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 Ain’t it funny how things change?: “““the rich”” i.e. normal developed sovereign countries (GDP per capita, 2025, US$: Statista): Ireland – $130,650 Switzerland – $115,620 Singapore…” Jul 25, 14:08
sam on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Jim Cuthberts academic qualifications, his work experience in the Scottish office and elsewhere puts him head, shoulders, torso, pelvis, legs…” Jul 25, 14:06
sam on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “This is what I said above in my reply to Factchecker. “His point is not that more powers have been…” Jul 25, 13:38
Alf Baird on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““I never claimed to have my own work” So that’s a big ‘naw’ then, ye’ve nivver published hee-haw aboot onythin.…” Jul 25, 13:24
Captain Caveman on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Good points, eloquently raised. Well debated. 🙂 I’m walking the dog and have to do some shopping, but will come…” Jul 25, 13:06
Captain Caveman on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““More bullshit about tax from the resident fuckbrains. – the rich don’t pay taxes. They never did.” Well, the forum…” Jul 25, 12:40
Northcode on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “You’ve raised several points, but they rest on assumptions that don’t quite align with the structure of the discussion. “Ah,…” Jul 25, 12:38
Confused on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “More bullshit about tax from the resident fuckbrains. – the rich don’t pay taxes. They never did. (And the french…” Jul 25, 12:20
Captain Caveman on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Ah, the old “where’s your own work” deflection. How weak. I never claimed to have my own work (self published…” Jul 25, 11:39
Colin Alexander on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “x.com/SSalyers2/status/2079606783400980946 “We have concluded given other evidence that the party is captured at the highest levels so that the very,…” Jul 25, 11:34
Alf Baird on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““or maybe cite your own work again” You seem to be one of the muckle mou’s on the great benefits…” Jul 25, 11:18
Captain Caveman on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “”… which also explains why we have had zero economic growth for most of our lifetimes within the colonial straitjacket:”…” Jul 25, 10:20
Captain Caveman on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “”Where are you getting this idea from that the U.K. and Scotland in particular is a low tax country? The…” Jul 25, 10:12
Willie on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Sarah. It is becoming ever more apparent that the collapse of the SNP and the focus against independence was premeditated.…” Jul 25, 10:00
Alf Baird on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““Scotland is a very highly taxed country” Its not only high taxes Scots endure due to colonial rule and plunder.…” Jul 25, 09:43
Dan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “I don’t have time or the inclination to be on twitter / x. It would be useful to know the…” Jul 25, 09:04
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “It’s called Levelling Doon, Aidan. sam won’t be happy until every Scot sitting idle and envious on his flabby erse…” Jul 25, 09:01
Aidan on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Where are you getting this idea from that the U.K. and Scotland in particular is a low tax country? The…” Jul 25, 07:02
Red on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “and as a nationalist here my problem Aa a nationalist, your problem is that the SNP hates you, and wants…” Jul 25, 00:06
robertkknight on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Rip it up and start again. SNP is lost to the Woo-Woo brigade. They’re welcome to it!” Jul 24, 22:26
sarah on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “O/T but very relevant to the overall theme of why the SNP hasn’t made any progress in restoring Scotland’s independence…” Jul 24, 21:53
Alf Baird on Ain’t it funny how things change?: ““Sometimes I wonder where Scotland would be if we weren’t “colonised” Probably aroond aboot £150 billion a year better aff,…” Jul 24, 21:29
Hatey McHateface on The Wheels Of Industry: ““No one is talking about expunging people” Oh yes they are. Just about weekly. You ignore it, Northy, because you…” Jul 24, 20:48
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “All very well, sam, but what does Cuthbert know of Fanon, Cesaire, Memmi and the rest? That’s the yardstick by…” Jul 24, 20:38
Hatey McHateface on Ain’t it funny how things change?: “Cheers, James! Although your obsession with my tackle does raise a few red flags. But hey, a child could see…” Jul 24, 20:29
Southernbystander on The Wheels Of Industry: “Just needs a ‘like’ really as I cannot disagree with much. Just one thing, ‘recover’ is a bit of a…” Jul 24, 20:16
