Wings Over Scotland

We're supposed to live in an age where politicians are trained to within an inch of their lives by media advisers, in order that they can spout bland pre-programmed soundbites about any given subject at a second's notice. (With the infamous nadir of the phenomenon being represented by Ed Miliband's toe-curling broken-robot impression at the time of the public-sector strikes.) So perhaps we should be happy on the rare occasions when we discover a couple of elected representatives still willing to appear like clueless idiots in front of the public.

First came a few comments in the Scotsman from the leader of the SNP group on Glasgow City Council, Alison Hunter. With the SNP hoping to take control of the Labour stronghold this May – or at least deprive Labour of its majority – she was asked which policies she would seek to implement if her party pulled off such a titanic feat. Hunter's scarcely-believable and less-than-inspiring response was "I haven’t thought about that yet. Actually, I’m not an out-there leader. I’m a team leader. So we haven’t actually thought about that yet."

Before you ask, we have no idea what the difference between an "out-there leader" and a "team leader" is either, and we imagine Ms Hunter will soon be leaving SNP HQ with a well-skelped erse and a disinclination to say anything quite so stupid out loud ever again. In her defence, however, we suppose we could offer up the fact that she's highly unlikely to ever have to consider such a scenario – with Labour currently holding 45 seats (out of 79) to the SNP's 22, even denying Labour a majority in Glasgow this time round would be a huge and significant achievement for the Nats. Winning outright or even plurality control this year is surely beyond its reach.

We're not sure what Johann Lamont's excuse is, though.

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We’re all used to the modern “apology”. You know, the one where someone does something idiotic and then says “I’m sorry if anyone was offended”, rather than “I’m sorry for the idiotic thing I did”, cunningly turning what’s ostensibly an apology into the opposite – an attack on the reader/viewer for being so pig-thick as to have plainly or wilfully misunderstood the actually-perfectly-reasonable thing the offender said or did, and which they’ve been forced into unwillingly pretending to regret.

Labour troll-in-chief Tom Harris MP, however, may have taken this artform to a new high. He’s lasted less than a month in his new job as the party’s official “Twitter czar” before having to quit after posting a video on YouTube which portrayed Alex Salmond as Hitler (or more precisely, the other way round), and reacted with the sour bad grace anyone who’s had interactions with Harris online would have come to expect.

“The video I posted has been a well worn joke used to parody a range of public figures. However, context is everything and in the context of Johann [Lamont]’s and my desire to improve the level of political debate on social media and the context of Joan McAlpine’s much more serious statements about all political opponents of the SNP being anti-Scottish, my actions have been an unhelpful distraction for which I apologise.”

Did you get that? Tom is apologising, not for likening the democratically-elected First Minister of Scotland to a fascist dictator responsible for the murder of millions of innocent civilians, but for causing an “unhelpful distraction”, ie for damaging his OWN party with his buffoonish antics. Furthermore, he’s using this “apology” to actually repeat the attack, by shamefully continuing to misrepresent the recent comments by SNP MSP Joan McAlpine which were the subject of the spoof clip.

Now let’s be clear. The only thing offensive about the video in itself is what a tired, lame old joke it was – “Downfall” spoofs were already old hat in 2009, to the extent that even the fusty old Telegraph was making that point.

(On a personal level, while this site just about sees the humour value in the first one or two, all the literally hundreds of feeble imitators which followed it have achieved is to distastefully cheapen one of the best and most powerful films of this century.)

But Tom Harris has spent most of the last six months piously crying about nasty, bullying “cybernats” on the internet, deliberately blowing up the tiniest of slights – or even completely inventing them – so that he can manufacture fake offence at the supposed poisonous bigotry of the SNP.

(Tom nearly always blames “the SNP” explicitly for the opinions of random internet users, despite usually having no evidence that any of the people in question are members or even supporters of the party, far less controlled or directed by it.)

The particularly startling thing about this case, though, was that just minutes before posting his Hitler movie, Tom had huffily complained on Twitter about a user who’d mentioned the Vichy government in WW2 France (or as Tom chose to put it, “Nazi collaborators”, although the person involved hadn’t mentioned the Nazis at all), as evidence of how awful “CyberNats” were.

That Harris then thought there was nothing odd, hypocritical or contradictory about creating and promoting a video in which Alex Salmond was directly and deliberately portrayed as the Nazi leader (and which, at the time of our writing this piece, Harris has not deleted from YouTube) reveals much about Labour’s inbred policy of double standards which has served the party so well of late.

This blog picked him up on it immediately (as you’ll see in the pic above), and tweeted our own thoughts on the subject, without claiming to be offended but noting the laughable hypocrisy. To be honest we sort of wish we hadn’t now, because it started the chain of events which led to Harris’ departure as Labour’s new-media guru, and as long as he was actively using Twitter in such a puerile manner, support for Scottish independence grew with every passing day. Sorry about that, fellow nationalists. And that’s an apology more sincere than anything you’ll ever get out of Tom Harris MP.

(One for the Manics fans in the audience, there.)

Reliably right-wing politics periodical The Spectator this week runs a leader column called "Save the Union". Its plan amounts to having David Cameron determine the timing and format of the independence referendum, and having Labour's Scottish MPs (not its MSPs, who the magazine clearly considers useless) conduct the campaign. The reason it gives for not having the Prime Minister lead the fight to preserve the UK is the unpopularity of the Tories in Scotland, but curiously the column writer doesn't think to extend this logic to the likely effect a Westminster-dictated referendum would have on Scottish opinion.

(Indeed, the idea is so idiotic that the Spectator's own Scottish correspondent Alex Massie instantly rubbished it on the publication's own blog, even going so far as to suggest that not only should the referendum have a devo-max option, but that the Scottish Conservatives should campaign for it – a fascinating theory which would leave Labour alone in campaigning for the status quo, which would be as disastrous for the party as it would be hilarious for everyone else.)

Meanwhile, over on the Express, occasional book author Frederick Forsyth (the last one we've actually heard of came out in 1984) offers his own thoughts (we use that word rather reluctantly, but "outpouring of batshit-mental witterings" seems needlessly rude) on the subject. According to Forsyth, the surefire way to guarantee the salvation of "the most successful four-nation union the world has ever seen" (as opposed to, um, we're not sure which others) is for voting to be compulsory for anyone within Scotland, optional for any Scot living elsewhere, and subject to a 55-45 threshold. The Electoral Commission would determine the wording of the question and the spending limits, and forbid any return to the issue for a minimum of 10 years.

This blog fervently hopes that these ideas are enthusiastically adopted by the UK Government. We'd like to see them get Michael Winner on board as well – we're sure he'd have some interesting opinions, and he too is known for his Death Wish.

Wings Over Scotland continues to regret the Scotsman's failure to provide a viable link to the commentary of former Glasgow Lord Provost, Michael Kelly. The veteran Old Labour stalwart's columns rarely fail to provide a chuckle, and today's is a peach.

Kelly is no stranger to the barking mad, particularly where the SNP is concerned, but his latest column makes an extraordinary assertion even by his standards.

"By bringing down the Callaghan government in 1979, the SNP forced a general election at the time most propitious to the Tories, and thereafter they ruled the UK for the next 18 years. This was not a mistake. The SNP calculated that by allowing the Tories to inflict maximum damage on Scotland they could portray themselves as saviours."

That's right, folks – the SNP quite deliberately installed the Tories in power for two decades, apparently able to accurately foresee that a subsequent Labour administration would create Scottish devolution (a strategy, let's remember, that was designed by Labour to "kill nationalism stone dead"), then handle it so badly that the SNP would be able to form a minority administration eight years later, then oppose that administration so spectacularly ineptly that the SNP would win a majority at the next election and finally be able to hold a referendum on independence.

(With such an incredible vision stretching 32 years into the future, you have to wonder why the SNP didn't also back every Grand National winner in the intervening time and have a lot more money than it does now.)

But we shouldn't be too unkind to poor Dr Kelly, an elderly man who appears to be suffering from the early stages of dementia. Later in the piece he attacks the SNP's scandalous intent to determine the Scottish Parliament's legislative schedule, on the tissue-thin basis that it runs the Scottish Govermnent. Barely controlling his rage, Kelly accuses Alex Salmond of

"trying his best to fix both the timing and wording of the referendum question – the former on the grounds that he promised it would be held late in this parliament: a promise for which there is as little evidence as for a dragon’s fiery breath."

We're not sure how many dragons Dr Kelly sees in the average day around Parkhead, but evidence of Salmond's promise on the referendum timing is rather easier to come by. A quick Google initially produces this Telegraph article, which quotes the First Minister saying during a BBC leaders' debate on May 1st that economic concerns would take priority and push the referendum bill "into the second half of this Parliament", gleefully reporting the statement as a "massive retreat".

(The Telegraph piece also quotes the then Lib Dem leader Tavish Scott making the case for not bothering with a referendum at all, which he'd go on to repeat on an STV debate a couple of days later, saying "If you want independence you can vote for it on Thursday". He had in fact made the exhortation several times on the BBC debate, going so far as to say "This election is about independence, if people want it they can vote for the SNP". Oddly, neither Scott nor the rest of the Lib Dems have since been heard describing the election result as a vote for independence.)

Should the former Provost not wish to take the Telegraph's word for it, the relevant part of the debate can be seen and heard on the BBC website. Now, about those dragons.

The influential think-tank Reform Scotland has just published what you might think was good news – a report suggesting that an independent Scotland could be a world leader in the production of renewable energy, and generate billions of pounds a year for the Scottish economy by 2020. The organisation specifies, however, that in order to do so, Scotland would need full control over energy policy devolved from Westminster.

While the Herald [paywall] runs the story as news, free of editorial comment and focusing on the positive angle, the Scotsman's approach could barely be more different. It takes just one sentence before the paper rustles up an objection, and much of its piece is subsequently devoted to the angry complaints of Labour MP Tom Greatrex, who asserts that the Scots are incapable of taking advantage of this bounty, issuing what the paper describes as "a stark warning that handing full powers over energy to Holyrood would harm Scotland’s economy".

Astonishingly, despite Reform Scotland's explicit statement that only full control for the Scottish Parliament would enable the financial benefits to accrue, Greatrex insists:

"No credible or serious player in [the] energy sector agrees separation would do anything other than make it harder for Scotland to realise its vast renewable energy potential."

Or in other words, the traditional rallying call of the Unionists – Scotland is too wee, too poor and too stupid to run its own affairs. (Though in this case, perhaps "too wee, too rich and too stupid" would be more accurate.) Handed an enormous treasure-trove by nature, we simple dimwitted Jocks would make a giant hash of it, and so can't be trusted. It would appear that Greatrex feels only the Tories and Lib Dems at Westminster have the competence to handle Scotland's energy riches, and of course to spend them wisely. We wonder if Scottish voters feel the same way.

Labour's former Lord Provost of Glasgow and celebrity Celtic fan Michael Kelly would have an entry in the "Zany Comedy Relief" section of our blogroll if there was a central link hub for his outpourings. His latest rant in the Scotsman, though, is demented even by his standards. Under the bizarre title "Alex Salmond’s anti-sectarian purge has gone too far" (is it possible to go too far against sectarianism? Are we saying there's an acceptable level above zero?), he attempts to make an extraordinary case which twists and turns on itself with every line.

Firstly, he expresses his outrage that the police reported Celtic to UEFA for alleged sectarian singing during their Europa League match against Rennes, rather than arresting the perpetrators. Yet in the very next paragraph he relates a tale of them doing just that to a fan accused of singing a pro-IRA ditty during a Celtic-Hibs game, and claims that the arrest "seems excessive".

Kelly then launches into a more general diatribe against the anti-sectarianism legislation currently making its way through the Scottish Parliament, culminating in the astonishing claim that the IRA "was not a sectarian organisation". Because we all remember all its many prominent Protestant members, of course. But Kelly isn't quite done yet. His penultimate paragraph contains the following mind-boggling passage:

"But further, both Celtic and Rangers fans argue there is a significant difference between celebrating the actions of current terrorist groups and remembering with nostalgia the exploits of the freedom fighters of a century ago. Thus the Boys of the Old Brigade and Here Lies a Soldier should be classified as folk songs like the Massacre of Glencoe and the grossly offensive but condoned Flower of Scotland."

This blog doesn't know about you, readers, but we've never heard "The Massacre Of Glencoe" being lustily bellowed from the Fir Park stands when Motherwell take on Kilmarnock – indeed, we've never heard it spontaneously sung anywhere ever, let alone at a football match. Perhaps for the strikingly obvious reason that, just like Michael Kelly's beloved ballads of a century-old war in a foreign country, it's got absolutely sod-all to do with Scottish football. But the notion that "Flower Of Scotland" – Scotland's national anthem – is "grossly offensive" leads us to wonder why in the world Michael Kelly still lives in such a hateful nation.

"Flower Of Scotland" could at a stretch be deemed to contain some anti-English lyrics, but the song is a tale told from a purely defensive perspective. It's about repelling a foreign invader ("and sent him homeward to think again"), not invading others (compare and contrast with the infamous verse in "God Save The Queen" about crushing the Scots in Scotland), and in that deeply moral theme it stands with some of the world's finest anthems, such as "La Marseillaise". Even then "Flower Of Scotland" sounds a pacifistic note, pointing out that:

"Those days are past now, and in the past they must remain."

To call it "grossly offensive", then, is fairly unarguably deranged. (Not to mention irrelevant, since this blog is unaware of any group of supporters having ever sung FoS at league games, which are what the sectarianism bill is designed to tackle.) The Scotsman no longer allows comments on Michael Kelly's posts. Perhaps it should take the logical next step and no longer employ him to write them at all.

"Interview body language experts agree that the less you move your arms and hands about the more confident and in control you are."
– On Using Body Language During Interviews

Non-Scottish readers probably don't know who this man is. You're missing out.

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Viewers, a confluence like this comes around about once a decade. If it’s as sunny, warm and beautiful where you are as it is in Bath today, get out there and witness the phenomenon for yourself.

If it isn’t, don’t worry – you can do it indoors too.

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