Grilliant charchoon and geally accugate
Faster minds than mine will no doubt have cottoned onto the fact that the silence on UK-wide news channels is in accordance with the Westminster line that the independence movement has no chance and is not to be taken seriously. But, while you can excuse ‘national’ news editors from paying little attention to Scottish politics, or to dry and dusty polls, even, the march was colourful, full of scenery, life and energy, and even contained bagpipes and pandas…in other words, good television.
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So I guess there’s another reason, which is that the march and rally, properly filmed, even with a disparaging commentry, might just have made a few people down south sit up and wonder if what they have been told about the chances of Scottish independence, might be wrong.
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And they might begin to wonder what is going to happen to England, and why there is no mass movement filling their streets. And they might begin to ask questions, such as:
What will happen to our currency?
How will we manage our defence?
What about the oil?
What will happen when there are border posts and we can’t trade with our neighbours and we have to queue up at the non-EU citizens desk in Paris or Malaga?
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And we can’t have Westminster being asked those sort of things, by their constituents, now can we?
Juteman,
Must watch it on catch up TV, thanks.
Most pathetic comment on the gathering must be Murdo Fraser’s to the effect that supporters from the nearby Hibs v St Mirren game should have popped along to double the attendance.
How many Tories would you get on Calton Hill to demonstrate their support for the Union?Â
“Most pathetic comment on the gathering must be Murdo Fraser’s to the effect that supporters from the nearby Hibs v St Mirren game should have popped along to double the attendance.”
I chose to interpret that as a cleverly coded criticism of the police estimate 😀
(As there were nine and a half thousand at Easter Road.)
@juteman. What programme are you referring to? So I can watch it.
After Cathy Newmann’s remarks this week on Channel 4 News, and STV’s and BBC Scotland’s general coverage of the march (excluding the Politics Show by the sounds of it) I think we have to recognise that the MSM in the UK are part of the British establishment. For further proof you just need to read Catherie Bennett’s horrible article in the Observer today, where she does a complete hatchet job on the Yes campaign. We need to find ways of getting under the radar of the MSM, and get straight through to the voters in Scotland.
Does anyone have footage of the economist gentleman who spoke after Mr Anwar? I watched it down at the gates of Calton hill and his speech silenced the entire crowd. An older gentleman turned to me, shook his head and said quietly, “I’m ashamed to be British” From what we had just heard, so was I.
@CameronB
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I may have totally misheard this in the pub but apparently someone-who-shall-remain-nameless called David Torrance a prickand his response was “fair comment”.
O/T
Just looked in on the UKÂ Labour Party Conference on BBC Parliament and in the right hand side of the stage looks to me like a very large St Georges Cross. Or is that just my anti-English eyes that I am seeing it through?.
@CameronB
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Outstanding. That would have been worth the trip alone. 🙂
Rev Stu,
You are too kind. Murdo Fraser clever—ha, ha.
Sorry folks. I thought it was obvious i was extracting the urine.
Juteman 🙂
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The Sunday Politics Show was awful. Presenter Andy Kerr essentially, and amateurishly offered Johann Lamont a chance to orate a largely uninterrupted anti-SNP/anti-Yes monologue for ten minutes.
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The ‘bloggers’ at the end sounded like a pair of Tories.
MajorBloodnok
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. 😉
I believe his reply was “Erm, ahh, erm, ahh……..”
In a better-ordered society Chris Cairns would be employed in producing editorial cartoons for a great newspaper.
No surprise that the BBC have the Labour Conference agenda on the website when it’s not even available on Labour’s own webshite. Notice, of course, it is an agenda for speakers not for debate. I was curious to find out if they still ‘debate’ nuclear weapons and eventually ended up on the BBC, but not a cheep about WMD. There may be something at one of their fringe meetings but it’s unlikely to be mainstream news.
Their is no doubt the politics show was nothing but a platform for lamentable Lamont to have a rant about the SNP, she did’nt have to answer a question and the presenter Andy Kerr was shite.
If this is the best he can do for a interveiw with a oppostion leader we would be better off with Jimmy Krankie, it seemed as though the bbc was doing everything it could to nullify the positive effects of the independence rally yesterday.
Andy Kerr was a waste of time, bring back Isobel Fraser she has bigger balls.
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Hail Alba.
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seanair says
“Murdo Fraser’s to the effect that supporters from the nearby Hibs v St Mirren game should have popped along to double the attendance.”
Which would have quadrupled and then doubled it  that little s***s support eh?
“Apalled at your lack of partiality in coverage of Scots referendum campaigns; the latest is complete lack of any mention in your Network News of 20+ thousand marchers for Independence on the streets in a major British city, Edinburgh. This compares with your link to a demo by a mere 3000 Loyalists in Belfast on the same day, which appears on your main Network page. Do you have any justification at all for this inequality, or are we to conclude that you follow the Establishment line unquestioningly? Shame on you, BBC.”
e-mail to BBC early this morning.
Pointless I know, but had to get it off my chest.
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“Lack of partiality”? Is that what you actually meant?
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[confused wee smilie face]
Ah, you caught me, but you obviously know what I mean; was not in a mood for checking too well. 😉
@Davy
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Their is no doubt the politics show was nothing but a platform for lamentable Lamont to have a rant about the SNP, she did’nt have to answer a question and the presenter Andy Kerr was shite.
If this is the best he can do for a interveiw with a oppostion leader we would be better off with Jimmy Krankie, it seemed as though the bbc was doing everything it could to nullify the positive effects of the independence rally yesterday.
Andy Kerr was a waste of time, bring back Isobel Fraser she has bigger balls.
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Agreed. Isobel Fraser is far, far better than Andy Kerr (both as a presenter, and as a interviewer). Instead of removing Fraser after Davidson’s outburst, they should have told the thug to GTF. No doubt the decision was made by Boothman and company.
@Roger Terrett
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Well said, you. They didn’t cover it well last year either, but in my opinion, there’s even less coverage this year. My 88 year-old mother even noticed it. I asked her what she thought the reason was and she said it was obvious to her they were trying to suppress any information that might support independence and that non-reporting was as much a part of their strategy as misreporting. She’s outraged and feels STV and the BBC have let her down as she doesn’t get out much and wants to keep herself aware and up to date with what’s going on in the world outside her front door. She feels that’s what she pays her licence fee for and that they have a duty to do this for her in return for her fee, for everybody, but especially for those who have only limited access to information – they have a duty of care, so to speak. But although they’re pocketing the money of our older people, they’re failing them miserably in terms of keeping them informed and in contact with what’s really going on round about them.
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Are there any journalists or tv producers out there who have a social conscience?
Jeannie
Sorry for being the one to point out OAPs are exempt from the BBC tax(?) I know my folks don’t pay and neither do they value the BBC service as trustworthy.
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It’s easy to get carried away after yesterday. 🙂
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Vote Yes to join the only movement offering an alternative to the generation of austerity promised by the Westminster party.
You have to be over 80 to be exempt from the BBC tax.
CameronB
Correct CameronB, over 75s don’t pay the fee. I know, I spent yesterday and the last few years looking after my frail, (dementia), 88 year old mother. No excuse for non reporting of the march then giving airtime to 2 auld crabs on the evening news tonight.
Wish I could have been there with you all.
I don’t think my mum would like me telling you her age :), though she isn’t 80 yet.
She thinks she’s paying it – wonder who in the name of God she’s sending money to. Will enquire further.
Back again – she says she forgot all about not paying it. And she wouldn’t pay it now anyway even if she was supposed to. In fact, not content with that she’s insisting she’d go to jail first before she’d pay it. And it’s bloody ridiculous treating an old person like that. And it’s just like the hospitals – once they know you’re age, they don’t care. And they should be hung. See what you lot started?
On a lighter note, I can’t stop laughing at this cartoon. Priceless!
Jeannie
Please give you mum a big thumbs up for her stance against the BBC.
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Re. refusal to pay the BBC tax; I have no idea regarding the law but wonder what the potential might be in mounting a defense of “non-payment as a political protest”. Thousands of human rights cases being tried in court, might just get reported. If only by the ‘foreign’ media.
I have decided from now on to refer to the BBC as the state broadcaster, with the same tone that their own journalists save for other dodgy states’ state-run news agencies.
The cut-off for the free licence might be 75, though I thought it was 80. Certainly, it’s not just “pensioners”. Equally certainly, someone of 88 should not be paying it.
My mum say’s she’d shell out for the BBC if they repeat ‘The Magic Roundabout’, she reckons it’s the most accurate portrayal of the UK, and she knows it was made in France.
slightly O/T but from the BBC editorial guidelines:
The term ‘due’ means that the impartiality must be adequate and appropriate to the output, taking account of the subject and nature of the content, the likely audience expectation and any signposting that may influence that expectation.
Due impartiality is often more than a simple matter of ‘balance’ between opposing viewpoints. Equally, it does not require absolute neutrality on every issue or detachment from fundamental democratic principles.
That last bit is slightly worrying. so the BBC is saying in its own guidelines we can basically say what the hell we like?
So it’s really like a state broadcaster from the old communist block.?
@Paula Rose
My mum say’s she’d shell out for the BBC if they repeat ‘The Magic Roundabout’, she reckons it’s the most accurate portrayal of the UK, and she knows it was made in France.
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I can just imagine the Magic Roundabout theme tune accompanying every appearance by the No campaign and its endless negativity. Round and round it goes; where it stops no one knows.
My fab son, 18 and home educated, (and not cos we are well off or middle class hippy, quite the opposite!) managed to put a good argument forward to a young peer yesterday ( a conventionally school educated lad) enough for the lad to think about why he was intending to vote ‘no’ having said,’of course I intend to vote no like everyone else’. They were at drama class and missed the rally, my son now wishes he’d gone to the rally..he will next year!!
My point? It doesn’t take a lot of time, but perhaps some effort, to get some facts out there and dispel some common myths for the people of Scotland to make an informed choice in 2014. Apparently the ‘no’ lad was quite impressed with my son’s arguments enough to think about it, which is brilliant, an outcome in 2014, based on myths and misinformation and even lies is just unthinkable.
Of course, if we can’t complain to the EU about the propaganda spewing from the MSM, STV and BBC – could we be so bold as to approach Amnesty International?
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On the subject of European influence and oversight however, I’d really like to hear from our SNP EC representatives as to what they’re doing about it, what hurdles they have to get over and when can we expect to get the support needed to ensure democratic justice and the upholding of our human rights. C’mon guys whit are ye doin’ aboot it?
This stuff would sound real petty if enumerated to Amnesty. They’re likely to say, come back when they start torturing some of you.
@Morag – I thought the point of all this was to something important.
Why do we continue to pay a license fee? We are actually paying the enemy to produce propaganda. As well as ignoring important public events they fail to report on serious breaches of conduct, not to mention bare faced lies, by the political leadership of SLAB. How about a mass civil disobedience campaign where we withhold our licence fee until the “impartial” public broadcaster actually becomes impartial? I’m game.
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Seanair,
Most pathetic comment on the gathering must be Murdo Fraser’s to the effect that supporters from the nearby Hibs v St Mirren game should have popped along to double the attendance.
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Aye and the two pandas on the march could have returned the favour by doubling the membership of the Scottish T.
Scottish Tory Party.