Wings Over Scotland

…not to laugh. The Scottish Daily Mail, unperturbed by the waves of mockery, is still banging away furiously on the “cybernats!” drum today, with another front-page lead and another two-page spread inside.

The paper’s managed to rope gormless Labour MSP Kezia Dugdale into its one-sided witch-hunt, and she pens an article dramatically entitled “TWITTER AND A THREAT TO BAYONET ME” complaining of someone “recently” threatening her, although the offensive tweet in question turns out (not revealed in the piece) to be 15 months old.

The above picture is – really and truly – the story’s illustration.

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The top five most-read stories on Wings Over Scotland in the last 7 days.

1. The bully pulpit
The Scottish Daily Mail “unmasks” some devilish “cybernats”.

2. Walls come tumbling down
The scare stories of Project Fear begin to crumble.

3. Eleven words of truth
The UK government’s latest propaganda paper starts well.

4. A frightened man
Jim Murphy MP demands nobody be allowed to challenge the No campaign.

5. To a grouse
The poem so good that we published a poem.

Because if you don’t, your brain sort of refuses to acknowledge that certain things happened, and won’t let you dwell on them lest you lose your grip on reality.

So when we watched Douglas Alexander interviewed on Sunday Politics Scotland today, and heard an answer so bizarre and so spectacularly, flagrantly unrelated to the question he was asked that we briefly thought there might have been a slow-acting hallucinogenic in the cinnamon-and-vanilla cider we were drinking last night, we figured we better get it down in print so we could study it properly and check our sanity.

(Click the image to watch and listen for yourselves.) See what you think.

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We were feeling a bit gloomy earlier on today at the realisation that we’d wasted two irreplaceable minutes of our life reading a load of vacuous waffle that Labour MP Douglas Alexander is apparently going to deliver today at what the Daily Record described as a “Better Together rally” somewhere in Glasgow.

(It must be one of those sorts of “rallies” that are kept secret until the last possible moment so that too many people don’t show up – it isn’t mentioned on the “Better Together” website and there’s nothing listed in their “Events” section within 50 miles of Glasgow until a bit of leafleting in a car park in East Kilbride on 22 February.)

So we thought if we could at least get a feature out of it the time wouldn’t be such a total write-off, plus it’s always fun to have a wander through one of Wee Dougie’s barnstorming, rabble-rousing addresses. Let’s go!

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There was much hilarity on BBC Radio Scotland’s “Headlines” this morning (from 39m), as the studio guests discussed right-wing Scottish Labour MP Jim Murphy’s Daily Mail-assisted attempts this week to silence dastardly so-called “cybernats” by preventing them from attending debates or appearing on TV.

But an alert Wings reader had already noticed that Mr Murphy isn’t exactly new to the notion of attempting to muzzle those whose opinions are not at one with his own.

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John “Chicogo” Barrowman knocks ’em dead as the special mystery celebrity guest at the “Better Together” Burns Night celebrations, which we are not making up:

 (Edit by Jack Foster.)

We normally have a fatwa on all poetry here, but as it’s Burns Night we’re making an exception – this magnificent effort by William Duguid was just too good to pass up.

Had we but known in time we’d have slipped it to John Barrowman, so to speak.

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So the Daily Mail emailed us earlier in the week, all friendly-like. They wanted to chat on the phone about this whole frightful “cybernat” business or send a reporter and photographer round, but as our head doesn’t button up the back and we didn’t just sail up the Clyde on a digestive biscuit we indicated that we’d rather keep everything nice and on-the-record in case of any unfortunate accidental misquotings.

So instead, we had them send their questions in writing and we sent back some helpful replies, accompanied by a clause that we’ve found effective in dissuading newspaper hacks from using extracts out of context. Below is a list of the Mail’s questions and the answers we sent them. In bold we’ve highlighted the parts that were actually used in the article, purely for the interest of readers who might find themselves in similar situations in the future and would like to know how it works.

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It’s mainly hilarious, if we’re being honest. Today’s hysterical “unmasking” of “cybernats” (in fact a collection of perfectly normal and varied people, using the internet under their real names and mainly with photographs of themselves) by the Scottish Daily Mail as part of its ongoing “Cybernat Watch” smear campaign is like a one-stop beginner’s guide to the paper’s lurid sub-tabloid modus operandi.

But much as we chuckle, there are deeply sinister undercurrents to the article.

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Something annoyed us a great deal this week, and for once it wasn’t some fatuous statement from Alistair Darling or Alistair Carmichael or Ruth Davidson (though all of those were in plentiful supply too). Rather, it was a comment from a distinguished academic and professional in what was otherwise a good-news story.

The chap in question was Patrick Layden QC, former Deputy Solicitor to the Scottish Executive (as was), prior to giving evidence to Holyrood’s European and External Relations Committee, and the quote published in several papers was a troubling one.

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When someone sent us a collection of tweets in the immediate aftermath of the Clutha tragedy late last year, we decided not to use them. It wasn’t for any great moral reason – we’ve previously highlighted despicable No-camp scumbags making political capital out of the deaths of innocent people – but we were just too sickened and sad (as most Scots were) to waste a moment’s thought on such human dregs.

As the Daily Mail ploughs on with its crusade against “vile cybernats”, though, it seemed worth pointing out for the record just what sort of a place the internet really is, and how pathetic its catalogue of mild swearwords and distaste is in that context.

Stop reading now if you’re easily upset.

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So, last night we mooted the idea of running a book on which “Better Together” scare story would crumble to dust next. We didn’t even have time to come up with odds for “the Clyde shipyards will close because the UK doesn’t build warships abroad”, and now it’s too late. We really need to move quicker.

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