It’s not the first time we’ve had to raise this subject. But as the rhetoric ramps up from an increasingly nasty and unhappy No camp, we have to ask again – just what is the Labour Party’s problem with foreigners?
This, in case you didn’t see it on our Twitter feed, was on the front page of the Independent website this morning (and indeed still is). It wasn’t a mistake.
The piece featured the Scottish author discussing various pieces of news from the past week (the guest is different every Saturday). Topics included Ed Miliband’s suitability to be Prime Minister (or lack thereof), Stephen King’s objections to e-books, corporate tax avoidance and anonymity for people who’ve been arrested.
But while the paper chose to lead with Scottish independence for its headline, for some reason it didn’t carry a picture of Alex Salmond or Nicola Sturgeon or Blair Jenkins, nor even of Rankin himself, whose words the headline comprised.
Can anyone explain to us the fundamental difference between “I wouldn’t want my son to be a foreigner” and “I wouldn’t want my daughter to marry a black man”? Because we’re not at all sure that we can locate it.
We don’t normally pick out individual stories from the Sealand Gazette and put them on the front page, but, well, you’ll see why we’ve done it today in a few seconds’ time.
The piece below is from the Ilford Recorder, a newspaper in north-east London.
Johann Lamont used to be an English teacher. We presume she was a conscientious and caring educator. We imagine she’s as horrified and embarrassed by this press release from the train-drivers’ union ASLEF yesterday as we are.
A stunning piece in the Telegraph eventually ran away with the vote in our British Loony Of The Week poll at the weekend. But what we didn’t realise at the time was that we were in fact only conducting the first semi-final. We’ve got two more absolute crackers for you to enjoy today.
…of welfare reform, we thought you might like to hear this. It’s a short (four and a half minutes) interview with a doctor formerly employed by Atos Healthcare, broadcast on the Today show on Radio 4 last Thursday. Atos were hired to do this work by Labour, and retained by the Tories and Lib Dems. But you knew that already, right?
If you want to listen to the whole segment, it’s from 20 minutes.
Yesterday the Daily Record led with a front-page splash about Labour-controlled South Lanarkshire council threatening to evict a tenant over bedroom tax arrears. Today the paper carries a profuse apology from the council’s leader Eddie McAvoy insisting that the letters were sent in error, although the recipient was unconvinced:
“The council last night hand delivered a letter of apology to Angela. But she said: “I don’t believe a mistake was made in the first place and it is only because I appeared in the Record that the council have backed down.””
The Record was deeply sceptical too, issuing a sternly-worded rebuke to the council in an editorial leader column which also pointed out other unsightly goings-on in the “long-time Labour fiefdom”.
We must presume that rogue elements in Labour are at fault, then.
When supprters of Scottish independence cite the infamous McCrone Report – a UK government document suppressed by both Conservative and Labour administrations in the 1970s because of its explosive revelations about the potential wealth of an independent Scotland – Unionists have a standard tactic.
Mumbling that it’s all ancient history, water under the bridge, and things are different now, they attempt – quite understandably – to swiftly move the discussion away from the uncomfortable reality of how much trust Scots should place in the word of London governments on the subject of oil revenues.
Today’s Sunday Post carries a front-page lead story which notes that in the 40 years since the original report was hidden from the Scottish people, nothing has fundamentally changed. As almost nothing of the Post is currently available online, we’ve included a hefty extract from the article below.
Thanks to the alert reader who pointed us at a Plymouth Herald story today about lovable UKIP candidate and teacher of British children, the charming Ron Northcott.
“Plymouth UKIP man quits after calling Scots ‘workshy addicts’ in Twitter rant
A UKIP politician has “fallen on his sword”, after abusing Scots people on the social media site Twitter. Ron Northcott, a former election candidate in Plymouth for the UK Independence Party, resigned from the party yesterday. David Salmon, UKIP’s Plymouth chairman, said:
“Ron is not talking to any member of the press. I can say that following the appalling behaviour of some Scots against Nigel Farage, Ron was involved in what he describes as banter with a Scot living in London.
His out-of-character remark was unacceptable and he has stood down with immediate effect as a potential candidate for next years elections. We in no way condone his language and the sentiments expressed. He has stepped down and will be leaving UKIP.”
Northcott’s “banter” came to light because this site highlighted it and posted it on Twitter, where at the time of writing it had been seen by over 8,000 people. You can read the now-deleted badinage below.
Much of the Scottish media today is full of (mostly right-wing) commentators bleating piteously about the dreadful carnage in Edinburgh yesterday in which, um, a couple of dozen scruffy student types shouted at a silly man for a bit. Here, for example, is the usually-sane Alex Massie wringing his hands about the horror of it all in the Spectator:
Suppressed? Are we talking about the same Nigel Farage?
THAT Nigel Farage, up there?
Wings Over Scotland is a thing that exists.
