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As it was and as it shall be

Posted on September 17, 2012 by

We need to come up with a name for this sort of thing. The weekend saw a prime example of the cynical, dishonest negativity that’s been inherent in the “Better Together” campaign since day one (and indeed, long before it was named as such).

Two stories about things being banned appeared in Sunday’s papers – the ejection of the “Scottish Republican Socialist Movement” from participation in this month’s march and rally for independence in Edinburgh, and the BBC’s successful complaint against “Better Together” for using its logo in a campaign leaflet. The former got more prominence, as the headline story in Scotland on Sunday in which Labour’s Jim Murphy used the incident as an excuse to smear the SNP despite not a shred of evidence being offered to suggest that the party even knew of the existence of the SRSM (which as far as we can gather is three blokes in a shed), let alone that it was comfortable with its cartoonishly extremist stance.

The anti-independence campaign, meanwhile, declined to offer an apology to the BBC for the illegal use of its logo, and instead took the opportunity to proudly announce that it would be reprinting 100,000 copies of an amended version of the offending leaflet, apparently in response to the SNP MSP Joan McAlpine pointing out the misdeed.

Readers of this site will of course be entirely familiar with this modus operandi, by which random and often anonymous internet nutters who happen to support independence (even if they in fact belong to entirely different parties) are treated as SNP spokesmen acting with the backing of, and speaking for, the SNP leadership. Yet on the Union side even official named representatives – often elected MPs and MSPs, who are paid by the public to represent all their constituents, including those who want independence – are never held accountable for their words and actions.

(Johann Lamont, for example, is yet to publicly reprimand a single one of the numerous Labour MPs and MSPs who have compared Alex Salmond to genocidal murderers, despite Labour regularly forming shrieking lynch mobs demanding the resignation of all and sundry if some minor council-election candidate from the SNP says something mildly contentious on his private Facebook page.)

We haven’t thought of a snappy name for this dismal phenomenon of deliberate double standards yet. It’d save a lot of trouble if we could just refer to it by a category name and avoid having to explain it every time, because we’d put good money on it continuing to happen for the next two years. Anyone got any ideas?

28 to “As it was and as it shall be”

  1. MajorBloodnok says:

    Yes, but they’re all unprintable.

    Reply
  2. Commenter says:

    “British Patriotism”?

    Reply
  3. bill says:

    Politcal Hypocrisy by the Labour/Tory/Lib Dem alliance isnt new, Scotland has been briefed against by those Tories by another name for decades.
     
    Think we’ll see a lot more Labourocrisy over the next couple of years!

    Reply
  4. Juteman says:

    Unimediabolxism.
    Or Diabolxism for short.:-)
    Or simply bolx.

    Reply
  5. Doug Daniel says:

    I think “Lies”, “Smears”, “Hypocrisy” or simply “Speaking Pish” would all do the job.

    Reply
  6. Silverytay says:

    what we are seeing is just the side effects of the willie bain syndrome .
    Since mr murphy was tweeting a full 5 minutes before the booing actually started on Friday we could call it the murphy malady . 

    Reply
  7. Aucheorn says:

    “Bitter Together announcing bolx again”
    Yes, that sounds about right !

    Reply
  8. Juteman says:

    Pish sounds good, Daniel.
    How about Uni-pish?

    Reply
  9. roni17 says:

    I Would call them bi=togs rated1- 10,10 being the most bitter.

    Reply
  10. James McLaren says:

    Titanic Empire Loyalisms

    Reply
  11. An Duine Gruamach says:

    Haivers?

    Reply
  12. EricF says:

    Scott Minto was talking about London Weighting in the previous blog.  It seems to me that what we have in the media is Union Weighting, pure and simple.

    Reply
  13. bill says:

    and the official Glasgow commonwealth ambassador goes to an english person, high-jacked again!  I boycotted the olympic games and will have nothing to do with the commonwealth games, itll be union jack waving opportunity for unionists seeking to undermine Scotland.  Question for the unionist trolls: which team will you be supporting in Glasgow 2014, Scotland or England or will you be sitting on the fence a wave a union rag?

    Reply
  14. Barontorc says:

    Howzabout:- 

    “Sleekit, Two-Faced Feckers”,

    or the “Better get Together or We’re Well and Truly Fecked Brigade”,

    or the “Better Union-Troughers Together” – in other words – “The Butts”,

    or maybe Burns had it spot-on with his “Parcel o’ Rogues”  – “The POR’s”

    Whatever springs forth will not carry enough opprobrium for my liking, so I’m settling on:-

    “The Opprobrious B’stards” -“TOBs”

    Reply
  15. Andrew says:

    Unionspeak

    Reply
  16. Rev. Stuart Campbell says:

    Folks, these suggestions for a snappy, punchy name for this phenomenon are RUBBISH. You have FAILED ME.

    Reply
  17. Andi says:

    @ Bill

    “the official Glasgow commonwealth ambassador goes to an English person, high-jacked again! ”

    Me and my wife discussed the Commonwealth Games and the referendum just the other week and acknowledged the unionists will use the games to show that Scotland can compete with its unique “Scotland brand” but still be part of the UK and be, cough…, better together.

    The new ambassador´s appointment is therefore not unexpected. (Nothing personal against her but it´s a pity the Scottish, or more precisely, Glasgow Commonwealth Games can´t “find” someone from Scotland and more specifically Glasgow). 

    As the title of this article states: “As it was and as it shall be”. Frustrating…

    Reply
  18. Arbroath 1320 says:

    Steady on there Stu, I think your being a wee bit tough on people there, remember it IS Monday and we all need a day or two to get back into the swing of things. 😆

    Reply
  19. Andrew says:

    Rev
    Difficult to think of a snappy, punchy name for a RUBBISH phenomenon. How about just “RUBBISH”

    Reply
  20. cynicalHighlander says:

    ‘Shysters’

    Reply
  21. YesYesYes says:

    How about slabrat-fucking/slabrat-fuckers? A compound of slab (Scottish Labour) and rat-fucking (Donald Segretti’s term for the black ops deployed by employees of CREEP to discredit the Democrats in the 1972 US presidential election, made famous in the film, ‘All the President’s Men’). It has the added bonus of implying an association between Scottish Labour and laboratory rats, poor things. 

    Reply
  22. Ayemachrihanish says:

    UHT (as in Tipp-Ex pretending to be milk )
     
    Unionist  
    Hypocrisy 
    Trolling 

    Reply
  23. Siôn Eurfyl Jones says:

    How about Shysterism? Or Shitesterism? 

    Reply
  24. Arbroath 1320 says:

    How about SS, a.k.a. Shite Shysters!

    Reply
  25. jake says:

    Is the term you are struggling for eristic dialectic ?

    I commend the following both in support of proposition and more generally as a “must read” for those who enjoy a dammed good argument:

    link to ebooks.adelaide.edu.au

    Reply
  26. Appleby says:

    The dismal media does its target switch again. Whips away the real story and pops a stuffed duck on display for people to marvel at instead while the important news is given concrete shoes and swimming lessons up the Clyde.
     
    I can’t imagine how corrupt you’d have to be to not even have a twinge of guilt about such blatant scummy behaviour.

    Reply
  27. John Lyons says:

    I’d call it “Doing a Lamont” after the Labour party leader who appeared on Newsnight Scotland with Nicola Sturgeon and Blethered on about how paly the SNP where with Murdoch. When challenged on how paly Labour were she replied “Ah bit we learn from our mistakes” !!! I could not believe it!

    Aye, definitely Doing a Lamont.

    Reply
  28. Alex McI says:

    How about bawbaggery. Snappy and to the point.
    Here is Johann with labours latest bawbaggery statement against seperation. 

    Reply


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