We’ve still got a few of the results from our last Panelbase poll (conducted last month) to round up, and this one seems pertinent this week:
As has been the case ever since we started asking this question about the nation’s twin constitutional dilemmas back in July 2015, the single most popular option in a four-way choice remains an independent Scotland inside the EU, which leads the impending reality (a UK Scotland outside the EU) by a clear 10 points.
Scotland isn’t merely about to get something it doesn’t want, it’s about to get the exact opposite of the thing it wants most. But oh boy, is it ever more complicated than that.
Tonight sees what’s likely to be a highly-charged Scottish Cup quarter-final replay at Ibrox Stadium. Defeat will effectively end the losing side’s season, and games between the participants, Aberdeen and Rangers International, have tended to be fierce affairs ever since the latter club was formed in controversial circumstances in 2012, with this season’s clashes already having seen numerous red cards.
(Mainly for the home team’s temperamental striker Alfredo Morelos.)
Football authorities will be hoping for a minimum of flashpoints on the field which might lead to repeats of shocking recent scenes of abuse and violence from spectators, which have prompted the nation’s media to wring its hands in theatrical angst and demand that something be done.
The public’s view on the subject, meanwhile, has remained absolutely consistent.
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.
Alf Baird on It just takes a beat: “As per usual you conveniently ignore a few fundamentals of colonial rule, Hatey. Lat’s mind oorsels, shall we, that: -…” Jul 12, 10:00
Hatey McHateface on It just takes a beat: “I find Tuchel agreeing with me, CC. England were lucky. Still though, Napolean used to value luck above everything else.” Jul 12, 09:56
Hatey McHateface on It just takes a beat: “The root causes, as they are of so many things, is unmanaged globalisation, which brings with it uncontrollable immigration, de-industrialisation,…” Jul 12, 09:27
Captain Caveman on It just takes a beat: “Sore head and happy heart. Semi finals is better than I thought England would do. 🙂 Bring on the Argentinians!” Jul 12, 09:18
Hatey McHateface on It just takes a beat: “So quiet here this morning. Almost as if the faithful all stayed up late to watch the England game!” Jul 12, 09:01
Ian Smith on It just takes a beat: “If someone had donated to the ring fenced fund at the same time as buying bitcoin or Nvidia shares, could…” Jul 11, 23:58
Hatey McHateface on It just takes a beat: “Good post, Northy. Don’t take yourself off to Alpha Centauri just yet.” Jul 11, 21:18
Hatey McHateface on It just takes a beat: “It’s worth observing that the regular moon howlers don’t think so. You’ll never hear a peep of criticism aimed at…” Jul 11, 21:10
Bilbo on It just takes a beat: “Demonstrations in a number of deprived areas in Glasgow this week. MSM says it involves men who committed alleged sex…” Jul 11, 20:42
Alf Baird on It just takes a beat: ““Not even liberation.scot can fill the gap if the SNP disappears.” Lorncal, I suspect most of Liberation Scotland’s 20,000 members…” Jul 11, 20:17
Confused on It just takes a beat: “widdecombe? – I think farage done it. He was round at her house, telling gas chamber jokes, having a rare…” Jul 11, 19:54
James Barr Gardner on It just takes a beat: “You’ve hit the nail on the head with your comment, some of these cultists have threatened violence against those who…” Jul 11, 18:38
Lorncal on It just takes a beat: “Alf: you illustrate my point well. I agree that a massive civic political movement for independence would be preferred, perhaps,…” Jul 11, 17:43
twathater on It just takes a beat: “Stuart Campbell would certainly have earned that ACCOLADE ,yet there are still moronic snp apologists and sycophants over t’Internet ACCUSING…” Jul 11, 17:00
Alf Baird on It just takes a beat: “The point both you and Andy, and the Rev and others miss, Lorncal, is that we do not need another…” Jul 11, 15:50
Young Lochinvar on It just takes a beat: “Rev Further to your interview with Martin Geisler is there any sign of John Swinney having taken up residence in…” Jul 11, 15:43
Lorncal on It just takes a beat: “Andy: I agree with the Rev’s logic and your comment, but, again, what is going to replace the SNP? The…” Jul 11, 14:35
Luigi on It just takes a beat: “The second photo of Honest John is hilarious. He looks like the tin man in the Wizard of Oz.” Jul 11, 13:29
robertkknight on It just takes a beat: “Today’s The National front page… SNP OFFER TO REFUND ‘INDYREF’ DONATIONS Concession despite ‘no evidence of fraud ‘ finding Whose…” Jul 11, 13:23
TURABDIN on It just takes a beat: “more on same meme. WE GOT RHYTHM…..or you’s the bass. https://theconversation.com/racial-stereotypes-of-african-footballers-persist-a-world-cup-is-a-good-time-to-talk-about-them-286673” Jul 11, 13:04
TURABDIN on It just takes a beat: “TALKING ABOUT «MONEY» QUOTE they dream of «corporate monarchies ruled by ceo kings» https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly8eqyj8e2o representative national government is necessary, democratic…” Jul 11, 12:40
James Barr Gardner on The Only Notes That Really Count: “If you paid by bank transfer and your address and bank details have not changed then the SNP should be…” Jul 11, 12:07
shug on It just takes a beat: “When the civil case approaches the only deal you should consider is Name the Alphabeties Lady Dorian out Swinney and…” Jul 11, 11:31
Knuckle_Heid on It just takes a beat: “Wow, look at all those press articles! And not one of them would be there if WoS hadn’t doggedly pursued…” Jul 11, 10:25
Bilbo on It just takes a beat: “Politicians get photographed in positions under lighting where when photographed, they appear to have a halo above them. When John…” Jul 11, 08:54
Northcode on It just takes a beat: “I would, if I had the means, chase down the ragged, walking dead corpse of the SNP and at last…” Jul 11, 07:34
Captain Caveman on The Only Notes That Really Count: “🙂 He’s a 60kg working lines Rottweiler male (our 7th of this magnificent breed). However, his aggression dial is turned…” Jul 11, 07:32
twathater on It just takes a beat: “That pathetic response from polis Scotland only serves to show just how ill served The Scottish public is with the…” Jul 11, 03:14
