Wings Over Scotland

For our 2,500th post we wanted to say something positive about the media for a change, and the opportunity has presented itself, albeit in a sad way. BBC Radio Scotland’s Sunday morning show “Headlines” is the only political programme – radio or telly – that we made a point of never missing, and today is its last episode.

Canned by the state broadcaster for reasons as yet unexplained, it’s going to leave a big hole in our weekends. Presenter Ken Macdonald’s warm, relaxed, funny and always even-handed style never failed to bring out the best in guests from everywhere on the political and cultural spectrum, and it was a show that always sounded like everyone on it was not only having a good time but making the listener part of it too.

We’re fighting hard to beat back our cynicism about the reasons for it going, and our dismay that it’s to be replaced from next week by a new programme hosted by just what absolutely nobody was crying out for – more bloody politicians. So we’ll cut that line of thinking short and just say thanks to everyone on the show for making us smile every Sunday no matter what, and always making the independence debate feel a little bit less nasty, even if only for an hour at a time.

This one’s for you, Ken.

The story in yesterday’s Scotsman carrying outrageous and defamatory slurs against me has today vanished from its website. There’s nothing by way of an apology or correction in the paper’s usual page 2 corrections column, however, and there’s been no reply to either my email of yesterday morning or the letter our solicitor sent yesterday afternoon. Be assured, readers, that the matter won’t rest there.

But today things are even more interesting.

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Alert readers will have had a hard time missing Labour spin doctor John McTernan on TV and radio and in newspapers this week. A former special adviser to Tony Blair, he’s been rolled out on heavy rotation across the media to pontificate on Campbell Gunn’s minor briefing error (which was swiftly apologised for) about frontline Labour activist Clare Lally, and to strenuously insist to anyone who’ll listen that abusive “cybernats” are co-ordinated and controlled by the SNP.

Anyone who’s followed Scottish (or, indeed, Australian) politics for any length of time will have been rubbing their eyes and syringing their ears in surprise at Mr McTernan being invited to cast aspersions on anyone else’s morals and ethics. Anyone who hasn’t might want to bring themselves up to speed.

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Your defamatory lies really ought to stop.

In today’s edition, you allege in reference to me that:

“Mr Campbell – who recently registered Wings Over Scotland as an official participant in the independence campaign – has also used the site to call on nationalist campaigners to photograph their opponents so that they can be publicly identified.”

This, as I’m sure your journalists are perfectly well aware, is absolutely untrue.

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Is mine, of course. From last night’s Scotland Tonight, in case you missed it:

Particular kudos to STV for finding footage (it’s right at the start of this clip) of Clare Lally introducing and launching Johann Lamont’s Scottish Labour leadership bid in November 2011, even though the Daily Record said in August 2012 that she had “no previous political experience”. We expect someone will resign.

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We spent much of yesterday evening trying to actually track down the “vicious barrage” of vile cybernat abuse that Labour and “Better Together” activist Clare Lally says she was subjected to after being revealed to be rather less of an “ordinary” member of the public than the No camp presented her as at its recent Glasgow rally, and which has received wall-to-wall media coverage.

As yet, we’ve drawn a blank. We’ve made repeated requests, some to people who’ve contacted us angrily claiming to be her friends or family members, for evidence of any abusive comments at all. All have been met with an abrupt outbreak of silence.

Scotland 2014 devoted almost its entire 30-minute show to the issue last night. To depict the terrible onslaught, the above tweets were all they could come up with. The entire affair, readers might feel, is starting to smell distinctly piscine.

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Sorry we’ve deserted you today, readers. I’ve been dashing around the BBC Bath radio cupboard, the ITV West Country studio and BBC Broadcasting House in Bristol talking mainly about the Clare Lally business, which the No campaign is throwing everything at. You’re going to have a hard time avoiding my big stupid face on the telly tonight.

The three appearances were very different in nature. On BBC Radio Scotland I had a very civilised discussion with host John Beattie and fellow guest Hamish Macdonell (of various publications), where everyone got to say their piece without us interrupting each other, while at Broadcasting House for, I think, Scotland 2014, I got pretty aggressively grilled but in a perfectly proper and professional journalistic manner. No complaints there – pending, of course, what makes the edit.

The ITV gig for Scotland Tonight was something else.

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The New Statesman has been doggedly ignoring all our polite requests to release the audio of its controversial interview with Alistair Darling for several days now, but today it very quietly released the full text of it on its website.

Where previously it had reported the “Better Together” leader as having made an “inaudible mumble” in response to a question about whether the SNP were guilty of “blood-and-soil nationalism”, apparently the mag had given its ears a good swabbing out with a cotton-bud and concluded that it HAD been able to hear him after all.

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The Times has a front-page lead this morning on the “Better Together” rally held in Glasgow yesterday, at which the official lead campaign group debuted its new “No Thanks” slogan. The article makes an interesting claim:

“[Alistair Darling] was the only politician to speak at the Better Together rally in Glasgow. All the others were ordinary men and women who had volunteered to talk about why they were campaigning to keep Scotland in the United Kingdom.

They were led by Claire Lally, a mother from Clydebank, with a child with serious health problems. She said she would do all she could to save the United Kingdom and protect the health service that had saved her daughter.”

Well, that all seems legit.

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The Daily Record carries a story this evening about a man placing a £200,000 bet with William Hill on a No vote in the independence referendum.

“A punter is so sure of a No vote in the Independence referendum he has put a record £200,000 on the result.

The bet equalled the biggest sum wagered on politics in the UK. The revelation came yesterday from bookie William Hill, where the gambler made three hefty bets on the status quo being maintained.

The man, in his 50s, walked into a shop in Glasgow and put £30,000 on the counter, taking odds of 1/5 on a No vote. He then came back later that day and stuck on another £70,000.

And the next day he turned up with another £100,000 in cash, which he stuck on despite the odds shortening to 1/6. If Scots vote to stay in the Union he will win £36,000.”

And readers might be forgiven for finding it a bit familiar.

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This is what the media is asking you to swallow today, readers:

“If Scotland wants to be like the vast majority of NATO members and have no nuclear weapons stationed on its territory, NATO will cut off its own nose to spite its face and reject Scotland as a member, even though that would leave the strategically-crucial North Atlantic Gate (also known as the ‘GIUK Gap‘) guarded by a non-member state and one with basically no military at all.”

Right.

“Scientists who currently think Scottish universities and laboratories are the best place to research a cure for cancer will suddenly decide to use what they previously considered to be inferior facilities if Scots vote to take control of their own affairs, because as we all know, cancer-research scientists care more about Scottish politics than curing cancer.”

Uh-huh.

“Using the anniversary of D-Day as a tool to campaign for the Union, even though the men of countless independent nations besides the UK sacrificed their lives for freedom there, ISN’T a crass politicisation of the event.”

Sure. Of course.

We’ve said it before, readers, and with the heaviest of hearts we must presume that we’ll have to say it many more times in the next 100 days: they think you’re morons.

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