Wings Over Scotland

The big story in most of today’s papers is the British Social Attitudes survey, which has discovered a whole bunch of things of absolutely no importance whatsoever.

The Scotsman, for example, highlights the fact that while Scottish people don’t want the UK to have nuclear weapons, if they’re going to exist then a sizeable number of Scots want them – and the hundreds of jobs dependent on them – to stay on the Clyde. (Though just as many want them to leave.)

None of which, of course, will have the slightest effect on anything.

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We know only a few of you sit through these long video clips, but for the benefit of those who do this is a slightly unusual debate organised by the Prospect trade union and chaired by Magnus Gardham of the Herald, which took place at the union’s conference in Glasgow last month and saw Anas Sarwar and Nicola Sturgeon quizzed on some quite specific topics by various representatives of civic Scotland.

Readers can, as ever, come to their own conclusions as to which of the two gave the most convincing and honest answers, but one line from early on did leap out at us.

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Charlie Brooker in the Guardian, 17 June 2014:

“David Cameron has responded to [the ‘Trojan Horse’ schools] crisis by declaring we need to celebrate ‘Britishness’ with more enthusiasm.

More enthusiasm? More? We’ve been celebrating Britishness with the strained determination of a man desperately trying to shit a cricket ball for the past five years. There’s a Union Flag on every cushion, bedspread and Rimmel commercial. Twee cartoons of the London skyline adorn packets of biscuits. TV can’t shut up about Britain. The Great British Menu. The Great British Summer. The Great British Sewing Bee. The Great British Bake Off. The Great British Bayou. The Great British Bull Run. The Great British France.

We had the Olympics, for Christ’s sake. We spent the whole of 2012 waving flags like a semaphore dictionary on fast-forward. And that wasn’t enough? Now, years later, just as the Keep Calm and Carry On posters are finally starting to yellow and peel and fall from the wall like scraps of torched parchment, now Cameron wants MORE of that bullshit?”

Nice to know it’s not just us noticing.

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This morning’s papers report that Labour, the Tories and a small fringe party whose name has slipped our minds for a moment will this week release a statement about their shared commitment to further devolution of powers to Holyrood after a No vote.

We’re sure that Scotland’s journalists are all on top of the situation as usual and will put the statement under microscope-like scrutiny, but just in case, we have a tip.

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WEDNESDAY: Panini “politics sticker album” jokes are evidence of vile abuse:

SUNDAY: Panini “politics sticker album” jokes are light-hearted comedy material:

The BBC: you have to pay for this or you go to jail, readers.

The Sunday Mail has an editorial leader today about “cybernats”, in which the Daily Record’s sister paper offers the view that “far too much attention is given to these clowns”. It’s a good point – there’s been a surfeit of coverage of the subject lately.

From the last four days alone. Why can’t people just stop going on about them, eh?

Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir has a piece today on the nasty comments a tiny handful of idiots made to JK Rowling this week, which – unlike the alleged “barrage” of abuse supposedly unleashed against Labour activist Clare Lally – can at least definitely be said to have happened.

The piece is a tedious one-sided rant, but at the end something awesome happens.

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Alert readers will have had a hard time missing Labour spin doctor John McTernan on TV and radio and in newspapers this week. A former special adviser to Tony Blair, he’s been rolled out on heavy rotation across the media to pontificate on Campbell Gunn’s minor briefing error (which was swiftly apologised for) about frontline Labour activist Clare Lally, and to strenuously insist to anyone who’ll listen that abusive “cybernats” are co-ordinated and controlled by the SNP.

Anyone who’s followed Scottish (or, indeed, Australian) politics for any length of time will have been rubbing their eyes and syringing their ears in surprise at Mr McTernan being invited to cast aspersions on anyone else’s morals and ethics. Anyone who hasn’t might want to bring themselves up to speed.

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Is mine, of course. From last night’s Scotland Tonight, in case you missed it:

Particular kudos to STV for finding footage (it’s right at the start of this clip) of Clare Lally introducing and launching Johann Lamont’s Scottish Labour leadership bid in November 2011, even though the Daily Record said in August 2012 that she had “no previous political experience”. We expect someone will resign.

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We spent much of yesterday evening trying to actually track down the “vicious barrage” of vile cybernat abuse that Labour and “Better Together” activist Clare Lally says she was subjected to after being revealed to be rather less of an “ordinary” member of the public than the No camp presented her as at its recent Glasgow rally, and which has received wall-to-wall media coverage.

As yet, we’ve drawn a blank. We’ve made repeated requests, some to people who’ve contacted us angrily claiming to be her friends or family members, for evidence of any abusive comments at all. All have been met with an abrupt outbreak of silence.

Scotland 2014 devoted almost its entire 30-minute show to the issue last night. To depict the terrible onslaught, the above tweets were all they could come up with. The entire affair, readers might feel, is starting to smell distinctly piscine.

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It’s been a pretty bad-tempered day in the independence debate, as the No campaign drags everything down into the mud yet again in an attempt to hide their latest shame. Let’s end it on something beautiful.

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Sorry we’ve deserted you today, readers. I’ve been dashing around the BBC Bath radio cupboard, the ITV West Country studio and BBC Broadcasting House in Bristol talking mainly about the Clare Lally business, which the No campaign is throwing everything at. You’re going to have a hard time avoiding my big stupid face on the telly tonight.

The three appearances were very different in nature. On BBC Radio Scotland I had a very civilised discussion with host John Beattie and fellow guest Hamish Macdonell (of various publications), where everyone got to say their piece without us interrupting each other, while at Broadcasting House for, I think, Scotland 2014, I got pretty aggressively grilled but in a perfectly proper and professional journalistic manner. No complaints there – pending, of course, what makes the edit.

The ITV gig for Scotland Tonight was something else.

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