Wings Over Scotland

When we started a politics website, we invested in the best equipment money could buy, because we knew we’d need to guard against double standards ourselves as well as measuring them in others. The Super HypocrisOMeter 5000 is an industrial-strength device, built to cope with the most extreme manifestations of a trait that is the stock-in-trade of all politicians. But this morning we switched it on and tried to run Labour’s reaction to a story in today’s Express through it, and look what happened:

Let’s be clear. We’re not especially fussed about the comments themselves. We’ve figuratively wished a few people dead in our time, and as we’ve recently noted, at the end of the day it’s just words on the internet. We’re deeply dismayed at the growing phenomenon where people can be prosecuted, fired from their job, or even threatened with prison just for saying unpleasant stuff that plainly isn’t meant in any threatening sense. Salmond Senior’s own admirable response strikes the perfect note of disdain.

We’re not even going to attempt to whip up any outrage about the fact that the Labour member in question chose to attack Alex Salmond’s 90-year-old father rather than the First Minister himself – that’s pathetic and despicable, rather than hypocritical. Nope, the thing that catastrophically overloaded the triple-locked shielding and emergency cutout protection of the Super HypocrisOMeter 5000 was Labour’s astonishing attempt to half-heartedly distance the party from the comments. As well as blithely and shamefully trying to insist that Mr Kelly’s views reflected a “substantive issue”, Labour’s unnamed spokesman offered the following high-handed dismissal:

“This desperate smear campaign falls at the first hurdle because this Facebook page is not owned, managed, or operated by Scottish Labour, and it will not detract from the rantings and ravings of SNP candidates – sacked or otherwise – online.

“Political parties are responsible for their candidates and officials, but members of the public must be responsible for their own behaviour.”

Those readers whose minds haven’t just boggled all the way into unconsciousness will very likely be struggling to reconcile this statement with Labour’s previous views on online extremism, at least when it’s practiced by the infamous “cybernats“:

“Mr Gray made a strongly worded attack on what he calls ‘vile cybernats’ during his final Scottish Labour conference speech. And today Mr Gray writes in The Scotsman that he has discovered ‘at least one post suggesting that a particular journalist should be shot’.

Mr Gray also accused the SNP leadership of a “tolerance of this culture”. He also said that all voters ‘should be worried’ by internet postings from some SNP supporters, who he says are ‘poisoning the vital debate we now face’ on Scotland’s future. There is also a claim from Mr Gray, who stands down as leader on 17 December, that the SNP internet posters are ‘undermining the decency of the country’.“

Iain Gray has, of course, been far from alone among senior Labour figures in insisting that the “cybernats” – a disparate group of largely-anonymous individuals, of whom all, some or none might actually be SNP members – operate under the explicit instruction and control of the SNP leadership:

“Labour’s Anas Sarwar said: “Everyone knows that Alex Salmond desperately wants a second question on the ballot and now he has left the door open for his army of cybernats to deliver the response he wants.”“

Ever since 2011, Labour and its tame media have ramped up the angle that the SNP leadership must “do something about the cybernats“. Prominent features are headlined with pious pleas or strident demands for the SNP to condemn their nefarious activities, even as elected Labour MPs, MSPs and councillors (rather than random internet users) freely compare Alex Salmond to Hitler, Robert Mugabe or Slobodan Milosevic or call SNP politicians and members ‘traitors” without the hysterical press opprobrium which accompanies “cybernats” doing the same thing.

The Facebook group on which Alex Salmond’s father was wished dead was not an open group populated by any old internet loonies who wandered along. It’s closed to the public and the controlled, vetted membership of 533 includes the Scottish party’s foremost and finest – as well as current “leader” Johann Lamont and her “deputy” Anas Sarwar along with Shadow Scottish Secretary Margaret Curran, former First Minister Jack McConnell, MPs Cathy Jamieson, Ian Davidson, Eric Joyce, Sarah Boyack, Tom Harris, Tom Greatrex and Tom Watson, and front-bench MSPs Jackie Baillie, Ken Macintosh and James Kelly, are all members.

(Most of the prominent online Labour activists whose names our readers will recognise also belong to the group, including John Ruddy, Aidan Skinner, Duncan Hothersall and Cllr Alex “Braveheart” Gallagher. Only the lovely Terry Kelly is unaccountably missing.)

We don’t think it’s dreadfully unreasonable to suggest that with a membership list like that, Scottish Labour has a lot more control and responsibility over what’s posted on the group than the SNP does over random anonymous Twitter users or comment-thread posters. In a world where suggesting that certain actions of rival politicians might be “anti-Scottish” generates hundreds of column inches and loud demands for resignation, we look forward to the blanket media coverage demanding that the leadership takes urgent action against this vile cyberBrit menace nestling in the very bosom of Scottish Labour. We’re certain it’ll be along any minute now.

The political is the personal. Nobody comes out of the womb with a view on the merits of the free market versus state interventionism – opinions are formed by someone’s experiences and environment. So where do “cybernats” come from? Speaking as one myself, and quite a recently-minted one at that, let me see if I can explain it.

I wasn’t indoctrinated into the Nationalist cause as a child – my parents are pro-Union (but I’m working on that). My upbringing was British, and I was proud of it. So what went wrong with the United Kingdom that now in adult life I disavow the very notion of Britishness and strive to bring that same UK to an end?

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The Scottish media this week has worked itself into an apoplectic rage over Alex Salmond acting (or rather, merely being prepared to act) in defence of thousands of Scottish jobs. It’s been an odd phenomenon to witness, but doubly so given that last week everyone was furious with him over some jobs that were lost.

Despite the fact that unemployment in Scotland (at 8.1%) is again lower than in the UK (8.3%), the situation remains extremely fragile and any government could expect severe criticism if it failed to do everything in its power to protect and create jobs. Yet Alex Salmond appears, on the evidence of the last few days, to be damned by the Scottish media if he does and damned if he doesn’t.

The taxpayer-funded BBC has a far more powerful influence in Scotland than News International, and is frequently portrayed by nationalists as the Union’s propaganda vehicle of choice. The allegations can sometimes be difficult to dispute however objective one would wish to be, and the BBC’s coverage of the Doosan furore last week was an instructive case.

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We had a successful but very late night at poker last night, so we've only been up for a couple of hours as we write this. But we've been watching BBC News for that entire time, almost all of which they've spent talking about the Leveson Inquiry, and so far they haven't felt that the allegations concerning Alex Salmond (about which the Scottish press and Holyrood opposition is in such a shrieking frenzy) were worthy of so much as a single mention. To be honest, we think that's as telling an analysis of the story's merits as anything anyone could write. (Though this is also a good stab.)

Similarly, we look forward to seeing whether the opposition parties are so suicidally stupid and lacking in self-awareness as to attack Salmond over the issue at First Minister's Questions tomorrow, given that they're all absolutely dripping with gooey, sticky, foul-smelling brown effluent when it comes to their own relations with Murdoch. But nevertheless, something's been nagging at us for a little while, and perhaps some of our rapidly-growing band of readers might be able to help provide an answer:

What IS it that's so uniquely evil about Rupert Murdoch anyway?

Wings Over Scotland isn't yet a billionaire multi-media mogul, but if we were we can offer you a solemn and unequivocal promise: we would use our power to try to influence political events in favour of our own agenda, all day and every day. Apart from making money, that's the ONLY reason anyone EVER gets involved in the media. We hope we're not giving away a massive secret or anything there.

This blog exists at the opposite end of the political spectrum to Rupert Murdoch on just about any issue you care to name. We despise almost every ideology he holds dear. But we acknowledge his right in a free democracy to put forward his views and use any legal means he can to further them.

Phone-hacking, of course, is not legal. But it's beyond any rational doubt that just about every major media organisation in the land is knee-deep in the swamp when it comes to phone-hacking, so there's nothing uniquely evil about Murdoch among media proprietors in that regard. The same goes for publishing oceans of largely made-up prurient/muck-raking drivel about celebrities and their sex lives/cellulite, which is in fact the main engine of 90% of news-stand journalism nowadays.

So why is it worse for Murdoch to back political parties than when the Guardian or the Mail or the Mirror Group does it? Why is it somehow inherently wrong and scandalous and dirty for, say, the Scottish Sun to back the SNP, but okay for the Daily Record to back Labour, the Guardian to support the Lib Dems, the Telegraph to advocate the Tories and the Mail to come out for the French National Front?

We're serious. It's been axiomatic folk-wisdom in this country for years – since long before the phone-hacking scandal – that Rupert Murdoch is the devil, and merely being associated with his name makes you instantly guilty of some sort of a priori crime. We're not fans, but can anyone tell us what it is he's actually done that makes him measurably worse than anyone else in his line of business in this country? Is it just that he's better and more successful at it? We'd honestly like to know.

May 2011 saw an earth-shaking event redefine Scottish and UK politics, when the sheer scale of the SNP victory over its opponents caught everyone – including the SNP – off guard. The shock of the Unionist parties, though, was plainest to see. Lacking a coherent response to an unforseen event they were paralysed into inaction (by a combination of disbelief, delusion and sheer terror at the prospect of Scots finally being given an unrestricted say in their constitutional future) as rigidly as a rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. 

The issue for the UK parties was that at first they simply couldn't comprehend the radically different new playing field they found themselves operating on. The result was an initial reflexive reaction of poorly thought-out attacks, smears and scaremongering that were easily dismantled by both independence supporters (most famously in 2011's hugely popular "#NewScareStoryLatest" Twitter hashtag) and neutral observers.

It's the nationalists' good fortune that the anti-independence parties have taken until a mere two weeks before the local-government elections to begin to formulate a more useful response. The easy ride of obviously-ludicrous scare stories, conflicting messages and sheer shambolic ineptitude is finally, perhaps, drawing to a close.

While we can still expect to see plenty examples of the former tactics, the Unionists are no longer a rabbit in headlights. Rather, as they begin to focus their efforts with some faltering semblance of competence, we're seeing at least some signs of them turning into the symbol of Britishness they most cherish – the lion.

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Nobody starts a blog because they want to. It’s time-consuming, it costs money, and it opens you up to all manner of hideous abuse. In my 20-year career as a professional journalist I’ve had my home address and home phone number published countless times, usually accompanied by implied or explicit exhortations for people to come round and kick my head in. I’ve been the subject of more than one hate campaign so prolonged, vitriolic and alarming that serious police intervention was required. I lost count of the death threats (some of them made to my face) years ago. And the sheer volume of venomous, hysterical name-calling and general rage that’s been directed my way would fill every page of the complete Encyclopaedia Britannica and more.

(I should note, in the interests of fairness, that if it comes to a flame war I’m no fainting violet myself, if you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor. In the circumstances, sometimes you’ve just got to let off a little steam or you’d go completely mad. I have very little time for sites that get all prissy about a good honest ding-dong.)

This blog carries no advertising. I’m freelance, and every hour I spend researching, checking, writing and maintaining it is an hour when I’m not earning money to pay for the (extortionate) rent, the (crippling) utility bills and the (debilitating) weakness for imported salt’n’vinegar flavour KP Mini Chips. Like the vast majority of others, I mostly blog – to coin a phrase – not for glory, nor riches, nor honours, but out of frustration at an unheard, unrepresented voice.

Wings Over Scotland arose for just that reason. I’d been searching for a while for a Scottish political blog that wasn’t abysmally written, appallingly designed, intellectually embarrassing or all three, and in 2011 I briefly thought I’d discovered it in an earlier version of Better Nation. That illusion lasted for the few hours it took to be summarily banned, without warning or explanation (and by person or persons still unidentified), from commenting on my own article. It was at this point I reluctantly acknowledged that I couldn’t count on being able to express my uncensored views on Scottish politics anywhere unless I took matters into my own hands.

The blog’s been running for five months now, and has seen a pleasingly rapid growth in readership – monthly page views are now in six figures, and monthly unique users well into five figures. (We note, curiously, that almost no other blogs reveal their traffic levels even to that degree.) In that time we’ve also become much more intimately acquainted with the rest of the Scottish online media, both professional and blogosphere, and a few interesting things have become apparent. And since today’s a bit of a slow news day, it seems as good a time as any to examine some of them.

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The nationalist blogosphere is alive this weekend with talk of the recent BBC briefing at which several senior figures addressed an audience of the Corporation’s up-and-coming young journalists. The consensus view is that the recordings of the seminar reveal the BBC’s ingrained anti-independence bias – and indeed they do just that. But they do so in a way that’s both much less obvious and far more fundamental than most of the SNP supporters who’ve commented on them would have you believe.

You can watch the entire compiled recording above (the four individual sections with no syncing issues can be found here) and make your own mind up about what it demonstrates. But as our interpretation is rather at odds with that of most nationalists we’ve seen, we’re going to humbly offer it up for your consideration too.

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We’re probably all sick of the “Skintland” furore already. The sneering, condescending front cover of the Economist (coupled with a truly dreadful Photoshopped image of Alex Salmond inside which was oddly reminiscent of one on a campaign leaflet the Lib Dems had to apologise for and withdraw last year) achieved its aim of provocation, while the feature it purportedly advertised was an altogether more innoffensive beast, cobbling together some fairly bog-standard Unionist innuendo, supposition and misrepresentation amounting to nothing much that we haven’t heard a hundred times before, and which was excellently dismantled by Gerry Hassan.

The most interesting thing about the article was that it started with a preamble about the Darien Scheme, a 17th-century business venture which went horribly wrong and which anti-independence activists are very fond of bringing up as a stick to beat Scottish nationalists. This very week, for example, saw the publication (given much prominence by the Unionist media) of a report by Professor Malcolm Chalmers on the future of Scottish defence, in which the learned academic also felt it bafflingly necessary to cite the three-centuries-old events of the Darien adventure.

The Chalmers report was noteworthy not just for its politically-motivated conclusions, but also the emotive language and narrative of British nationalism running through it. We’ll deal with the report itself in more detail soon, but for this weekend’s in-depth feature we’re going to look at the theme of BritNat mythology, and in particular the re-writing of the story of the Darien Scheme to that end. Trust me, it’ll be fun.

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The world of Scottish soccer is in a ferment this week, and we use the word "soccer" quite deliberately. The two-part compound word "football" sticks in our throat, because the Scottish game has plenty of the first part but absolutely none of the second.

The reason for the sudden outbreak of sound and fury, which will ultimately signify nothing, is the revelation by the SPL of what the blogosphere is already calling the "Cheat's Charter". In itself it's actually a fairly innocuous document, and indeed could be portrayed as a crackdown. It proposes a raft of new penalties for teams going into administration or liquidation, with sanctions both on and off the field – a 75% reduction in monies paid by the League to the offending team for three years, and a 10-point deduction for two additional years following administration.

Since none of these punishments are currently part of SPL rules, one could not entirely unreasonably depict the changes (should they be agreed by the clubs in the meeting at the end of April) as a tightening-up of procedures. But equally rationally, the supporters of 11 out of the 12 SPL clubs are seeing them as something else entirely. Because what the proposed new rules do is explicitly lay down the route to a possibility which until now was only implicit – the return of a post-liquidation Rangers Football Club directly into the top flight of the Scottish game.

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Last week saw another deployment of Labour's secret weapon in the fight against the SNP and their dastardly independence plans. The device is a WMD (Weapon of MisDirection) which the party has unleashed several times. But the weapon has a persistent teething problem – it has a tendency to come straight back and hit the user in the rear when they least expect it, while rarely managing even a glancing blow off the intended target. (Which in this case is of course the SNP.)

We've seen the patented Attack Boomerang in action on many occasions (the most recent being the bizarrely ill-judged attack on the SNP's referendum consultation which rebounded particularly badly on the party's "deputy" Scottish leader Anas Sarwar, and forced even the BBC to reluctantly acknowledge Labour's embarrassment), but one of the strangest was Labour's bitter criticism of the SNP over the fact that it had persuaded Amazon, the internet retailing giant, to recently open a large centre in the Dunfermline area and provide thousands of new jobs.

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We couldn't help but note the Bill Walker story floating back to the top of the media agenda again this weekend like – well, you can finish that metaphor for yourself.

After an embarrassing week in which Labour had scoured Twitter and Facebook with a fine tooth comb trying to find obscure SNP councillors/candidates saying anything mildly contentious that they could fake some pious outrage about (of which this surely represented the pitiful, embarrassing nadir, as a fully-grown man tried pathetically to manufacture some kind of offence at a handful of primary-school-playground jokes that wouldn't have upset even the primmest Victorian maiden aunt), the beleagured party and its increasingly-desperate activists went back to some safer ground.

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*Wings over Scotland is very pleased to be able to bring its readers another terrific guest post from Andrew Page of A Scottish Liberal. We spoil you, really we do.

This past Friday, the 6th of April, saw the anniversary of one of the most significant events in Scottish history – the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath.

It was a truly inspirational and courageous statement on many levels, and it is unsurprising that almost eight hundred years later it continues to have an impact on our understanding of nationhood and Scottish identity. That it was an expression of Scottish nationalism cannot be doubted: indeed, it is one of the most articulate, eloquent and heartfelt expressions of Scottish nationhood ever written.

But it is so much more than that, and at its heart was more than mere nationalistic aspiration, but a passionate cry for freedom and liberty. It was also, at its most basic level, a challenge to religious authority centuries ahead of its time in addition to arguably being a stimulus for far-reaching changes in European constitutional thinking.

In appealing to the Pope the signatories to the declaration make clear their commitment not merely to Scotland’s independence but also to its nationhood. In a curiously selective recollection of Scottish history, they point to how the Scots “came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today”, thereafter “[holding] it free of all bondage ever since” while “in their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken [by] a single foreigner.”

While these “facts” are more the product of cultural sensitivities rather than historical understanding, there can be no escaping the sense of belonging to a proud nation – one of “freedom and peace” in which “our people harbour no malice or treachery and [are] unused to wars or invasions.” A fine vision, indeed.

In some respects, it is easy to detect a more than faint romanticism in these claims as is generally true with most nationalist thinking. Perhaps, while many today identify Scotland in terms of Celtic mysticism, the tartan and bagpipes culture of the White Heather Club, haggis and shortbread tin landscapes the signatories of the Arbroath declaration were equally in love with an artificial view of Scotland, based itself on false assumptions about the nation’s history, its potential and its individual nature.

Such assumptions perhaps contain a grain of truth, but are in fact quite dangerous and are themselves usually based on modern hostility to Scottish nationalism. Certainly, the myth of ethnic origin apparently expressed within the Declaration can be easily debunked, but it’s also clear that Scottish nationhood was not defined by such fiction. The explanation of Scotland’s establishment was designed to persuade the Pope of their cause rather than an exercise in writing accurate history.

What is immediately obvious is that the nature of nationhood itself, as expressed in the Declaration of Arbroath, is far different from that often associated with the romanticised view of Scotland that appeals far more to foreign visitors than it rings true to most contemporary Scots. At the root of the nationalists’ cause in 1320 were core values, not determined by lines on maps or even historic achievements but a right to self-determination, for recognition, for an end to oppression and the subservient status apropos England. Put in modern terms, it was a desire on the part of Scots to take control of their own political destiny.

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