We’ve been through all the papers and there’s still absolutely no Scottish politics news, so we’re going to take a moment out for one of our brief but always-popular tangential forays into the world of football. All the usual disclaimers apply.
Because the parlous state of current Scottish journalism can’t just be observed on the politics pages, with all their partisan spin, quarter-truths and hackery. Sometimes you get a better idea of it by stepping back and looking at the broader picture, and rarely is that picture more clear than when it’s a picture of “Rangers”.
The Daily Record devoted only a tiny corner of its back page on Thursday to the club’s latest financial reports, and the bulk of the text was devoted to Dave King enthusing about what great news it all was.
Pretty much every other piece of coverage to be found in the Scottish press was the same, shrugging the figures off as of no notable significance and all someone else’s fault anyway (in this case former manager Pedro Caixinha, even though one must suppose he didn’t spend any more money than the board told him he could), and we waited in vain for any in-depth analysis in the Sundays.
And we couldn’t help thinking we’d been here before.
While ploughing through hundreds of pages of hysterical drivel about Alex Salmond in the Scottish press this week, extra-alert readers may have also been aware of quite a stushie going on between the SNP-controlled Glasgow City Council (GCC) and a group of representatives and fans of Scotland’s newest professional football club The Rangers FC, such as Tory list MSP Adam “WATP” Tomkins (pictured below).
Most of Scottish Twitter has been enjoying itself greatly for the last few hours after England’s exit from the World Cup, but scattered in amongst the amusing memes has been a fair amount of angst about victors Croatia – a nation of 4 million people – being in the final when Scotland once again failed to qualify.
And while we’ll more than happily listen to any amount of criticism of the unbelievably incompetent, hapless clowns who’ve been in charge of the SFA/SPL/SPFL for the last several decades, that judgement is a bit harsh on the players and coaches and the nation as a whole. Because there really hasn’t been much in it.
Scotland’s qualification for World Cup 2018 hinged and ultimately faltered on a split second and a single badly-chosen pass in stoppage time.
One of the uglier facets of opposition to the hugely-popular but now-repealed Offensive Behaviour (Football) Act was the 100% uniform stance against it in the Scottish press. Despite the Act being backed by a large majority of voters across every demographic and political divide, not one print or broadcast journalist ever stood up for the public.
The reason, of course, is that bigots (and lurid stories about them) are a large part of what keeps the Scottish media’s life support machine functioning, and so the media panders cynically to the extremist sections of the Celtic and “Rangers” support who still buy papers for the latest transfer gossip and soft-soap interviews with ex-players.
And so it is with a remarkably mad front-page lead in today’s Sunday Herald.
The paper reports that “over half” – 44 out of 86 – outstanding OBFA charges have been “converted” into other types of offences and are still being prosecuted by the independent Crown Office, claiming without explanation that this is “an embarrassing move for the SNP Government”.
Much of central Cowdenbeath was closed down for several hours by the police yesterday to facilitate an Orange Order parade attended by DUP leader Arlene Foster. (Curiously, Ruth Davidson, who’d been vocal in her complaints about traffic disruption in Glasgow due to the recent Yes march, had no objections this time.)
Foster made an audaciously ironic plea for a nation “free from intolerance and hatred“, right before the next speaker stepped up to denounce large sections of the local population as “enemies of Christ”.
And no, we don’t even mean the FOUR spelling mistakes in this 42-word tweet.
We mean the bit that we’ve highlighted above in blue. Because what Scottish Labour’s lowest-watt bulb was gloating about earlier today was that Lord Bracadale concluded there’d been no gap created in the law by the Kelly-driven abolition of the OBFA.
And that’s… well, that’s not quite what Lord Bracadale said.
We could all do with some cheering up at the moment, so it’s with great pleasure that we can announce fantastic news for Scotland – the ancient plague of sectarianism has finally been defeated once and for all!
At least, we assume it MUST have been, because this week the Scottish Parliament is set to give its final assent – thanks to Labour, the Tories, the Liberal Democrats and the all-important Scottish Greens – to abolishing the Offensive Behaviour (Football) Act, against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the Scottish population.
And as we can plainly observe from events yesterday, they would only be doing that if sectarianism was no longer a problem and it was safe to send out an encouraging message to the bigots that their worldview is now acceptable in Scotland again.
Not too many surprises here. (Except, perhaps, the 18% of respondents who claimed to be football fans yet also said they had no interest in the World Cup.)
Excluding the disinterested the numbers were:
England 24% England’s opponents 38% Others 40%
And for people actually born in Scotland the figures came out at
England 20% England’s opponents 41% Others 39%
And that’s pretty much the natural order of things. If you’re a “Rangers” fan and you cheer for Celtic when they play (let’s not say “compete”) in the Champions League, or a Celtic fan who backed “Rangers” in the Petrofac Training Cup, you’re the weirdo.
Deep in the summer news desert, the papers today are struggling for material again. The Sunday Herald has a shock-horror front-page exposé about some photos from an Orange Lodge party that turn out to be from 2010 and 2013, while the Scottish Mail On Sunday reaches all the way back to 1940 to fill a couple of pages.
Last week the walking monotone drone that is James Kelly MSP lodged a motion (an inescapably appropriate term for his output, it must be said) at the Scottish Parliament instigating his private members’ bill to repeal the Offensive Behaviour (Football) Act, having announced his intention to do so in February after putting together a ludicrously bogus “consultation” on the subject last year.
As ever, Kelly trotted out a mixture of baseless assertions and flat-out lies about the Act in support of his move, because apparently the most pressing issue currently facing Scotland, in the view of Scottish Labour, is that bigoted thugs must once again be free to sing about being up to their knees in Fenian blood, or lionise murderous terrorists, at sporting events without fear of prosecution.
Tremendous news for the rest of Scotland’s football clubs as Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers promises never to win the treble unbeaten again, even if his side score more goals than the other team in all their matches.
twathater on Ginger beer and fruit and nuts: “@ JCD If you want independence for Scotland and there is a candidate from Liberate Scotland standing in your constituency…” Dec 5, 03:20
Cynicus on The cost of failure: “Hatey McHateface says: 4 December, 2025 at 8:26 pm “To be fair to El-Nakla, they don’t have high buildings where…” Dec 5, 01:32
Mark Beggan on The cost of failure: ““take the Northern Isles” no thanks. They’re fine where they are. “When not if..” In the name of the wee…” Dec 4, 22:59
Hatey McHateface on The cost of failure: ““Independence will never happen” Ah, c’moan noo, Mark. Never is a very long time. When, not if, independence happens, it…” Dec 4, 22:40
Mark Beggan on The cost of failure: “As the BBC always like to say ‘This is what we know so far .’ Independence will never happen. The…” Dec 4, 21:24
Hatey McHateface on The cost of failure: “To be fair to El-Nakla, they don’t have high buildings where he hails from. He wouldn’t have been aware of…” Dec 4, 20:26
Peter McAvoy on The cost of failure: “On reporting Scotland tonight the report showing John Swinney speaking he called Nigel Farage racist,has he forgotten Humza Youseff’s white,white…” Dec 4, 20:02
Hatey McHateface on The cost of failure: “It’s your craven fear of the “resident multi ID troll” reading here that stops you from writing the faintest outline…” Dec 4, 20:02
Mark Beggan on The cost of failure: “In Scotland even the government’s on Benefits.” Dec 4, 19:53
Mark Beggan on The cost of failure: “‘The public wants what the public gets’. Soar Giro!” Dec 4, 19:50
Hatey McHateface on The cost of failure: ““We must spend the next 6 months showing people the truth and showing them the way to get what we…” Dec 4, 19:49
agentx on The cost of failure: ““Holyrood demands answers over Humza Yousaf and Aamer Anwar friendship as lawyer nets ‘significant public funds’ through public inquiries The…” Dec 4, 19:47
Hatey McHateface on The cost of failure: ““it will take significant time for any initiative to grow and garner decent levels of support” Oh aye, Dan. If…” Dec 4, 19:41
agentx on The cost of failure: ““Humza Yousaf’s brother-in-law goes on trial over ‘extortion and dealing heroin and cocaine’ Ramsay El Nakla, 37, is on trial…” Dec 4, 19:40
Aidan on The cost of failure: “@Dan- why don’t you just state outright what you think rather than setting up these metaphors? I think you seem…” Dec 4, 19:35
Hatey McHateface on The cost of failure: “You’ll still have some popcorn from last time! Hark at me. “Some” popcorn. You’ll still have every last kernel of…” Dec 4, 19:29
sarah on The cost of failure: “@ 100%Yes at 4.46: very well said and spot on. It is the SNP “leadership” that has blocked our escape…” Dec 4, 19:26
Hatey McHateface on The cost of failure: “Money grubbing bastards! They already get well paid for working from 0900 to 1700, with an hour off for lunch.” Dec 4, 19:26
Dan on The cost of failure: “And recent blow in Aidan enters the chat. Of course, Liberate like other initiatives before hasn’t reached significant levels of…” Dec 4, 19:24
Hatey McHateface on The cost of failure: “Dan puts me right, again. Who knew that on Wings BTL, to describe somebody as a “gurning, wee, talent-free wifie”…” Dec 4, 19:22
Willie on The cost of failure: “Strangled by their own Ptard on every metric policy, delivery, evaporated membership, donations, legacies and now voters, the SNP from…” Dec 4, 19:18
David Holden on The cost of failure: “God I hope the yoons pay their keyboard warriors by the word as with any luck our resident multi ID…” Dec 4, 19:13
Anthem on The cost of failure: “Totally agree Sarah. The fun is about to begin.” Dec 4, 19:12
Kate L on Ain’t Got Time To Bleed: “The most beautiful “dear Sir” I’ve read in my life.” Dec 4, 18:53
Aidan on The cost of failure: “@Dan – but 100% yes is right. The Liberate Scotland group has both no funding and no strategy. “Deaftism” is…” Dec 4, 18:50
Dan on The cost of failure: “Shilling for Sturgeon now Main. Of course, it wasn’t all down to her ya rocket. There was Angus Robertson who…” Dec 4, 18:49
Bob on Ain’t Got Time To Bleed: “Rev, I may not always agree with everything you write, but that is a classic reply and I salute you…” Dec 4, 18:46
Mark Beggan on The cost of failure: “The Scottish government has been on benefits since 1707.” Dec 4, 18:35
