Just wondering
Posted on
May 17, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
…does this page appear in today’s edition of the SCOTTISH Sun?
Anyone got a copy to hand? We could find out, but we’d rather not hand over the 69p.
Okay, who’s going to be the first to admit to being a Sun reader?
“Heroes and villains of Westminster” then it turns out to be about Farage/UKIP (no MPs), visiting Scotland about a Holyrood by-election. Those Sun journalists are top notch.
I wonder what they would have written about the way the cockerney’s treated mosley
I listened to the interview on Radio Scotland this morning, the interviewer did an excellent job and remained impartial throughout. I’ve got a growing respect for the reporters on Good Morning Scotland, the anchor folk are always impartial and always dig regardless of who they are interviewing be they brit nat, scot nat or midgie nat . . .
. . . Farage came off like a spoilt brat particularly the way he ended the interview.
The Sun is just playing to it’s audience, whatever ‘we’ might think of the paper, that’s one thing it does particularly well.
Sorry but I am still laughing at Farage pishing himself at being taken on by a few protesters, then blustering about how they didnt scare him after he was well out of the way.
What class would he be now ??? a simple feartie or a cowardy cowardy custard.
Vote NO – become a Nigel.
Vote YES – get your country.
Hail Alba.
Simply more “Jock Bashing” by the London media.
If it wasn’t this story they would invent something else, like deaths threats against minor celebrities and what not. Not that I want to give them any ideas mind.
“I’ve got a growing respect for the reporters on Good Morning Scotland, the anchor folk are always impartial and always dig regardless of who they are interviewing be they brit nat, scot nat or midgie nat . . . ”
I am not so sure. I agree that today they did challenge Farage over his comments which is to be welcomed, however the “light touch” way in which any Labour spokesperson or press release is dealt with raises questions for me.
Yesterday when reporting the Amazon’s UK tax payment they decided to nail on a statement in regard to funding that this same company had received from the Scottish Government via Scottish Enterprise. To me there was no direct link here and it seemed a very low brow connection to make. A cyncic might say that they were deliberately trying to create a smear.
The main problem with GMS / BBC Scotland is not they do not report news, they report stories.
Farage is a symptom of a greater problem within the British political system. Essentially he is a lone voice, with a high profile, saying something different from the usual script that comes out of Westminster. He has also wrapped himself in the flag (Union or St George depending on circumstance) and played the “Johnny Foreigner” card. The Press love this. It’s easy to sell this story. Who wants to bore the readership with the real reasons for the economic and social problems that plague the UK? Not the tabloids. So he’s the new John Bull hero, come to rescue us from the dreaded enemy across the channel and shame, shame on those who dare to rain on his parade.
Of course, the press and the Westminster political class could do the descent thing and promote the wholesale reform and renewal of the jaded and corrupt system that is UK PLC, but then that wouldn’t chime with various narrow agendas. So Johhny Foreigner bashing by John Bull it’s going to be!
Nigel Farage says that the protestors were “fascist scum” because they called him “fascist scum”.
But if people who call people “fascist scum” are, in fact, fascist scum, Farage’s self incrimination implies that the protestors were merely agreeing with his own (admittedly future) arguments on the subject.
A paradox.
“A Scots rabble is the worst of its kind”
Daniel DeFoe describing the reaction of the Scottish public to the Acts of Union.
—
“He was a spy among us, but not known as such, otherwise the Mob of Edinburgh would pull him to pieces.”
John Clerk of Penicuik, a leading Scots Unionist, describing Daniel DeFoe.
—
Just a wee bit of historical perspective there, not really relevant, but amusing anyway. Of course, we have moved on since those times. Farage is nowhere near as smart and funny as DeFoe was, and he’s only a tuppenny shill for corporate interests, big oil, and the Heartland Institute, not an actual spy for the Crown or anything like that.
Sticking with the historical stuff, Lord Bute, the First Scottish Prime Minister after the Union, received much worse treatment from the London mob (and more sustainedly) than anything the Parcel o’ Rogues had to suffer in Edinburgh.
But like I say, we have all moved on from those times:
link to dailymail.co.uk
Utterly reprehensible behaviour on the streets of Edinburgh, though I’m glad to see from the photograph the Police kettled Farge early in the proceedings. Still I think that chap on the right should have been arrested for wearing a shirt of that colour in broad daylight.
The fellow next to him was quoted as saying, “What was that all about? I was just hailing a taxi when some guy took my picture”.
No it does not appear in print edition.
It would be very helpful if many people would point out to BBC News in London and in Glasgow that the first people to tell UKIP to butt out of Scottish politics were those in the “anti English” Better Together NO campaign leadership.
Why has BBC not reminded Farage that or asked whether Better Together still stand by that?
After all if its OK for Cameron, Osborne and Clegg to interfere in Scotland’s referendum why not vocal NO supporters in UKIP?
Yesterday when reporting the Amazon’s UK tax payment they decided to nail on a statement in regard to funding that this same company had received from the Scottish Government via Scottish Enterprise. To me there was no direct link here
To be fair, most UK news programs compared the amount of tax Amazon paid to the amount it had received in grants from the UK government, which are more directly linked. The funding from the Scottish government was just a Scottish angle on that story. The indirect link, of course, is that the money from the Scottish government came from the UK government. It was just a general point about how much tax-payers money Amazon was receiving versus how much tax it was paying, with the Scottish element highlighted for a Scottish audience.
annie says:
17 May, 2013 at 3:10 pm
No it does not appear in print edition
After Hillsborough the Sun should be careful what it prints.
Then Liverpool fans were accused by the Sun under the headline “THE TRUTH” of picking fans pockets, urinating on police, firemen and ambulance drivers, beating up a policeman who was supposedly attempting to revive someone, and worst of all a dead girl being abused. ALL LIES.
The Angry Edinburgh Mob is also another lie. No wonder the Scottish editors refused to print that.
So The Sun doesn’t recognise the right for people to protest against xenophobia and bigotry! Even by just 20 people who were outnumbered by the press 2:1! No arrests or warnings were issued by the police during Nige’s visit but The Sun doesn’t report that. They were all just vicious, violent scum to them, typical Kelvin McKenzie approach of one-sided ‘journalism’.
David Miller’s recent record on GMS is impeccable (he was also the interviewer on Lamont’s ‘Crash Point Zero’ debacle). If Boothman’s past form is anything to go by, instead of defending the integrity of his journalists, he will consign David Miller to the same fate as Isabel Fraser.
@BillyBigbaws
Cool link. Brown must have been possessed of great fortitude to withstand such withering barbs as “You’re a very bad man!”
It’s funny to imagine him walking around the office with all his underlings hurling abuse at his back. Very Armando Iannucci. I bet Damian McBride had his own reasons for wanting to “train him up” in that way.
Training Day says:
17 May, 2013 at 3:29 pm
David Miller’s recent record on GMS is impeccable
I must have missed that what did he say about Gary McKay Stevens ?
And the barman shouts out “Taxi for Farage.
Naw responds a punter, he’s been lifted by the polis. Whit fur? Dinna ken, abusive language mibbe”.
BillyBigbaws:
“A Scots rabble is the worst of its kind”
Daniel DeFoe describing the reaction of the Scottish public to the Acts of Union.
That reminded how lightly Farage got off compared to the what the political class could expect back then.
Farage was lucky to be merely heckled. Back then, if the people of Edinburgh disapproved of their actions, the political class were peebled (stoned) in the streets by the mob. Irreverence for politicians is an old Scottish trait.
@ Jimbo,
Nowadays the UK political class don’t expect to get stoned in the street – they get stoned in the bogs at the HoC instead. Or coked-up anyway. Allegedly.
Argh – you’ve put me on the spot now! I was in my barbers this morning, a lovely little place in Gorgie Road, Edinburgh run by two grand Italian lads Sam and Alphonse (Sam cut my hair a few days before I was married in 1975 – good heavens is it that long or even, was it) and in the reading material was a copy of the Scottish Sun. I had a scan of the stuff about Farage but it was nothing like the stuff quoted above. I even had a discussion with the guys about it and they thought Mr Farage was a bit of a joker and was more to be laughed at. Interestingly, both the guys are pro Scotland doing it’s own thing and ask “why not”? Sadly the conversation then deteriorated into a discussion about what next for the Hearts – oh well.
PS They used to have the Hootsmoan in the reading material but it was the Scottish (sic) Daily Express and Sun today – must ask them the next time I’m in about what happened to the Hootsmoan.
PPS Mr Frange, Sam and Alphonse are great guys but were emigrants once, will they be booted out of the UK if you get near power; them, their wife’s and families, my daughter-in-law and grand-daughter of African decent? Mmmm? Or as that old fakir Charlton Heston put it…. “from my cold, dead hand ” will you prise that which I hold dear to the diversity of Scotland. So, “so long and thanks for all the fish” as Douglas Adam’s put it.
I see he did not notice the chap who stood just behind him to one side as he was led out yelling “Immigrants are welcome here; you are not!” This was even explained later on by one of the people involved. I also saw an in the street interview with Niggle, when some chap walked past behind him and shouted “racist”, or “homphobe”, or somesuch.
“Britain’s long democratic tradition demands that Mr Farage has the right to be heard.”
That’s an astonishing, and ignorant, statement. Freedom of speech is one thing. The ‘right to be heard’ is quite another. Does the press give the people it has traduced the right to be heard? Does Britain’s long democratic tradition? Certainly not. Throughout my (longish) lifetime,and for centuries before, all sorts of people of various political colours or causes, have been heckled off the stage. Others have been physically prevented from speaking, and (rightly) the media has condemned this. But the two things are completely different. If Farage can’t handle a hostile demo, that’s his look-out; but to bleat about a ‘right to be heard’ is an entirely spurious invention.
Completely different story in today’s Scottish Sun and no editorial comment
i find it extremely worrying this is getting more MSM attention than the privitisation of nhs in england did!
Farage – spelling? F-E-A-R-T-I-E
Does anyone else remember politicians of conviction at hustings taking pelters and giving them out in equal measure? Seems our boy doesn’t have what it takes to cut the mustard.
@kininvie-
re ‘Rights’
If you haven’t already seen it, you may enjoy this – George Carlin, in his last show:
@ianbrotherhood
Hadn’t seen it before. Great!
There’s some unbelievable pearl-clutching going on in the Telegraph comments around all this. Some of it’s coming from unionist Scots.
You’d think that Nigel Farage was the Queen Mother from their reactions – or that he’d been held down and beheaded in the street by Robbie the Pict.
“I am ashamed of the behaviour of my fellow Scots involved in this insulting and thuggish attack. It is the very antithesis of the Scottish character.
We can be ferocious warriors when in battle but this is just naked street violence at best and organised political dictatorship at worst.
I cannot tell you how angry I am at this damage to our reputation from those who should know better.
We used to be great but now we’re just bait dangling on the line of ignorance that mirrors gangsterism.”
Who would’ve guessed the far right were such sensitive souls? All this outrage over a minor event happening around a minor politician, with not a punch thrown nor a kick aimed at anyone.
To quote the late, great Frankie Miller: “Ach, naeb’dy goat plunged.”
How is the media going to react if anything actually happens? It’s worrying.
Here is a wee selection of comments picked up from yesterday
You know the ones that accuse us of being anti-English
Ukip voice, Ron Northcott, the candidate for Plymouth appears to have tweeted: “Amazed that 50 Jocks could get out of bed that early. It’s not signing-on day, is it or is the chemist open?”
“The Little Scotlanders will get their answer from their fellow citizens next year, which will, with luck, shut them up for another generation”
“Scotland yesterday saw scene reminiscent of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. A democratically elected party leader attacked by political thugs”
“Still, it just goes to show that the hairy ar5ed jocks don’t like being told what to do and think by England – I wonder who will be their figure of hate when they fuc.k up after independence? Bonny Prince Charlie, BTW, was a limp wristed Italian. And a Tory.”
“Tis very odd. At least we give them say in the English Parliament and stay away from the Jock parliament that we bought and now finance for them.Not forgetting we are also buying them a new Fourth bridge as a leaving present”
“Come live in beautiful Scotland! Twinned with France! Shame about the people!”
“If I could I would tow Scotland into the middle of the Atlantic and sink it. What this foreign race is doing in our Parliament messing everything up I just do not know”
“Give these sponging Scots their independence and reduce my tax. I’m sick of funding their drug taking and drinking”
“I’ll be so glad when the sweaty socks get independance, good riddance to them, they cost us a bloody fortune anyway”
“Anyway, if Scotland is so great, why are there Scots everywhere in the world, can’t they wait to get away from the cold ? …. oh yes …. while you’re being xenophobic … take your Scottish MP’s that sit in Westminster with you, we don’t want MP’s from a different Country in the British Government”
“Personally, I think the Scots should have their independence, but first they should repay us all the money we gave them to support their badly run banks and secondly, they should return the oil revenues they were granted from oil taken from English waters”
Sorry about lack of paragraphs in the first section – tried to edit but hey ho!