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.
Colin Dawson on The Final Robbery: “I asked Google AI: “If it transpires that Sturgeon was the benificiary of his embezzlement, can any of the assets…” May 26, 00:08
Mark Beggan on The Final Robbery: “There’s no need to rub Patrick Thistles nose in it. A Third world hick with lots of oil.” May 25, 23:57
Geri on The Final Robbery: “They’re the only two sticking to international law despite severe provocation that’d test the patience of saint. Just shows how…” May 25, 23:54
Grum on The Final Robbery: “Since I was young, Scotland was solidly Labour, and they were corrupt bastards. Unfortunately, it appears that the modern SNP…” May 25, 23:46
Confused on The Final Robbery: ““dont worry peter – that dot bain will get ya aff … ” did peter and nikki have a joint…” May 25, 23:46
James on The Final Robbery: “Two sneering, servile unionists there. Both paid by the post.” May 25, 23:32
James on The Final Robbery: “Got that, everyone? English-appointed civil servants and Vauxhall Cross are benign agents, and do nothing but good in Scotland and…” May 25, 23:29
James on The Final Robbery: “Your comment is correct. Almost. You pay f*ck all to Scotland in taxes. The ‘block grant’ as England patronisingly calls…” May 25, 23:22
Oneliner on The Final Robbery: “Agreed, Robin is on fire. The next Through A Scottish Prism should be interesting.” May 25, 23:11
Hatey McHateface on The Final Robbery: ““So where is it during the night ?” Erm. It’s the Earth that moves. It revolves on its axis. The…” May 25, 23:07
Onlooker on The Final Robbery: “https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/artist-paints-nicola-sturgeon-over-5002394” May 25, 23:02
Hatey McHateface on The Final Robbery: “That’s the size small. The size XL is £99.99.” May 25, 22:35
Skip_NC on The Final Robbery: “I’m curious why you’re including Calum Steele in that comment. He was the only one of those you mentioned who…” May 25, 22:23
robertkknight on The Final Robbery: “Anyone with an ounce of integrity should be angry as to what’s happened to the SNP over the past decade.…” May 25, 22:19
A2 on The Final Robbery: “Nope, the whole 600k is still missing. He’s nicked from the SNP but theres nothing that shows he just took…” May 25, 22:15
Hatey McHateface on The Final Robbery: ““The embezzlement amounts to an average of £35k per year, and for most of that period, him and Sturgeon would…” May 25, 22:08
GM on The Final Robbery: “True.. and we are kept in that state by the actions of self serving, conscienceless wankers. Sturgeon being the worst…” May 25, 22:02
Colin Alexander on The Final Robbery: “Well done Stuart Campbell and Sean Clerkin. If it weren’t for yous pesky kids, he would probably got away with…” May 25, 22:00
Hatey McHateface on The Final Robbery: “Hark to the tinkle of the royal wee. “We all know the media aren’t journalists these days either but government…” May 25, 21:55
Graham Fordyce on The Final Robbery: “This has always been about who controls the message. If you’re looking for justice, then take control yourself. Let’s raise…” May 25, 21:54
Graham Fordyce on The Final Robbery: “This has always been about who controls the message. If you’re looking for justice, then take control yourself. Let’s raise…” May 25, 21:54
GM on The Final Robbery: “Seats, places on quangos, assistance with setting up companies and funding for those companies, political preference, promotions, pay rises” May 25, 21:50
Chas on The Final Robbery: “Slight correction. ‘It is shite being Alf Baird’. It is always helpful to blame others other than ourselves. However there…” May 25, 21:49
Socrates MacSporran on The Final Robbery: “Alf Baird @ 9.02pm: Professor, Renton did, later in his famous rant, admit: “We’ve been colonised by wankers”.” May 25, 21:47
Geri on The Final Robbery: “Because the SNP, under Sturgeons leadership & intake, are all unionist shills. It’d be like ratting on a pal if…” May 25, 21:35
Hatey McHateface on The Final Robbery: “Nah. No third-world country plays in the big league. The big league contains but two countries anyway – the Orcs…” May 25, 21:30
Hatey McHateface on The Final Robbery: ““genuinely baffled by the supine nature of the media in Scotland” Keep an eye on the by-elections being fought in…” May 25, 21:26
Chas on The Final Robbery: “Murrell steals hundreds of thousand of pounds. His ‘wife’ simply did not see any of the new purchases. Treasurer and…” May 25, 21:24
Southernbystander on The Final Robbery: “I think the victims are the whole nation of Scotland who have been taken for a ride by their corrupt…” May 25, 21:22
Hatey McHateface on The Final Robbery: “Maybe you get to revise Welsh, Alf, when sales of your book exceed sales of his. Then there are the…” May 25, 21:20
