No-one likes them, they don’t care
WARNING: this post isn’t about football, but it will refer to football for quite a while in order to illustrate its point. Get over it or go outside for some fresh air.
Today is the opening day of the SPFL Premiership season, and will see the top-flight debut of a four-year-old club which is legally entitled under company law to use the name and trademarks of a much older one which went into liquidation in 2012 owing creditors tens of millions of pounds.
The facts of that matter are beyond any empirical dispute, but human beings are adept at arguing things which are demonstrably not true and so the truth is hotly and furiously rejected by a substantial group of people, weirdly including the club itself (even as it insists that it can’t be held responsible for the old club’s debts because it’s not the same club).
We’re not going to attempt to settle that argument here, because (a) it’s already been settled, and (b) we have nothing new to say that would remotely convince the people who’ve already steadfastly refused to acknowledge any of the proven facts.
Instead, we’re going to talk – not for the first time, sadly – about why the “debate” around “Rangers” won’t die, and what it tells us about the Scottish media.
Because we had a bewildering discussion with STV’s sports reporter Grant Russell yesterday and this morning, which concluded with this tweet:
It had been triggered by a mostly-innocuous new-season preview piece on the STV website (not actually written by Russell but promoted by him on Twitter) which had started with the line “Can the Ibrox side take on reigning Premiership winners Celtic in their first year back?”
Unsurprisingly, a number of (mainly) Celtic supporters took some justifiable umbrage at the use of the word “back”, because the current “Rangers” is a new club which was created by Sevco Scotland (aka Sevco 5088) in 2012 using assets that Sevco bought from the old bankrupt club when it failed to exit administration – the new “Rangers” started life in the old fourth division (SFL3) and is playing in the top division for the first time, having won three promotions in four years.
And the complainers seemed to be on very strong ground, because at the time the media was extremely unambiguous about what had just happened:
Grant Russell himself had also made the facts abundantly and repeatedly clear:
We quote these tweets not to prove anything about the status of “Rangers”, but to illustrate that these were Grant Russell’s own words. He wasn’t being argued with by chippy Celtic fans, but by his own past self.
It’s unfair to single out individual reporters, though, because the entire Scottish media – abandoning everything it said in 2012 – has now taken the same line, namely that the new “Rangers” is the old one because Neil Doncaster says it is (while he doggedly refuses to answer any of the awkward questions on the subject), and that everyone should shut up and move on because frankly it’s tedious that people should have the sheer temerity to expect their newspapers and broadcasters to stop lying to them.
(To which our response, incidentally, that if a hundred people all get together in a room with a hamster in it and agree that they’re going to start calling it an elephant, it still isn’t going to grow a damn trunk.)
And that’s partly understandable, because a howling mob of “Rangers” supporters lies in wait, ever ready to threaten, bully and intimidate anyone who recognises reality.
Journalists don’t want their offices or homes burned down, and media companies don’t want to waste huge amounts of time and money defending legal complaints any time they dare to repeat the news.
All of which is quite rational, if a bit dismaying from a professional body which still likes to portray itself as the fearless and incorruptible defender of freedom. But as we pointed out in our discussion with Russell, that doesn’t explain why they’d actively take one side – especially the wrong one – rather than remain neutral.
Because fairly obviously, there’s no need for anyone in the course of normal football reporting to actually express a view one way or the other. If the new Rangers are playing Celtic, you can just report that fact. You can say “Rangers are playing Celtic tomorrow, with three crucial points at stake” or whatever.
There’s absolutely no need to say either “Rangers are playing Celtic tomorrow for the 200th time” or “Rangers are playing Celtic for the third time”. You don’t need to say “Rangers are trying to win their first Premiership title” OR that “Rangers are trying to win their 55th Premiership title”. You can just say they’re trying to win the title and leave other people to fight over the numbers.
Neutral reporting is a bit cowardly, but it doesn’t give either set of fans any reason to yell at you on Twitter and Facebook. It doesn’t make anyone threaten you. It lets you get on with talking about the football with the minimum possible amount (it’ll never be none) of what must be really tiresome moaning whichever side is doing it.
So why don’t they? Why would someone like Grant Russell, who we’ve never been the least bit unpleasant to in our lives and who we were genuinely just trying to help, get so prickly about it as to say something as extraordinary as the first tweet in this article – a journalist for a national television company openly proclaiming in public that he couldn’t care less about either accuracy or impartiality?
There are lots of possible explanations, involving varying levels of tinfoil-hattery and use of the words “succulent lamb”. But at the end of the day it comes down to the same thing as when David Torrance executed his Great Twitter Flounce earlier this week – the modern mainstream media is on the side of the powerful, not the public, and it holds the latter in barely-disguised contempt.
Partly that’s because of the still-recent development of readers being able to hold hacks to account via social media – nobody likes some smart-arse pointing out when they’ve got something wrong. And partly it’s because it’s much more fun to hobnob with the politicians and celebrities that a TV or newspaper job brings you into contact with than with the grubby hoi polloi.
(Of which there’s no better illustration than the awful packed-solid logjam of simpering Scottish political journalists to be found battling the rest of the press for a cosy spot up super-millionaire JK Rowling’s fundament, licking for all they’re worth.)
But the biggest reason is that you no longer pay the media’s wages. Papers now sell a tiny fraction as many copies as they used to, and the vast bulk of their money comes from internet advertisers, not readers. Clickbait, not truth, is now their product, and you don’t make clickbait out of neutrality.
Grant Russell is no worse than any other journalist, he just let the mask slip. The press doesn’t give a damn what you think because you’re not the ones writing their paycheques any more. The rich and powerful, whether it’s with advertising revenues or the friendly access to the stars that enables empty celebrity “stories” to pad out dozens of pages, are their masters now.
And if that means they have to put up with a few angry tweets when they toss every last shred of journalistic integrity or impartiality overboard, it’s a price worth paying.
Another indescribably good post that points out where this lot are headed. Ultimately, social media’s greatest strength is that it’s a leveller; there’s no hierarchy. To our “journalists”, that’s its greatest weakness.
Everyone’s equal on social media.
But a question, if you will:
I noticed this on the BBC this morning:
link to bbc.com
I was wondering if you knew where the numbers all came from and how true they were. There are a few contradictions in what I’d been led to believe prior to it, so I’m curious as to whether or not I should just file it as “shite” and move on.
O/T but I’m sure you’ll forgive me as a Hamilton fan. C’MON THE ACCIES!!! What a goal from wee Ali.
I wonder if they’ve thought ahead to the part where all readers see that their thoughts and reading desires no longer matter, and stop responding to clickbIait. Then advertising revenue will lessen and that method of staying afloat is gone….ultimately, you need readership either way.
🙂
Ye canny beat a Saturday afternoon with Off The Ball, bacon rolls, a gigantic mug of hot sweet tea, and a cracking new WOS post full of proper chewy bits.
Made-up, so I am…
I don’t think the real reason for their approach to Rangers is all that difficult to discern. I say this as one who does not support the club,but whose father did,and my great grandfather actually played for them at right back.
Imagine yourself as a Scottish editor of an SNP hating newspaper. You have tried but failed to put a dent in the SNP as a Government. The next thing you do is to promote an opposition Party. It used to be Labour who have become ineffectual, so you move your support onto the “defenders ” of the Union which is the Tories.
Celtic and Rangers have fan bases throughout Scotland, and a high percentage of Scots support Rangers in any guise you put on it.
Torrance gave rise to Ulsterisation in Scottish politics Why ? He gave away the latest tactic to try and defeat the SNP. They want to create a religious divide, and the best way to do that in Scotland is by Celtic and Rangers.
They are appealing to the sense of grievance on both sides of this debate about Sevco. Create division and conquer. Make people choose one side or the other.
Football should not be a part of the political argument,but they need it to be. Do not fall into that trap Rev.
The News of the World flourished, and so much, that when it had to end, it had to continue in another name.
People are prepared to pay to see fame (fake or real). The Internet removes the need to pay (pay walls are easily avoided if you know how).
So then it comes down to the quality of content. As it always should.
Incompetence is often corruption in disguise and the MSM’s betrayal of Scotland,but when your are wretchedly hanging on,akin to the crew of the raft of medusa,you must know your days are numbered….therefore nothing to lose.
#desperados
“The press doesn’t give a damn what you think because you’re not the ones writing their paycheques any more.”
This is the crux
(and also why Wings is so revered/despised, cheers Stu)
It’s 40 degrees outside where I am! A cold shower can help to cool the beans though. 😉
“…the modern mainstream media is on the side of the powerful, not the people, and it holds the latter in barely-disguised contempt.
“Largely that’s because of the still-recent development of readers being able to hold hacks to account via social media”…it’s much more fun to hobnob with the politicians and celebrities that a TV or newspaper job gives you access to than with the grubby hoi polloi”
I rarely comment on Wings due to McVenom but you hit the nail on the head about the MSM.
Unfortunately this will not disappear in an independent Scotland as the usual “journalists” will segue effortlessly towards the professionally powerful whose principal responsibility is to their own aggrandisement not to the benefit of the less powerful.
Community Empowerment legislation is in danger from the professionally powerful Grossartia whose best ally is a compliant media
Sure but what it also means is that they wave goodbye to any pretensions of being ‘influencers’.
If you ignore the public, or are happy to lie to and insult huge numbers of them at the drop of them at the drop of a hat, then you don’t get to whine about why nobody cares what you say from inside the safety of your media bubble of ignorance.
It’s also not a sustainable fiscal model for sad and tired old journos as the internet is already stuffed full of absolute masters of clickbait.
They will always be hired long before some ancient media hack as they don’t particularly care about pushing the same tired old political agenda with their every utterance. They can use sex and memes and celebrities and whatever the hell they like to just go for the throat using clickbait or ‘native’ advertising.
Of course clickbait is by it’s very nature the most untrustworthy and mocked source for anyone to ever use. It transforms the tabloid credibility gap into a chasm. There’s a reason even Facebook have put in serious countermeasures against clickbait and why Adblockers are now so utterly commonplace.
Clickbait and Native Advertising undermines the entire purpose of journalism as it used to be. The result we see is a bubble of desperate journos caught between fully embracing the active destruction of everything their profession was supposed to represent and pushing the same tired old establishment MSM bullshit which even they themselves know nobody will actually pay the slightest bit of attention to.
Except themselves.
The biggest irony of all that is these journos are almost always using the most transformative mass communication tool in history to speak to a small clique of usually a dozen or so likeminded media luvvies in the bubble. That is their actual target audience. Whether they admit it to themselves or not.
Have not bought a British newspaper in over two years.
Nearest to reading one is, bored – pick up Metro when on the metro then chuck it aside; check Guardian, FT, Telegraph websites to compare similar political chicanery.
Useful idiots are back.
I defy Wings readers to click on this a few times without laughing.
It’s not clickbait but a clickbait headline generator. (meta! Kappa )
link to community.usvsth3m.com
The results are often just too perfect. 😀 😉
PS: Won’t be watching the ‘Lympiks’ either. Life is too short.
Only journalist worth reading is an investigative journalist, and they are rarer than a sober Foulkes.
Stick to politics this shite wasn’t a good idea the last time you pulled this stunt that rusulted in a week long hatefest and it’s not any better this time
Well said Rev.The parallel between the media’s unquestioning and supine support of ‘Sevco’ aka ‘The Rangers’ and its treatment of Unionist institutions is identical and motivated by the same reasons: craven self seeking money grubbing combined with fear of reaction from these institutions that could threaten their cosy unquestioning existences.
Graham Speirs, a well known blue-nose and supper companion of Walter Smith admitted enjoying ‘succulent lamb’ repasts with the ‘grate’ man. Unfortunately, when he had the temerity to question the bigoted singing by the Sevco support, he was bombarded with abuse and attempts were made to stop him making a living. A salutory lesson in, to paraphrase: ‘the liar lies down with the lamb’ and gets his arse bitten .He has not been alone in this experience.
The explicit violence associated with this club’s ‘supporters’ has surfaced for many years at both in and outside football matches. In recent years, the politicisation of the old and zombied club has morphed from straightforward bigotry to right wing zealotry. Witness the events at George Sq. post Referendum and subsequent ‘celebrations’ in the stadium of Unionism such as ‘Forces Day’…shamed by servicemen and fans alike doing the loyalist ‘bouncy’ and the ‘Tri-centennial’ of the Union in 2007.
This new club had the chance to throw the old history of bigotry away, but instead its owners and the hard core of die hard loyalists that support it have been buoyed up in their continuing hatred by this arse kissing media of sychophants and political pimps who pass for journalists in this country. It’s significant that the only real critique of ‘Rangers’ and their supporters amongst REV”s tweets is an Englishman Alex Thomson. Which says it all about our ‘investigative’ coterie of press pimps.
Relentless real journalism, thanks Rev C.
You mention the ’empty celebrity stories’ that flood tiny minds with distractions..
I’d add ‘flag’ issues to that emptiness.
Robert Graham says. 2:10 pm.
‘.. Stick to politics..’
No need!
The political arguments have been won.
Now it’s the propaganda we must attack.
Come on Stu.
Are you really so surprised at bias from journalists?
Sooner or later even the most talented at keeping it hidden behind a neutral facade will let that cover slip.
You couldn’t possibly expect them to be otherwise. They’re just not that good.
Isn’t there some court case due to be heard in October to decide if New Rangers are in fact still Old Rangers? If the court agrees they’re the same then ta ta Old/New/whatever Rangers.
Is this not clickbait then and does it help anything or continue to add to the stupidity of the argument about a football club whether new or old or who cares
Yoons will just love this because it sounds like them and employs the same tired point of view
No matter how much you may dislike this football club or some of it’s supporters, constantly poking them in the eye won’t make them improve their behaviour or change their belief system
No matter what’s said or done it inevitably drags up religious sectarian bigotry and that’s the real problem
and it shouldn’t even be a Scottish problem, this shit was dragged over here from elsewhere and indoctrinated into both sides from birth and the political powers that be which was Labour in the central belt who actively encouraged it to use as vote winners for themselves and now we’ve got the flaming Ruth Davidson party dragging it up and using it again
This is a bad subject
The best efforts, which won’t happen would be for schools to stop having religion in them or maybe they might start teaching the truth that the whole God thing is a crock of shit and stop being taken for mugs by the class who invented it to keep themselves in control for the last however many thousands of years
Or at least go back to worshipping a tree, at least it’s actually there
Football’s got sod all to do with this argument and everybody knows it, it’s just all eye poking
Laughed at David Torrance’s 2010 extract on Cybernats complaining that someone saying his biography of Salmond was mere tittle tattle amounted to abuse. Talk about being thin skinned.
Won’t be watching Lympics but can someone not tell Kheredine Idessane that the Scottish swimmer is not Ross MURDOCK.
Just because the BBC Queen’s English can’t pronounce Murdoch as in Rupert there is no excuse for Radio Scotland presenters.
Robert Graham says:
6 August, 2016 at 2:10 pm
Stick to politics this shite wasn’t a good idea the last time you pulled this stunt that rusulted in a week long hatefest and it’s not any better this time
Lighten up Rab.
louis.b.argyll says:
6 August, 2016 at 2:21 pm
Robert Graham says. 2:10 pm.
‘.. Stick to politics..’
No need!
The political arguments have been won.
Now it’s the propaganda we must attack.
Agreed Louis
Re David Torrance – he was one of the guests this morning on the Radio Scotland ‘Shereen’ programme (10:00 -11:30). Heated discussion between him and Sergio Cassi about Brain family. Cassi said they had shown a commitment to Scotland, studied Scottish history etc and had a very good case for remaining and that it would be good for Scotland. Torrance described those reasons as ‘spurious’ much to Cassi’s annoyance. I was reminded again how very dislikeable I find Torrance. He had his usual guff about the Scottish Six and the misrepresentation of his TV blooper blaming his words in the first instance on ‘being Jet lagged’. On leaving Twitter, I think he said he was fed up being told his journalism was rubbish.
You can listen to Shereen here: link to bbc.co.uk
These will be the same Celtic supporter who will be dancing in the streets when they first beat Rangers in the SPL this year. Why would that be I wonder?
Let’s move on and concentrate on what’s important. This isn’t it.
I was referring to this …
“Unsurprisingly, a number of (mainly) Celtic supporters took some justifiable umbrage at the use of the word “back””
The very well made point in this article is that the media are willing and able to knowingly perpetuate a falsehood when it suits their purposes. The existence or non existence of a football club is fairly trivial and not worth bothering much about as such: What matters is the question: what other things are we being lied to about?
the brit nat establishment to need to latch on to teams and individuals hence the fawning over Andy Murray “playing for the country” and flying the butchers apron. They are good at it. From the news media asking for sub texts to understand him several years ago to the fawning over him. Knighthood. Lordship they cry!! What a good chappie!
Has he been sucked into the establishment? I hope not. There is still a wee bit of me hopes that if he does well he might remember the saltire but then I remember that such displays are not permitted.
We don’t exist in the unionist world.
Unfortunately, this is ‘politics’. Our media are and have been lining up and supporting Unionism and its institutions at all costs. Particularly at the cost of truth. Rangers are again unfortunately, more than just a football club, otherwise this article would have no resonance. This club has chosen to ally itself politically as Unionist and British. The media are supporting this as part of the hegemony.
[…] Wings Over Scotland No-one likes them, they don’t care WARNING: this post isn’t about football, but it will refer to football for quite a […]
Clickbait. Hit and run. Divide and rule. It’s all just about vested interests. Those with money and therefore power will do anything to maintain their position of unjustified privilege. Does anyone think that it’s right that someone got to be a senior politician, CEO, military leader, newspaper baron etc largely because they went to an expensive private school and then gained exclusive entry to oxbridge?
The MSM is just one way that those at the ‘top’ maintain their position. To expect anything else is just plain stupid. You’ll get more truth in the Beano.
While I generally enjoy your articles, Rev Campbell, on this issue I consider that it is you who is misguided by an erroneous view of the legal position. The football club, Rangers, is an incorporeal asset which has continued to exist (and is not a ‘new’ club) notwithstanding the changes, including liquidations, of its previous owners.
Stick to politics ?
This is part of entrenched politics in Scotland – sadly (See Murdo Fraser et al – Queens Eleven etc, etc, etc ).
@Elizabeth – glad Sergio Casci got in aboot Torrance times the kid gloves were off with BBC saps.
The football club, Rangers, is an incorporeal asset which has continued to exist (and is not a ‘new’ club) notwithstanding the changes, including liquidations, of its previous owners.
Do we really need to go into why they’ve been absent from the premier leaugue, or why Scots sports fans just have to forget the how and why they actually won their trophies for a decade at least?
The colonial media, like most yoons, like to view the world through Union Jack shades. It truly is a beautiful world wearing those shades….
link to imgur.com
link to imgur.com
link to imgur.com
Some earlier 50 Shades of U.J.…
link to imgur.com
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#Elizabeth.
I noticed that and why he does get up the noses of people like Alex Salmond. He is so self-righteous.
Sergio was just making the point that the Brain family wanted to identify themselves with Scotland and for that they should be commended, but that in Torrance’s eyes condemns them to parochialism. He is a unionist plain and simple.
Curious that Torrance thinks that commitment to the nation you are immigrating to is spurious in determining whether one should stay or not.
Might explain why the Tories are so utterly rubbish on the issue of immigration.
To be fair to Torrance, the little I have read of his click bait it is no more crap than just about any of the other scribblers who ply their trade in the media.
It is all mostly crap though.
Torrance was on BBC Scotlandshire this morn, moaning about cybernats and being praised to heaven by the EBC presenter. Poor man.
Rangers should change its name to Bangers. They are a bit like Auld and New Labour, where no one could tell the difference.
We were through in Elgin today, getting back to the car I said to the missus, wee bet on the first name we hear in Radio Shortbread, you guessed it RANGERS.
Nearly crashed the car laughing.
Here is to more years of bigoted sh*te.
I don’t have any problems with the old Rangers, its the way in which their demise has been easily forgotten on Rad Shortbread.
Each club in the SPFL should have a banner welcoming the New Glasgow Rangers in getting to the top league for the first time.
By all accounts well done to wee Dougie Imrie, a football player for all youngsters to aspire to become,regarding commitment and professionalism.
Might explain why the Tories are so utterly rubbish on the issue of immigration.
Tories have to live with the tory press too, a tory BBC led press we all know detests immigrants to their country. Or rather the tax dodger billionaires that own the UK media do. Its maybe a coincidence that the UK media dont monster Scottish immigrants the way the go after them England. Although Daily Heil doesn’t take any prisoners either side of the border.
Give the money hoarding racist freaks that own the UK media what they want, victory is yours, they work for them, facts are sacred, sacred means shit etc.
On balance, maybe assorted tory hackdom freak out just gives us what they think they can sell. No good peddling newspapers that sits on the stands, like say the Hootsman:D
None of this troubles BBC guys that shower themselves with loadsamoney ofcourse. All of which is why that Russell dude is piling in behind Rangers.
If, as you argue, the ‘original’ Rangers no longer exist, why do you feel the continuing need to put inverted commas round “Rangers” (apart from in your exemplar quotes)? The ‘new’ club is playing, for whatever reason, rightly or wrongly, under the name of Rangers. Whether anyone likes it or not, that’s the club’s name. No need for apostrophisation. I’m not taking sides in any ‘argument’ here; just trying to look at this aspect of the item dispassionately.
@Elizabeth 2.42
If Torrance said he is fed up being told his journalism is rubbish, that might be the most honest thing he has said.
Simple solution, up yer game, Torrance. Be objective, be truthful and put the work in.
I’m sure, like many on here, we know good journalists. I follow the likes of Jon Snow, Faisal Islam, and Michael Crick. These guys are actually concerned with fairness and accuracy. They don’t tweet provocative shit.
They arguably have a wider reach, they get lots of abuse, and handle it admirably, standing by their statements, which is easy, because they know and research their subject.
@Lochside, great comments.
This is politics, it’s the cancer at the very heart of Scotland. The fact that the yoon media can portray lies as facts, is what’s destroying Scotland.
This is not about football, it is about power and control. It will never change unless we try to change it.
@ Brian Hill
That, explicitly, isn’t the point though, is it?
The point is that the journalist is contradicting the opinion on that point that he himself previously held and does not care.
The reason for his lack of caring is what is being highlighted.
@ myself – too many “points” in that middle sentence:
“The point is that the journalist is contradicting the opinion on that matter that he himself had….”
would have been better.
Crazycat </b?
“@ myself – too many “points” in that middle sentence”
You BAD, BAAAAD, VILE SEP CYBERNAT!
Now’s the Hour says:
6 August, 2016 at 4:02 pm
If, as you argue, the ‘original’ Rangers no longer exist, why do you feel the continuing need to put inverted commas round “Rangers” (apart from in your exemplar quotes)?
I’d like to take this one if I may. You see Mow’s the hour, its all about winding up the other side. You’ve clearly never go to your local ground to watch a soccer match but its what opposing fans do do. All that’s even remotely interesting about “Rangers” now, is how they use Scotland in the UK and the union jack ofcourse for their support of “Rangers” but that’s about all there is.
And ofcourse its now why Scotland’s going to be swamped in “Rangers” by the Pacific Quay mob in particular, from now until the end of time, “Rangers” get relegated again, Scotland gets independent and is no longer run by toryboy England, which ever comes first.
Well maybe its going to be of interest to see if “Rangers” can actually do much now that their, cough, tax affairs have been sorted out, kind of.
Spot on Rev Scottish scribblers of the dead tree press and zoomer box are no more than pretendy trolls out looking to create clickbait.
The sad thing is its quite effective all you have to do is annoy one side and wait for them to go mental and hey presto clickbait from both sides as they attack each other over the clickbait,people are not the brightest and their indignation can be used to flame.
Though by doing so they also put a big target on their backs for real trolls ahem lmao
I forgive the footie at the start. I clenched whatever I had to clench really tight and managed to get through it to the meat of issue which is spot on.
But what do we do about it? As a society how do we get some real journalism done?
The reason for putting Rangers in commas is pretty simple. Given that the old club is called Rangers and apparently the new club is also called Rangers, it is a simply way to let people know what club you are referring to, eg. ‘Rangers’ – new club, Rangers – old club.
Wings, I love your work. 😀
When my wee gran died we were all very sad.
After a few weeks we popped down to the local old folks home and adopted a new one.
We changed her name by deed poll and visit weekly to reminisce about the past.
She doesn’t know what is going on but seems to appreciate the company.
She is struggling health wise but have already lined up wee gran 3.
Peace to all.
Crazycat..
.. you pointedly, pointed out, pontificated perfectly but panicked post-posting. Pathetically perfect precision promulgation.
Sorry but the thesaurus was just there..
@Lochside and others not talking shite –
Well said.
The fact of a specific topic being toxic is all the more reason to keep at it until some sense can be squeezed out.
It’s also worth mentioning that for every person who flies into a rage when their club is, in their eyes, traduced, there are many more who don’t give a fuck and/or find it all insanely hilarious.
It is reported that the Washington Post is to use robots to write reports on sporting events at this year’s Olympics, which, like many on here, I won’t be watching.
How very 2013!
Scotland’s news has been written by robots since the independence referendum was announced.
It’s an easy-peasy IT fix to insert a program:- ‘Will say’ to a Better Together ‘Scotland is shite’ trope, SNP is The Devil Incarnate handouts.
I noted yesterday on the news rack a DR front page Scoop !, a’Sink the Bismarck’ screaming banner headline, ‘The Shirt Hits the Fan’.
In the midst of the biggest social and political upheaval Scotland and its citizens have faced since the last War, The Record’s Editorial Team consider that which already filthy rich group of chancers gets to make obscene amounts of money out of garrulous knuckledraggers by selling ‘replica’ jerseys to them is the most important issue facing Scotland today.They don’t even bother trying any more.
I had a slight ‘ouch’ when I opened this piece, Stu.
The point which you make, is that our MSM Hacks and broadcasters do not give a tuppenny toss about the general public, and show no embarrassment that they completely fail to acknowledge 56 Independence MP’s and the rapid decline in Unionism, certainly in natives under 40,(I’m 68 BTW) and that we actually have a democratically elected SNP Scottish Government, and that 62% of us voted to remain within the EU. They are agent provocateurs, a Fifth Column in the pay of a London/US New World Order Establishment.
Professor Two Jobs WATP Adam Tomkins, and Murdo The Queen’s Eleven Fraser, and Ruth’s rechristening the Tories Up here as the ‘Conservative and Unionist’ Party, are clearly bitter sectarian ploys to win the votes of the bitter Blueshirt neaderthals.
Similarly James Kelly’s attempts to destroy the OBFG legislation is to get the Green Brigade, ‘ non negotiable’ Hibernian Marchers to vote for his tawdry wee Labour party. I believe that he and Murphy attend Parkhead?
Perhaps Kezia should rebrand ‘Scottish’ Labour as the ‘Labour and Unionist Party’?
The point of the article is well made.
Our hacks are merely mouthpieces for the rich and famous, who believe that democracy is a sham to keep us, the Hoi Polloi, the Great Unwashed, the Proles, the plebs, the working stiffs, in the delusion that our X actually matters.
Some hope.
I sense that you know you are rattling a particular cage with this one, Stu. Naughty, naughty.
Et maintenant, Le Deluge.
In 1966 I was working in a store in Motherwell. I regret to say that I was part of the “anti” brigade. Well, what can one expect of a 17 year old, poorly educated, junior secondary school leaver in Motherwell. A number of my fellow employees were Roman Catholics. Once, when there was a Rangers-Celtic match on, I asked a fellow employee if his religion was Celtic or Rangers. He replied “Celtic”.
As I look back, having been educated, after completing my Honours Philosophy degree in Scotland, and studying Theology in a Presbyterian College in the University of Toronto, where, other than Preaching, I took all my Pastoral courses in Roman Catholic Theological Colleges in the U of T, except one that I took in a Pontifical College in Ottawa, I feel sad. That Rangers and Celtic and Rangers should have been considered conflicting religions in 1960s Scotland. I had the privilege of preaching in Roman Catholic Churches in Canada and West Africa. I had the privilege of having a Roman Catholic Sister give a course on prayer in a Presbyterian Church which I served in Canada. I regret seeing that a religious type of devotion to Rangers in Scotland still exists. I cannot comment on Celtic supporters devotion to Celtic. Whether Rangers is or is not the same club as was liquidated in 2012, I feel concern that there may be a return to the sectarian rivalry that previously existed.
I use the word “sectarian”, but this is not Protestan v Catholic sectarianism, because most of the Rangers supporters I know seldom set foot in a church. Is the sectarianism of Rangers as a religion, a distortion of cultural Protestantism. I don’t know enough about Celtic supporters to be able to identify Celtic as a religion, a distortion of cultural Roman Catholicism. I do hope that the laws against sectarianism at football matches are upheld in Scotland. They are not a matter of class, but a matter of social justice.
As this site is a media monitoring blog this article is very relevant. It exposes, yet again, so-called Scottish journos being ‘AYE READY’ to deceive and mislead.
It is also of the utmost importance to sports lovers who detest any form of corruption and cheating.
All it takes for evil to flourish is for good folk to do nowt!
As for the ‘are they are they not’ debacle,
here they are – pan bread – dead as a DoDo:
link to roi.aib.gov.uk
Maybe ‘Rangers’ should be ‘un’-comma’d and instead be put in an induced ‘coma’.
That would match the insight shown by most Scottish journalists and be more intelligent most sports writers/robots.
Apologies to real robots.
If it quacks like a duck…
Torrance on Shereen this morning.
Discussion topics included Scottish Six and Twitter.
Quelle surprise !
Shereen gushing over Torrance ….. paraphrase ” oh David whit are ye like?” ……. even before getting to those topics.
If you were talking about the company fielding the team called Glasgow Rangers then given the old co had more than one including under 21s and reserves it’s highly probable that the titles won are far in excess of 55 if you talk about club which is unarguably pushing up the dasies.
If you read Nimo’s judgment he is quick to mention common parlance. In other words the pretence of the club being the same is just that. However that doesn’t mean that according to the law of the land and the SFA the present club hasn’t managed to acquire the team fielded by the previous club.
Confusingly the refusal to allow the new club to buy the SPL share doesn’t mean anything given their rules would have allowed them to do the same if the old club had simply been taken into new management.
This is an excellent piece of analysis, as it for the first time I know of, clearly outlines the gaping chasm that has opened up between journalists and their readership. No longer is factual information important, what is important is to stir things up with falsehoods, insults and innuendo. Click bait. Maximising revenue, that’s all it is. That is the goal.
It might be said that nowadays, journalists are the everyday whores of corporate interests, biased political ‘think-tanks’ and business groups. Whether somebody actually reads a paper or not, is neither here nor there.
@ louis. b. argyll
Splendid alliteration there – I’ve always been partial to that.
I really don’t care about football.
As far as i am concerned, Torrance is a Total Twitter Twat.
That is it.
I think we mistakenly think journalists are employed to report a story truthfully.
I suspect they are employed to write a story suitable for a target audience
The audience will be the soft unionist that wants it’s position reinforced or protected
The truth does not come into it
Bob Mack @ 1.37
Absolutely spot on !
John, Bob Mack.. Yes, I agree..but you say.. Don’t fall into the trap..
I’d say the article, forensically shows how the traps are set.
‘Rangers’ back where ‘they’ belong, journalists ridiculing a ‘Scottish Six’ and promoting the Queen’s Eleven. Union flags everywhere on the BBC. Hey, even Andy Murray is a proud Brit!
All of it hoping for clicks anywhere in the world – all designed to show that nothing really changes no matter what. If web traffic in Australia is up, what does it matter if your home audience are disgusted with you? It is clear it is a game to Torrance. If ever a writer was exposed for his formulaic churnalism it is he.
However, scratch beneath the surface and the yoon press know nothing will ever be the same again, people are on to them. They have devalued a proud industry to the level of a tawdry reality show. Some probably grit their teeth and say it is pays the mortgage and gives them a living. Some might even believe in what they write.
However,it seems some don’t actually care.
I wonder if wee Aidan Kerr ever regrets giving up his education to be a part of that?
Regarding Rangers as a new club….It’s such a petty, un-important argument either way.
It seems the vitriol in both detections is older than the last four years. I sense the reason a lot of people go on about Rangers being a new club is more about the fact they don’t like Rangers or their fans and enjoy “sticking in the boot”.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s really not that important.
I encourage people to freely hold their view either way and move on.
If Scotland is to achieve independence it’ll be easier to do so, and better for what comes next, to persuasively bring people to our way of thinking rather than preaching to the choir while alienating our friends and family who happen too currently have different politics.
“Regarding Rangers as a new club….It’s such a petty, un-important argument either way.”
Except it’s not. It’s the Scottish media telling barefaced lies and getting away with it, which is exactly what this entire site is about. If you don’t care about that, what are you doing here?
Rev., please give up on this Rangers stuff. Bob Mack at 1.37pm says it for me., don’t be drawn in.
If it looks like a duck,and it walks like a duck – Rangers, same stadium, same name, same strip, arguably same support. Financial niceties over creditors? – BHS?, Banking? Libor?
Are Lloyds, RBS etc still Lloyds and RBS?
Who cares other than the folk who’d rather watch others playing footie than do something themselves in their leisure time –
And worse, those who seek to create divisions in society using sectarian/football/religious matters as their means.
Off Topic: mind blowing piece in the scotsman on the SNP’s supposed hypocrisy in opposing trident while being simultaneously up in arms at the promised order of type 26 frigates being reduced in number then delayed and now in doubt.
link to archive.is
Michael Fallon claims:
“The eight anti-submarine frigates are to protect the deterrent, it is a little hypocritical of the SNP to urge us to advance a date for protecting a deterrent they voted against.”
So what Fallon seems to be suggesting is the type 26 frigates working in convoy, escorting the successor to vanguard! I am no military strategist but that strikes me as complete and utter bullshit.
The Royal Navy’s own website describes the class 26 frigate function thus:
“The Type 26 Global Combat Ship is a 21st Century warship that will replace the Type 23 frigate as the workhorse of the Fleet, undertaking the Royal Navy’s three core roles – warfighting, maritime security and international engagement – on the world stage.
Eight Type 26s will replace the eight dedicated anti-submarine frigates, alongside a new class of general purpose light frigates.
First and foremost, the 26s are being designed to protect the nation’s strategic deterrent and new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers from hostile submarines.”
For the Defence Minister of the UK to come out with this drivel is amazing.
Slightly off topic, but only slightly, examine how our yellow scum media are guiding the narrative of recent emigrants being deported from Scotland. Witness ‘Weetabix’ Torrance’s feeble attempts on Radio Shortbread this a.m. to defend British rules which seem only to apply in England for posh Universities but not in North Britain.
Also the complete radio and tele silence on another £60 billion monopoly money being printed by the Royal Mint for ‘Quantative easing’ (sounds like pile ointment) to cover up the gaping hole ( I was right), in the economy left by the Brexit vote. Carney ( as in Carnival?) Governor of erroneously named Bank of England stammered out that a ‘timely , coherent and comprehensive package of measures’ had been implemented.
He should have completed the sentence that it had been implemented to cover the sorry arses of what passes for a UK Government. A black hole that exists in the ‘greatest city in the world’. Or as Bozo the clown Johnson said ‘The people who made the city that made the world’. People such as said clown, Gove, Corbin, Cameron, and Fannie May. Also the 3000…yes 3000 legalised gamblers, speculators, and as Marx described coupon clippers..who earned a minimum of £1 million each last year.
Meanwhile Lezia is back from the Henry Jackson school for spooks…without so much as a ripple of interest or enquiry from our pack of press jackals.I know SLAB are fucked but these douche bags don’t want to wake up the unenlightened with the obituary for it just yet.
@Robert Graham says: 6 August, 2016 at 2:10 pm
“Stick to politics this shite wasn’t a good idea the last time you pulled this stunt that rusulted in a week long hatefest and it’s not any better this time.”
Hilarious, there’s always one total numptie that proves Rev Stu’s point – and here he is – right on queue.
“No Surrender”, right enough. I really wish that Rangers newco were the old Rangers. If they were then those owed money would get it.
The media ‘forgetting’ what the printed only a few years ago. Now gushingly claim Rangers are the same. They really ought to be careful what they say and what they wish for. Same goes for the Rangers fans, the SFA, UEFA and FIFA all of which claim Rangers are the same club.
Fair enough. But there’s still a Supreme Court hearing to be heard this October. In Scots Law there’s this thing called Personal Bar (estoppel in English Law). The basic principle means a person or company cannot claim to be two things.
(Old) Rangers FC owed 364 creditors about £120 million, hence why they went bust. However, when OBD (representing the creditors of Old Rangers) go to the Supreme Court in OCtober, they can basically argue that New Rangers are the same club with the same fans, the same assets, the same business address, the same directors and the same business. OBD simply have to say to Lord Hope when that hearing comes:
“M’Lord – everyone agrees Old Rangers is the same as New Rangers. Everyone agrees that they are the same club with the fans, directors and assets. Rangers agree. The Rangers’ fans agree. The SFA agree. UEFA agree. FIFA afree. And, M’Lord, the Scottish media agree. If Rangers FC claim to be the same club, M’Lord, then my clients here would like their money back from the same club that took their services without payment.”
And if a majority of the five judges agree, the Rangers (old, new or whatever) are stuffed.
Rangers and their fans really should be careful what they wish for.
Well I had a pleasant distraction watching some of the girlies Beach Volleyball today. There wasn’t a single Team GB UKOK Ingerland apron is sight either. I have no idea what the score was in the end and I wasn’t bothered either.
I don’t think I care about who this Grant Russell is either. I think I will stick with the girlies Beach Volleyball as long as it isn’t Team GB UKOK Ingerland involved.
Meantime while driving through Springburn (Glasgow) could not believe what I saw, an icecream van with its name in large letters spelled out along its sides “Wullies Boys”.
As an ex Hun I feel able to comment on rangers – an absolute embarrassment! That I ever supported them is a continued source of personal embarrassment!
I gave up many years ago seeing the flag of shame being waved by cretins abroad, my decision was vindicated by the Manchester fiasco and attacking the English police and English public. Strange way to demonstrate your loyalty?
The death of the old rangers should have ushered in a new rangers with out the old bagage, sadly it didn’t, it ushered in diddy men mark 2.
Two nights ago we saw on our TVs a blast from the past, chief gob-shite for her britanic majesty’s forces, namely one Archibald MacPherson, Esq. he was ranting on about the steamie and the proposed Scotish six.
Much to my surprise, Archie has deserted the comb over and is now sporting a skin head, perhaps he ought to have a word with Donald!
Utter pish from Loon Yoon Lovatt trying to critique the WBB…
link to drive.google.com
nyooooz the powers…
Now’s the Hour says:
If, as you argue, the ‘original’ Rangers no longer exist, why do you feel the continuing need to put inverted commas round “Rangers” (apart from in your exemplar quotes)? The ‘new’ club is playing, for whatever reason, rightly or wrongly, under the name of Rangers. Whether anyone likes it or not, that’s the club’s name. No need for apostrophisation. I’m not taking sides in any ‘argument’ here; just trying to look at this aspect of the item dispassionately.
—–
I’ll never understand why they didn’t reform as “Glasgow Rangers”, after all many folk think that is their name anyway. Of course I do know, it would mean their 54 titles were all in the past and they had to start afresh.
Always chuckle at the “most successful club in the world” title they give themselves. I’m sure Real Madrid, with their 11 European cups,are dead jealous!
Well done Accies today, more than held their own against the champions elect!
@Calum McKay –
I don’t know if GB or any other ex-BBC folk will be able to confirm this, but I was told, back in (ooh, maybe late 80’s?) of an official Queen Margaret Drive internal memo instructing staff to cease referring to Sportscene as ‘MacPherson’s Rant’.
Calum McKay says:
6 August, 2016 at 7:57 pm
As an ex Hun I feel able to comment on rangers – an absolute embarrassment! That I ever supported them is a continued source of personal embarrassment!
Bug fat ditto marks to that.. Well said Calum..
Anyone who is in doubt about the current state of political discourse and general quality of unionist gobshites, please nip across to WOS Twitter and read the tweet about the Hiroshima anniversary, purportedly the work of Kezia Dugdale. (Mibbes she’s suffering from The Jet-Lag too?)
The people this post is all about have done more than anyone else to contribute to the steady degradation of ‘intelligent’ political debate in Scotland. And here’s the rub – it’s intentional, coordinated and backed by the British Establishment, all the way to the top.
These putrid characters don’t just want us to eat our cereal – they want us to lose the will to live.
P.S. Seems it’s a fake.
The fact that there’s any confusion just underscores the point – statements of remarkable idiocy are now so commonplace that they are being accepted as ‘normal’.
🙁
The Rangers situation is complicated. Well, it isn’t but it is. I mean, everything Stu has said is completely true, but, well.
You see, I am an Airdrie fan, and I regard my club as being a new club and not the one that went bust in 2002.
However, if we were ever to get “back” to the second teir, which is really where we should be, I’d regard it as being back in the sense of the old club, even although I know it’s a new club.
So, sometimes it’s a bit harsh on the sevco fans.
I do laugh at some folks that call the current Airdrie club Clydebank though. They don’t seem to realise that Clydebank did the exact same thing as Airdrie and bought a club called East Stirlingshire and changed the name and moved it to Clydebank! What goes around comes around.
Rangers FC.
The £64,000 question – Is it …or is it not the same club?
Personally, I couldn’t give a toss.
The problem here, is not whether we are looking at the old club or possibly a new one, but acknowledging that once again, the club, the stadium and the owners have allowed the sectarian baggage that blighted Rangers FC of old to come back and voice it’s hatred of Catholicism, Scottish nationalism or any attack on the Queen or Union.
There probably was an opportunity when Charles Green created Sevco, to build a club that distanced itself from its obsession with Northern Ireland and the Orange Order, and thus, determine a course to making it a modern day Scottish club looking forward to the future; not to it’s darker past.
That opportunity of an alternative new club is long gone.
Instead, most of Scotland look on in a mixture of contempt, disgust and a shake of the head as those that shout out for 90 minutes at the weekend that ‘We are the people’ are absolutely nothing of the sort. For simply put, 4/5th’s of Scotland want nothing to do with Rangers FC, and abhor the idea that this club, allow a section of the Rangers support to state that they speak with the conscious of the Scottish nation.
They most certainly do not.
Simply put …I don’t care whether it Rangers FC, Newco, Sevco, Zombie FC or whatever. The real fact is, that it doesn’t matter who or what the club is; it is beliefs of that club that has returned to the top flight today. That is why the people of Scotland hold Rangers FC in sheer and utter contempt. For the club have made no effort to remove the stain that blights them, as well as Scotland. They could have; they didn’t. That tells you about the type of characters that reside in Ibrox. Any other company that openly promoted such immoral and unethical attitudes would be treated like a pariah in the business world.
Make no bones about it, the SFA, UEFA and FIFA should have ordered the directors at Rangers years ago to change its way immediately or face severe and dire consequences. But of course …they didn’t. They also are guilty of allowing this nonsense to continue. For those that promote the game to openly advertise slogans such as ‘fair play’ and ‘say no to racism’ are not only perceived to be weak, but are also seen as corrupt, and therefore, their own promotion of the game is not only laughable, but it is also contemptibly shameful.
So it doesn’t really matter whether it is a new club or not. But the real fact here, is the culture and beliefs of that old club have returned (if they were ever gone). And for any decent minded person in Scotland, that does matter…
Hugely relevant to the clickbait theme of the Rev’s article
link to archive.is
where a local newspaper reporter showed how clickbait is poisoning local news
eg
“..two consecutive pages which, instead of local news stories, consisted of a pair of listicles: “13 things you will know if you are a Southern rail passenger” and “9 things you didn’t know about Blockbuster”. Both were clickbait written for the web and thrown into print to fill space – an indication of what the paper will be as a result of what Trinity Mirror calls a “truly digitally-led” newsroom”
and a general article examining one possible solution.
link to archive.is
This is a political issue. Why else would James Kelly be introducing a debate in Holyrood to repeal the OBFA? Some people are clearly desperate to resurrect sectarian violence in Scotland. Dangerous fools.
I don’t understand bankruptcy law.
If a company called, for the sake of argument, British Home Stores (BHS) is bankrupt but someone else buys the assets and reopens as BHS without the creditors being paid, is this legal?
I would have thought that the assets have to be sold and the creditors repaid. I thought there is a list of which creditors are first in the queue to be reimbursed. I thought HMRC is quite high up that list.
Shouldn’t all the stores in BHS be sold and the money distributed among the creditors?
Where are “Rangers” playing and training?
If there are different laws for wealthy and famous entities and for the hoi polloi, surely that is political.
So, if in 2016, a rock band formed up and called themselves, say, Thin Lizzie, (stay with me)..
..but it was only the still-operating fan-club’s manager and the former (replacement) drummer, the rest having sadly died or happily retired..
…Would they inherit the royalties to the greatest hits.?
No chance, but they’d still cash-in with the merchandise.
Their (aging) fans would be delighted, believing that it’s just enough to revive the memory of the good old days.
Legally they’d be a new band. If they wanted to play the old hits at a concert they have to pay PRS/ROYALTIES..to the owners of the ORIGINAL bands creative efforts.
Reading through some of the comments made me chuckle. Some folks getting uppity about a ‘football article’, and so on. Perhaps those folks need to concentrate a bit more. On line 1 in RED INK!, is the following;
“WARNING: this post isn’t about football, but it will refer to football for quite a while in order to illustrate its point.”
Strange how many people here seem to have missed it.
And for those wondering about liquidation/creditors of Rangers –
As of two days ago
somebody is making money.
And it ain’t the creditors!
link to archive.is
@mike cassidy
3 or 4 months back there was one of these in the Herald I actually clicked on, somethng like “10 things you didn’t know about Disney films”. Sounded interesting.
Got a popup from that site “you have won an iPhone” (something like that). Googled the company, and apparently they ask people to send money to cover postage and insurance and hey, guess what, no phone ever appears.
I was going to tell the Herald in case they didn’t know but then thought “why bother”. I’m sure the Herald wouldn’t deliberately accept ads from outright known scammers.
ccleaner, winaso and malwarebytes plus antispyware and a couple of others cleaned that up.
@mike cassidy – again!
I’ve had 3 or 4 customers that have gone t’s up, and the letter from the liquidators “you probably won’t get anything”. The situation is probably there’s say £10,000 of debts they have and £7,000 of assets, and if left alone people would get 70p in the £. But then the liquidators have to be paid, after all. I believe they get preferred creditor status along with the HMRC and banks.
Another Crash Gordon Labour fcuk up/legacy. How Crash got away with this is my teamGEnglandB mystery of this evening. Facts are sacred and its interesting how and why rancid The Graun liggers dont mention Crash, Blair or the Flipper.
link to archive.is
“In a speech to parliament in 2005, May claimed that governments should not be able to raid lottery funds. “Every pound that the government choose to snaffle that way is a pound that cannot go to help community groups or to preserve our historic buildings.”
Because
Scott Arthur ?@DrScottThinks 28 Jul 2015 Islington, London
Labour’s recovery shouldn’t be about right v left, or rich v poor. It is about convincing everyone that social justice is in their interest.
Dr No.
One more for the infamous ledger: link to wp.me
“The English team can learn a lot from these other countries.”
Colonial minded English commentator on 2016 Olympic Team GB (meaning all nations) hockey match.
I’m confused.
Football is as much about the minutia of who played for which team 10 20 30 50 years ago. Who scored which penalty, wh fouled who and got sent off. I’ve heard grown men argue like school wains over such issues as who sat on the bench during Cup quarter final. All based on hazy memories fogged by too many pies, pints and hauffs.
Such arguments keep the game alive and fans dig deep in shallow pockets to be a small part of that base.
Why then is there any dispute about ANY football club’s adjudicated legal status? Surely it is an absolute on Public Record?
@ Capella
I don’t know much about bankruptcy law, either, except that it seems to be a lot easier these days for bankrupts to start again. Discharge happens without there being any necessity to pay people back; Clarissa Dickson Wright declared herself bankrupt several times, and recommended it as an easy way out of difficulties – it doesn’t surprise me that she didn’t care about those to whom she owed money. The stigma would appear to have gone.
Companies may be different from individuals, though. A few years ago I had something installed in my house, there was a problem with the installation a few days later, and the company had gone bust in the interim. I applied to be a creditor, to try to retrieve what I had paid to fix the problem, with no expectation of success since it was a small sum and I would be at the end of the queue.
I am still being sent intermittent reports from the receivers, and HMRC does take priority. The intellectual property has been bought, however, and the product is still being manufactured and sold – but the name of the company has not been passed on; the purchasers were already trading under another name.
Bankruptcy used to be something that affected people for the rest of their lives and greatly restricted their ability to make money, but now it’s just a way of avoiding paying your debts (with a few unpleasant consequences such as losing your house, though that can be got round by registering it in someone else’s name, if you suspect you might go bust and act pre-emptively).
Sunday Herald continue with the ‘back’ at top table..
link to twitter.com
Kex thinking outside the box,
link to bbc.co.uk
She said a second chamber of unelected Lords was a “democratic outrage”.
The Lothian region MSP said: “We need a second chamber, it should be elected and it can’t be in London.”
She said she would campaign for Glasgow to be the site of a “democratic and balanced revising chamber”
They could use “Rangers” stadium, although Lady Mone of Mayfair wont like this, nor Lady Chakrabarti. I really thought JC could lead his people to a bettertogether tomorrow because
Scott Arthur ?@DrScottThinks 28 Jul 2015 Islington, London
Labour’s recovery shouldn’t be about right v left, or rich v poor. It is about convincing everyone that social justice is in their interest.
Dr No.
@Robert Louis
Strange how many people here seem to have missed it.
Robert, I wouldn’t say they have. Quite a number have discussed journalistic integrity here.
Others like myself however, have expressed their withering contempt at a club that continues to promote sectarianism. My anger; disappointment; disgust lies with those in charge of the Club as well as the overall game itself, in that they have allowed sectarianism to be promoted.
Sure Stuart’s article discusses the poor journalism that surrounds Rangers FC and how they will hotfoot from one viewpoint back to another, but the media do that in just about every field of journalism, whether it is politics or showbiz. They slaughter an actress one day and fawn all over her the next when she wears a skimpy costume.
What most folk are stating here, isn’t to do with football in general. They are not discussing how Rangers FC will play this season. They are talking about the immoral and unethical behaviour that is not only allowed to reside in our national game, but blights the name of Scotland itself. I believe that is the real tragedy of Rangers FC at this moment in time; that they were allowed to continue with this behaviour when there was an opportunity to end the club altogether or that the new owners made sure that the ‘Orange Order’ element was wiped out with lifetime bans and prosecutions.
Some comments may revolve around Rangers FC, but it is not on footballing matters that they are criticising; it is the behaviour of businessmen at the Club and in the games hierarchy that have failed us all.
I think the letters I have been getting have been from liquidators rather than receivers, but it doesn’t really matter – I still haven’t been reimbursed!
Brotherhood:” An official Queen Margaret Drive internal memo instructing staff to cease referring to Sportscene as ‘MacPherson’s Rant’.”
True. Even then McPherson was something of a bloated buffoon, the butt of jokes, especially because of his pomposity which usually had him trip over his malapropisms.
His comb over was a magnet for satire – he was so obviously stupid no one could dislike him – a hairstyle believed to have inspired the hilarious take-off sketch starring Gregor Fisher in the photo booth getting his comb over into the right place before the flash went off.
GB = England.
Ian Robertson the Scottish born BBC commentator managed to refer to the GB women’s rugby team twice in a few minutes as England this evening in their match against Japan.
Sorry folks just accept Scotland is just a region of England,even a fellow Scot seems to think so.
@ crazycat – thanks for that. I agree that for an individual, declaring bankruptcy gets you out of paying debts. But din’t your assets still have to be sold to repay creditors? Also, you are barred from trading for (I think) 2 years.
But a company? Football clubs are companies are they not, like BHS. Their assets are the grounds, training facilities, and maybe also players? Shouldn’t these be sold to repay creditors. like HMRC?
@ mike cassidy – interesting links. What a sleazy bunch of “advisers” “Rangers” employed.
“Who set up the EBT scheme for Rangers and the Murray Group?
A former lawyer who advised companies on tax strategy known as Paul Baxendale-Walker. He was struck off the roll of solicitors by a disciplinary tribunal in 2007. Mr Baxendale-Walker is the author of two books on EBT tax strategies and advised Rangers on how to set the scheme up and operate it.
He subsequently became involved in the porn industry, producing, directing and acting in films under the name Paul Chaplin. “
link to bbc.co.uk
But the tax man may be able to collect after all. George Osborne scuppered the Employee benefit Trust scams/sorry schemes.
link to archive.is
link to caltonjock.com
Sales of Sunday newspapers will be down tomorrow.
Folk not keen to have to flick back several pages to find a wee column with their lesser team’s report.
re Bankruptcy
I know a couple of individuals who were facing almighty tax bills as in 6 almost 7 figure sums, but were advised by a dodgy Tax accountant to transfer all of their assets to other individuals and then declare themselves bankrupt. i.e they had no assets that the HMRC couldn’t get their hands on etc to sell. After a period of 7 years they could then start up in business again, which they did and now they are richer than ever. Unless the HMRC has changed their rules since then it is totally legal.
Vince
I just gave up on the swimming- in the 100m breaststroke the English world champion Adam Peaty romped home breaking a new world record in the process.
Amazing stuff of course and well done Adam. Would it have killed them to even spare more than three or four words for our commonwealth games hero Ross Murdoch who battled to qualify from the heat in third?
link to atlasobscura.com
Its not that Crash Gordon was a maniac in charge of Scotland’s treasure, actually it is.
But
Scott Arthur ?@DrScottThinks 28 Jul 2015 Islington, London
Labour’s recovery shouldn’t be about right v left, or rich v poor. It is about convincing everyone that social justice is in their interest.
Dr No.
There is that other awkward issue of the Scottish Premiership being founded in 2013. Bit difficult to be ‘back’ when you are playing Scottish League One at the time.
@ Dr. Scott Arthur
If you are genuinely concerned with social justice, why do you urgue against Scots accessing their human rights of self-determination and development?
Anyone else detect a certain lack of angry-pants on this thread?
Couple of years ago? Posts dealing with this subject would’ve attracted some properly rabid TrueScotButs, hurling their Alert Reader badges at Rev Stu in disgust.
Who dares imagine change may be upon us?
@ Capella
It does look as if grounds and training facilities should be assets, I agree, so it’s all a bit odd. Since I have no interest in football, I haven’t been paying any attention, and only know what is so public it’s hard to avoid.
argue….oops
@crazycat –
‘…so public it’s hard to avoid.’
Kin right.
But some folk are remarkably adept at doing precisely that – as and when it suits them.
Good article here link to thenational.scot
What future for clickbait practices when even Facebook declares war?
link to archive.is
Trident plans ‘in doubt’, says government watchdog
link to archive.is
Row over SNP Government plan to use council tax proceeds for £100m school reform
link to archive.is
CameronB Brodie says:
7 August, 2016 at 12:01 am
@ Dr. Scott Arthur
If you are genuinely concerned with social justice, why do you urgue against Scots accessing their human rights of self-determination and development?
Entitled, angry buffoons don’t do reasoning Cameron. But they’re still running Scotland councils, so its rather important that Dr NO UKOK types are removed from them too. That will leave them with them with just BBC Scotland and assorted newsrooms in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
Cadogan 12.29
Archived that article.
link to archive.is
I reckon the points made have all been covered on this site recently –
including Stu’s “hug a unionist hoodie”
Maybe the authors have been reading ‘wings’!
Re. The online annihilation of BBC Labour in Scotland a.k.a. BLiS a.k.a. British Labour’s North British Accounting Unit.
I appreciate this will have hardened some noses but I think it was essential to remove the sheep’s clothing from the wolf. Scot’s have been duped for a very long time and there were a lot of myths to dispel. The process was necessary, IMHO, though I’m not condoning abuse.
We can adopt a more convivial approach now that Scotland’s political landscape has been re-shaped (an ongoing process). Without any bloodshed, no less.
Quite vile really.
Okay, please consider this one –
You’re abroad, and you get chatting with people who are curious about Scotland, don’t know much about it/us, but are keen to find out more.
When they get home, they do some basic googling and end up with this:
link to en.wikipedia.org
And they end up thinking (in their own language, naturally, ‘WTF is THAT all about?’)
I mean, come on, seriously – how many Ibrox season-ticket holders can feel ‘proud’ having to refer anyone to this utter nonsense?
heedtracker
Tic toc. 🙂
‘If you believe in things that you don’t understand…’
Stevie Wonder (on Sesame Street) –
link to youtube.com
Ian Brotherhood,
You know what – besides Donald Dewar for re-instituting the Scottish Parliament, the only one among that shower of Colonial Governor wasters that really did achieve something of enduring significance for Scotland was Tom Johnstone, via the Hydro Board.
I just wish that every remaining Labour supporter would come to realise that the only way we can ever hope to achieve anything comparable again is not with perpetual Tory WM, but with independence.
Just listened to that Shereen broadcast which included Torrence.
Previously I’ve only read his various diatribes & generally disagreed with most. However, everybody to their own opinions.
Nevertheless, having listened to the above & his continued interuptions, showing his disrespect for others (I’m right, your wrong), I wouldn’t give him a toilet to shit in.
The man’s an asshole, no, sorry, a hemeriod. An asshole has got it’s use.
@Cadogan Enright
From that national article, generalised:
“Too many SNP supporters thought they could rubbish XYZ online and then ask XYZ supporters for their vote.”
And we still see it.
It’s a curious thing. A lot of the ‘regulars’ on Wings despise and bemoan articles about football. Yet, out there, on the streets and in the pubs, football is a much more common topic of debate. Can’t remember seeing a pub with a chalked list of live political debates it will be showing in forthcoming days and weeks.
Truth is, here in Scotland it is difficult to ignore Rangers, not only in football terms, but also in terms of the political and social legacy with which it continues to scar the Scottish landscape. Rangers (old or new) are symbolic of the Unionist cause in Scotland, more so even than the Tories. The influence of upbringing, tribal identity, peer pressure, or just being aware of ‘what school people went to’, still runs deep, even with those who only have a passing interest in football but still identify with the Loyalist tendency.
You might describe Rangers as the shop-window of Unionism: high profile, not shy in letting us know just exactly what they’re all about. The subtle collusion between management and supporters (carefully massaged by the media) to promote all manner of Unionist propaganda is the core activity of Rangers, because, in effect, Rangers and Unionism are synonymous – Unionism is their ‘business’. And its influence runs deep and wide.
For those who don’t care much about football, think about this: when the Unionist parties in Scotland have reached their lowest ebb, Rangers will still be going strong.
It isn’t Rangers which keeps us bound to the Union, nor is it Labour or the Tories. What protects the Union is the fact we are immersed in Unionist propaganda 24-7 which stifles and obstructs constructive debate and evolution of progressive ideas. It is simply not possible to carry out the process of Nation building while this malevolent interference remains unchecked.
Rangers is just a football team. Scottish Labour is yesterdays news. The Tories are a token signiticance. They have no power to wield.
What binds us to this Union is the lifetime of propaganda in our heads, and the abject failure of our government to do anything about it.
If you think the Scottish 6 is going to change that, then you are a deluded fool. What is life to us is merely a cynical game to them. You need look no further for the reason support for Indy is static than the hateful media and our active indifference about it.
Call me Dave @12.32, That article confirms my thoughts that replacement of trident is beyond the financial and technical ability of the UK. The elephant in the room is the inevitable huge devaluation of the pound when article 50 is triggered for a system largely priced in US dollars. This will put trident beyond the reach of the UK. The final nail in its coffin will be having to site a very dangerous base in England. Who will not tolerate wind turbines, never mind something that could force you out of your home for a hundred thousand years.
I think trident will go the way of the Nimrod and the Tsr2 strike plane.
Breeks 5.49,
I’m much more positive about our situation.The majority of children are growing up in a house with at least one Yes supporter.These youngsters are more likely to start influencing their grandparents than the other way about.Keep up the little conversations.
If Rangers fans in Glasgow were as thirled to the Union as some here would have us believe, there would have been no YES vote in Glasgow. The days of a Conservative & Unionist majority at the city chambers are long gone & football, even in Glasgow, is a minority interest. Fred lives in NE Glasgow in a street where a couple of guys go to watch Petershill & nobody, to his knowledge, actively follows the Old Firm.
All over Scotland there are men and women, young and not so young, who unlike some of us, have friends, family, work colleagues, drinking buddies, fellow (social) club members who mostly lean towards No. In some ways those folks are the most important people on the front line. They have direct contact with the people we need to change their minds from No to Yes.
What can we give these people? What can we do for them, and how can we make it easier?
Come the time when the date for Indy Ref2 is announced, all the Yes Groups will, like before hit the streets, chap doors, hold meetings and front stalls…like before there will be lots of leaflets and pamphlets – no doubt the Wee Black Book will be there, alongside other reading matter.
What can the Yes Movement produce before then, to help the folks I’m referring to in the first paragraph? Can we give em what they need to have a better chance of postively influencing (and empowering) friends, family, colleagues, folks in the boozer etc…who may be less informed, fearful and skeptical that the pros of an Independent Scotland outweigh the cons?
What do they need? And do we have it covered already?
I would like more people in Scotland to understand our media, how it works, who owns what and who runs what and what their (vested) interests are. I’d like more people to know: how many national facing newspapers we have in Scotland; who owns them; useful information about the indivual and/or company that owns the newspaper(s). Info about each newspaper’s editorial position. e.g. Why does the Daily Record support the union/Labour Party?
If more people (not just us) understand or have a better chance to understand why newspapers print what they print, then they have a better chance of contextualizing the information they receive. I don’t watch STV or BBC news, or read the Daily Record; Sun; Mirror, Express or Mail. But lots and lots of people do…and there’s folk out there, Yes voters, who do know such people and they need help, lots of help.
So many folks do not see what we see…don’t know the polticial affiliations of each newspaper, and as such don’t really get the imbalance in the media as acutely as we do. What is obvious to us is not obvious to others. Not everyone has read or is going to read “What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream” by Noam Chomsky.
link to archive.is
Scotland’s Wealth. Our economy. Imports and Exports. Where does the money go? GERS figures, what are the GERS figures? Why they are not a true reflection of Scotland’s Economy and wealth? Heady stuff maybe, but, what can we do, what can we produce…two or three slim (easily readable) pamphlets perhaps?
If i try to see with the eyes of others I can totally get why no voters, who have read articles, watched news items and have a palpable fear, a (mis)understanding, that an independent Scotland will struggle and likely fail financially.
I know much of this has been covered in individual articles, often in the non MSM, I’ve read them, most of you have read them…I can’t imagine, in the first instance, a high proportion of No voters are going to dive in with such voracity. The Wee Black book is excellent – we need more handy sized literature like that, but specific to the key issues.
Pensions; Currency; Defense; Jobs; Europe; Education; The media. Come the day the campaign becomes official, we’re gonna get the leaflets and pamphlets anyway, the sooner we get good concise quality stuff out there the better. It takes time to change a mind. Often it’s a slow drip drip. We have time to utilize the soft sell strategy. If we haven’t got it in the bag, come the time when all we can do is the hard sell, we’re in trouble.
Nice chatting to some of youse in George Square t’other day BTW.
Right, what have I missed? Been at a West Highland wedding since Thursday and delighted to discover that YES is alive and well in Argyll.
Anyroads, the meeja. No, the poison pills don’t rely on our cash for the immediate future. We’re past the point where media and its contract with the public is a direct transaction. Rev’s bang on the money with his appraisal. They hold us in contempt because they can and they consider themselves pretty untouchable and above criticism because their peers won’t hold them to account for their words or actions either.
There are only three things which affect the precious wee dears of the meeja under current circumstance:
1. Scotland’s growing new media presence which has become more than a simple annoyance at this point. Its grown to become more than a pain too. It being seen, I’m sure in some quarters, as a real and growing threat to a great number of over inflated egos and the narratives. We need to keep supporting it.
2. Eyes and ears turning away from them whilst laughing our asses off at their efforts. Simple ridicule – The wee souls don’t like the sound of ridicule or laughter aimed at them I understand. Wonder what the collective description is for a whole bunch of commentators and pundits with pettit lips? A ‘stroomph’ of pundits? In short, if depriving them of our cash is having only a limited effect, depriving them of our attention, making them irrelevant and surplus to requirement is driving them nuts.
Lastly No. 3. Threat of a fully empowered Scottish parliament with control of broadcast and printed media legislation scares the shit out of them. After ALL they have done in the past nine years especially? This scenario is a threat of things to come, a sword of Damoclese and a helluva motivator as far as those individuals are concerned.
Our immediate future is a mass assault of click baiting and ever more ‘Shock Jock’ headlines in an attempt to head off no3 and of course make some coin at the same time. The headlines WILL become more racist, more personal, more shocking and if possible, even less truthful than normal. Its kinda who they are and what they do.
You cannot and never could take on the media head on. Governments and Captain’s of industry don’t have deep enough pockets. State heads and politicians walk softly round the smelly beast. It only has one weakness. It craves attention and it requires your willing participation. You need to allow it to manipulate your opinion to give it power over you.
Its not and never has been a case of why don’t the SNP/SG do this that or the next bloody thing? No one has deep enough pockets not individual or government and constitutionally and legally they’ve always had less authority and less power to affect the media than central government. Which is to say none at all.
You want to hurt these creatures? Combat them effectively? Then you deflate their ego. You laugh at them, ridicule the mainstream whenever the opportunity presents itself. You take the oxygen of publicity from them.
Fred @ 7.20am
From my experience, a lot of the “knuckle-dragging” bigoted element in the blue half of the bigot brothers don’t come from Glasgow. Driving up the M77 on a Saturday, I pass an awful lot of buses from Northern Ireland, while, in my own wee part of Ayrshire, there are a lot of houses with union flags flying outside the front door – we don’t refer to East Ayrshire as “God’s Orange County” lightly.
The same bigotry exists in the old coal-mining part of Lanarkshire, while, of course, on the other side, there is a strong presence of the Celtic Family in North Lanarkshire.
MJT @ 7.51 am
Good post.
Sometime you wonder how it we’re still alive: link to wp.me
And for those thinking of a movie: link to wp.me
Still raging after seeing the sunday mail front page
Links
One for the tory family album, what a shower of
link to twitter.com
link to thegulfintelligence.com
EDF to take legal action over union’s claims about Hinkley Point
link to archive.is
UK prepares to protect its golden goose in EU talks
link to euobserver.com
Jas@ 3:52 a.m
Couldn’t agree more.
We shouldn’t shy away from tackling all the institutions that keep Scotland from uniting behind independence.
Private and religious schools is the other issue that folk want to shy away from in case it turns off soft yes voters like kevin mckenna from supporting independence.
The very fact that we started asking questions of these institutions and those who support them is the reason we’re now so close to independence. Not talking about them and not confronting them will see support for indy slide away.
Exactly Socrates, West Lothian ditto! Just think, if the Nawbag cities of Aberdeed & Edinburgh had been half as patriotic as Dundee & Glasgow we wouldn’t be in the ‘kin state the country finds itself in today!
Links
link to indyref2.scot
Another file goes missing, how careless
link to archive.is
Hillary Clinton made a small fortune by arming ISIS: Wikileaks
link to archive.is
link to qz.com
Listened to David Steel on the long form interview on radio shortbread this morning. Nothing startling or new but I did notice the flow and speed of his speech change as he went into lie mode regarding Scotland not getting in to the EU if we go independent and we would have to adopt the Euro.
I think they had this stuff tattooed on their brains when they joined Bitter Together.
When I think of old firm fans my next thought is that we are in fact too small, too poor and too stupid to run our own country.
Then I think of an independent Scotland with internment camps.
No?
winky thing.
“louis.b.argyll says:
6 August, 2016 at 11:00 pm
Sales of Sunday newspapers will be down tomorrow.Folk not keen to have to flick back several pages to find a wee column with their lesser team’s report.”
But here we have a new, wee club – a lesser club, Rangers, getting massive coverage. Surely that is a good thing for the wee clubs?”
Re NO voters in Aberdeen and Edinburgh. The general feeling was that there was a large number of people working in the Oil and Gas industries and also the Financial Services sectors which were against Independence. They looked to the Broad Shoulders of Westminster to protect them.
Now that both of those sectors are suffering from the effects of the fall in the oil price and the BREXIT vote, perhaps they will reconsider their bad decision in 2014.
Nicola certainly making the case – Sunday Herald front page:
link to twitter.com
The Old Firm = Divide & Conquer.
Maintained by the Union.
@ Capella.
Just spent the weekend with my Mum and Dad (retired , good pensions) and Sister and Brother in Law (He is an Oil Industry Accountant). They live in Aberdeen and Banchory respectively.
I can confirm No Change in their attitudes towards Independence. Its a continued No from them.
Dad is a confirmed No til death (Rangers suppirter incidentally). Mum willfollow his lead. Sis and Brother in Law live amongst Wealthy Brit Nats. You know the type, expensive clothes and cars, dinner parties, Mwa, Mwa (air kissing). Mind you, wonder if they change their tune if he loses his job. Finds out Tuesday.
Lunacy. Utter lunacy.
“A hate that Alixsammon, so a dae.”
“Why?”
“A don’t know. He’s just too cocky. A right wee smart alec.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, yae see it a’ the time oan the telly, oan the BBC. And in the papers anaw. Cocky bastirt so he is.”
And there you have it. A lot of No voters are easily conditioned into being No voters simply because the YES side was inextricably associated with that cocky wee bastirt Alixsammon. To WoS readers we know how this happened – it was nothing more than an image carefully choreographed by the colonial media to turn soft YES off Alixsammon. A lot of people in Scotland don’t like smart alecs. To many this carefully choreographed ‘message’ would merely confirm their rejection of independence – confirmation bias.
But to the vast majority they won’t have the first clue as to how the colonial media has manipulated them into disliking Alixsammon and, by extension, independence. They won’t realise it is a deliberate strategy (create a bogey-man and link him to Indy) and that they were the willing fodder to fall for it. People need to be told and SHOWN how the colonial media is manipulating them into thinking and acting a certain way – the media’s way. They need to see the snake oil salesman isn’t the Scottish Government, Alixsammon, the SNP or the YES movement but is the very ones they trusted and believed – the colonial media.
G.A. Ponsonby and Prof. Robertson are doing a sterling job in showing how the colonial state broadcaster in Scotland is manipulating news in order to manipulate views. But this needs many more hands. It’s way too big a task for just two people. Indeed, this is one of the biggest tasks YES has to get to grips with before IndyRef#2. Soft NOs need to see exactly how the colonial media is manipulating them into voting the way they want them to; people need to be shown how they have been conditioned by the colonial media into hating seeing and hating an indy bogey-man – because, for sure, they will use exacyly the same tactic next time round. We need to be ready for them.
Not sure how it can be done. Another WoS wee book with real life examples of how the colonial media are actively manipulating and conditioning a certain way of thinking? I started by making this wee film:
link to youtube.com
We need to be more proactive in making people aware of and bringing down the corrupt colonial media in this country. And it’s a task we must all actively take part in. Any time you hear someone at work, at home, down the pub, at the bus stop or wherever say something like:
“It’s a disgrace, innit. That NHS – it’s getting worse.”
“Where did you hear that? On the BBC or was it the Daily Record? Don’t tell me you still listen to their nonsense?”
The seed of doubt has been planted. Easy. And once people start thinking for themselves rather than meekly accepting colonial media drivel, then there is a chance they will begin to see things as they really are and, in time, might even ask themselves how they could have been so blind for so long.
Nana above
One for the tory family album, what a shower of
link to twitter.com
Notice Tory -Greene covering the West of Scotland standing at the wall. Why? Doesn’t he know what a wall looks like? Is he going to advise the neo con Trump what to do with the pesky Mexicans. Can the tories confirm who paid for their fact finding flights and accommodation. Do this lot represent me. No chance. They represent themselves.
Nana, keep those links coming..
But can’t find the Sunday Mail front page that you mention..
As one of those folk who know a fair number of soft no voters, my thought is that there are 3 stages to reaching the tipping point where they become yes.
First they need to reach a point of discomfort with the status quo, for some that will have been brexit, others might be motivated to reassess things when they face job insecurity. It takes time for people to start to encounter these reasons to question.
Second they become enabled to see through the media manipulation and the mainstream SNP-bad narrative starts to lose its power.
Third they need a reason to trust the people of Scotland more than they trust Westminster establishment. For example, the widening gap between how the Scottish NHS is run compared to down south.
I believe friends and family can help nudge people towards yes, but if that peer to peer persuasion didn’t already work in 2014 I think it’s going to take a lot of people time to complete their journey to Yes. Information can help, but this is a journey of the heart as much as the head and for many folk that journey needs to be gentle.
@louis.b.argyll
link to twitter.com
Story refers to a link I posted last week.
link to theferret.scot
A bit jealous of some on here who have soft no voters in their family.
WE ARE ALL YESSERS..and breeding as fast as we can..
My mum has a dozen grandchildren.
Tick tock..as some like to say…
scotspine says:
“…. live amongst Wealthy Brit Nats … wonder if they change their tune if he loses his job.”
Two main types of hardcore BritNats – those who feel they owe their relative wealth to current system and its continuation, and blood and soil nationalists. You describe examples of both.
That first group, driven by self interest, their privileges may be on the shuggly peg caused by WM attacks on the Scottish economy and now Brexit effects.
The more time that passes, the more impact Brexit is going to have. Poor investment, jobs not filled etc etc – the overall effects will become apparent. When the debate of IndyRef2 begins, it important economically motivated NO voters realise their Union isn’t delivering the way they expected and were promised. Rather than have it rammed down their throats, such lessons are best learnt by them coming to the conclusion by themselves.
Brexit’s recessionary effects may give an unexpected way to convert some of the most difficult NOs. Another own goal from WM.
Indigo at 11.39
If you can identify one big lie that they had swallowed or better still one big lie that they are likely to be embarrassed that they had swallowed they can be readily moved.
More and more people are now regarding the spin they get in the media as of no consequence because they have realised a lot of it was untrue so the unionist media is in an area of diminishing return on the rubbish they print.
I would love to see us take out some of our media enemies by a targeted campaign on individual bits of it. I would start on the infantile Daily Express. Derision is the best treatment for it. Once people start laughing at it it has no impact.
@Hamish100
Apparently the trip was funded by conservative friends of Israel.
Proud Cybernat says:
7 August, 2016 at 10:58 am
“A hate that Alixsammon, so a dae.”
“Why?”
“A don’t know. He’s just too cocky. A right wee smart alec.”
“What makes you say that?”
You know that pretty sums up the mentality of many voters I remember a neighbour of my Dads a woman in her 70s who just before the referendum asked me what I was voting for in the referendum, I said I was voting for independence, she said I’m voting NO eh dinna like that Alexsammin
so I asked what’s why wrong with him ?
she said he’s just too smarmy eh dinna trust him.
yeah ok
I didn’t argue with her it would have been pointless you can’t educate a block of wood but the unfortunate fact is for many it’s not about the issues or the politics it’s about personalities and Alex does come across to many as cocky and smarmy which is unfortunate because I would argue he’s the most articulate politician in the UK in fact to me the man’s a god
Graeme
@Dave – thanks and agreed, although the soft nos I know tend to have a cluster of emotional reasons rather than one or two big reasons
A couple I know who were driven by stability reasons to vote no in 2014 have already jumped to yes following the brexit vote, which was reassuring
Heard an ironic comment last week, something along the lines of: “Whenever you see the SNP in the papers they’re always complaining about the Government.”.
I did point out that was media bias, to no avail. Didn’t see the point in pointing out that, in Scotland they are the Government, just exited with a comment that all politicians are the same – that got some head nodding.
Thanks Nana, your prolific linking is awesome.
Graeme says:
“… pointless you can’t educate a block of wood …. I would argue he’s the most articulate politician in the UK …”
The two things are bound to be related.
I agree Alec Salmond is articulate, intelligent, and confident. These are some of the qualities I look for in leading politicians.
However, suppose you are (let’s not be PC), a bit thick … your life experience is narrow, you failed to benefit from education, and you remain totally ignorant on most matters which effect you … perhaps those qualities above are misunderstood, alien or even threatening.
This is just another group of folks who need to be persuaded. They can be challenging, though.
Campbell, you really are a wanker. All the good work you do in highlighting dishonesty in media and politics you tarnish with your childish obsession with RFC. Stop being a fanny and give it a rest.
>Proud Cybernat says:
We need to be more proactive in making people aware of and bringing down the corrupt colonial media in this country. And it’s a task we must all actively take part in. Any time you hear someone at work, at home, down the pub, at the bus stop or wherever say something like:
“It’s a disgrace, innit. That NHS – it’s getting worse.”
“Where did you hear that? On the BBC or was it the Daily Record? Don’t tell me you still listen to their nonsense?”
————
Exactly.
Or with the NHS – the question to ask is
“Is that the English NHS ?”
I really wish the SG would change the name of NHS Scotland to avoid confusion. It is fully funded from Scotland and doesn’t deserve to get tarred with the same brush when it comes to all the problems of the NHS south of the border.
Brian Wilson has written a letter to Sunday Times defending his close friend the honorable Ian Taylor of Vitol infamy.
A 2001 article in the Observer stated that in 1995 Vitol had secretly paid US$1 million to Serbian war criminal Arkan to settle a deal with a Serbian Oil company, Orion.
In 2007, Vitol pleaded guilty to grand larceny in a New York court for paying surcharges to Iraq’s national oil company during Saddam’s regime and circumventing the UN oil-for-food program. Vitol subsequently paid $17.5 million in restitution for its actions.
According to an article in the Financial Times, Vitol was the company to organise the first controversial sale of Libyan rebel oil to Tesoro Corporation in early April 2011. According to the Financial Times, the company was approached by the Qatari national oil company to sell a cargo of crude oil supplied by the Libyans in exchange for technological supplies and fuel for the National Transitional Council of Libya.
In September 2012, an article in Reuters alleged that the company had bought and sold Iranian fuel oil, bypassing an EU embargo against Tehran. Vitol bought 2 million barrels using a ship-to-ship transfer off the coast of Malaysia from a National Iranian Tanker Company vessel and sold it to Chinese traders. The article stated that as Vitol is based in Switzerland, which did not implement Western sanctions, Vitol had skirted the charges.
In 2013, The Telegraph alleged that the company had been using for over a decade an Employee Benefit Trust, avoiding paying income tax for its UK staff
Over on twitter, apparently about A. Robertson?
WTF? I’d say the accuser is a coward, hiding behind lies. Tapping away with his digits without engaging his brain.
Actually his pish is so ‘all over the place’, maybe he’s typing with his left hand, while he..
I note that Graeme MacPherson, in today’s Sunday Herald, was talking about Rangers return to the top flight. (And no an apostrophe to be seen anywhere!)
I haven’t read any of the other papers because I refuse to buy them but I am pretty sure they will all be referring to Rangers return as well.
It’s not really that important to most of us – unless you are a dogmatic, didactic, pedantic fanatic troubled by semantics.
Why don’t the yes supporters put out a daily video exposing the lies the media put out, yes supporter’s could easily copy the link and expose the source and lies the media put out and copy the link in their social media, the media would then think twice what they put out if they were going to be exposed that day. The daily video could be produced by a professional team and kept to 5 minutes so the viewer does not bored and not watch it all.
“Why don’t the yes supporters put out a daily video exposing the lies the media put out, yes supporter’s could easily copy the link and expose the source and lies the media put out and copy the link in their social media, the media would then think twice what they put out if they were going to be exposed that day. The daily video could be produced by a professional team and kept to 5 minutes so the viewer does not bored and not watch it all.”
People hate watching videos.
link to theonion.com
Dave McEwan Hill
I read through the comments on the Daily Express article on SNP entitled: “SNP brags it will BLOCK Brexit unless Theresa May gives Nicola Sturgeon what she wants”
The headline prompts the troglodytes to speculate on what our elected First Minister wants. This, according to the Express moderated comments includes shooting, being physically assaulted, being sexually assaulted, drowned, confined and sectioned.
Scotland of course can do one, fuck off etc etc. The fear in these cowardly comments is palpable. They have a kind of nervous hope that Article 50 will be triggered but nothing like confidence.
Hats off to the brave few posters who wade through the sewer. I wonder if there is any chance of such ignorance ever being dispelled.
Don’t pay for britnat newspapers. Don’t visit britnat newspapers’ websites. You’ll feel a lot better and probably live a lot longer.
Ronnie Boyd,
.did you actually read the whole article?
It’s not about Rangers.
And starting off with ‘Campbell..’ as in oi’ you! Is fucking rude. Are you a headmaster from the 79s..
I smell orange.
Or is it fear.
This has been a civilised thread given the ‘utilisation’ of a particular football club as an illustrative case in point describing the current state of journalism in Scotland.
I think the Rev made it clear that this was not an article ‘about’ football per se…the ‘point’ is that journalists in Scotland in ‘general’ have no problem reversing their position’s on any stance they may have formerly held.
He suggests there may well be ‘valid’ reasons behind some of those decisions, not the least that threats may be made to those very journalists and that powerful vested interests who don’t want to be exposed or held to account have the power to destroy their ‘career’ and that these factors may well play a part in this ‘repositioning’ that takes place on the part of journalists.
The ‘dumbing down’ of the political discourse within our country is the result of backing off from any serious journalism because of the ‘reach’ of those who would be exposed as hypocritical and corrupt is at the heart of the article. If you can’t expose and hold to account the powerful ‘players’ who shape and influence the culture and effectively become enthralled by their ‘power’, you have in essence become a paid ‘minder’ for those very people.
You are now a guardian of ‘their’ ‘status quo’ and a mere mouthpiece for those vested interests. Social media and by extension an increase in ’citizen journalism’ has done much to assist ordinary folks in understanding this relationship between journalists and the ‘powerful’ within society. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Stories are ‘planted’ and ‘spiked’ and the journalist’s may well get rewarded with vip status like invitations to ‘exclusive’ events as well as ‘backhanders’ and ‘first interview’ type ‘honours’.
They get a lifelong career and don’t ever have to live up to the ‘agency’ of the ‘truth to power’ function which was once the foundation principle of investigative journalism.
In our context of the changed political hegemony in Scotland in recent years these journalists are more and more exposed as the ‘placemen’ that they are, their former ‘sources’ have all but dried up, they cling to their former ‘status’ and are dismissive of the ‘new media’ and also of any ‘questioning’ that this new media has facilitated from the public.
The ‘mediators’ are now an endangered species in Scotland…backed in to a corner by an ever increasing politically erudite population who challenge their hypocrisy and expose their former contrary views are a direct threat to their ‘authority’ and they snarl back dismissively and childishly. The middlemen are no longer required, as the Rev says, the newspaper circulation is falling away and they can no longer ‘hide’ behind the print: reader’s letters carefully edited/binned to ensure no criticism is made public.
This article is about huffy wee journalist’s suffering from cognitive dissonance…who are fed up being exposed as gatekeepers for the ‘former’ hegemony that existed prior to 2007.
The more they strop and complain signifies that we are winning this information battle. They know it, we know it, they know we know it and we know they know that we know they are losing it.
Apologies to All Wingers, My language, especially in a Sunday is bad craic.
It’s just the density of what comes at us..need oxygen..must breathe..
Andrew McLean.. How’d I do the mental anti troll dump and reboot thing, and did it work for you..
If anyone on the Indy side was good at writing apps, perhaps they could write one to run in a “sandbox” (secure from virus infection). Feed in clickbait links, and the app regularly “clicks” the clickbait link. If that was downloaded by a good few thousand Indy supporters and used regularly, the advertisers would soon get fed up of paying for clicks and getting no sales / revenue.
Ronnie Boyd, was about to apologise to you as well, but looking back at your old comments..
You seem to defend Rangers first, and our right to talk down unionist lies, second.
Sorry.
Yes, the Rev is obsessed with Rangers, but it is his blog after all.
I’d use that app yesindyref2…in a heartbeat. Let’s ‘fuck em’ where it hurts.
I didn’t argue with her it would have been pointless you can’t educate a block of wood but the unfortunate fact is for many it’s not about the issues or the politics it’s about personalities and Alex does come across to many as cocky and smarmy which is unfortunate because I would argue he’s the most articulate politician in the UK
@Graeme
Surely you can be articulate and “smarmy and cocky”, its a question of perception.
You value his command of the language, I agree Alex Salmond is very learned, his brain sharp and incisive.
It can only be the product of a a lifetimes reading, yet spite of all his talents, some folk also see his foibles.
It’s PROPER PERSPECTIVE that’s missing from politics in general.
Check out the difference between one point and two point perspective in ART.
One point, has a narrowing horizon.
Two point, allows us to ‘see’ round corners.
I think it was Groucho Marx who first summed up the corrupt colonial corporate press (CCCP) in Scotland:
“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.”
It can only be the product of a a lifetimes reading, yet spite of all his talents, some folk also see his foibles.
Which are sensiblePaps?
yesindyref2 1:55pm
Interesting idea. Hopefully someone can set it up.
Proud Cybernat..
Don’t forget the Sanity Clause.
.. Oh wait, there ain’t no Sanity Clause.
@12.45 Galamcennalath/Graeme
If my memory serves me right, Alex has been awarded “Politician of the Year” by The Spectator (twice 2011,2015) and Scottish Politician of the Year by The Herald 2014.
link to theguardian.com
Heard EBC talking about Rangers ‘return’ to the SPL on the late news last night- altho Tom English (?) has described them as ‘the newcomers to the Scottish Premiership’ ?? maybe he’s read Stu’s article!
Think the Sunday Mail front page needs an award.. Did you know, Nicola Sturgeon is secretly planning a secret snap-Indy referendum secretly next year?? Shock, Horror.
Pathetic newspaper, wish it would crumple up and disappear.
Good luck, Andy Murray this afternoon.
Another lovely boost for the red tories, Graun style and they even give the SNP a wee mention at the bottom. Graun does love the red tories.
link to archive.is
He’s not ‘smarmy’ he’s witty…and very tongue in cheek. The fact is so many people who happen to use that word to describe his ‘character’ happen also to buy the ‘papers’ who have described him thus.
Oh and yes they all deny they are influenced by the ‘papers’.
“t can only be the product of a a lifetimes reading, yet spite of all his talents, some folk also see his foibles.
Which are sensiblePaps?”
He is a smug, little know it all, but that doesn’t cloud my appreciation of his talents.
Indeed if your chosen to lead the party, that the people of Scotland have chosen to represent them, how can you be anything but talented.
Papko says:
7 August, 2016 at 2:09 pm
@Graeme
Surely you can be articulate and “smarmy and cocky”, its a question of perception.
You value his command of the language, I agree Alex Salmond is very learned, his brain sharp and incisive.
It can only be the product of a a lifetimes reading, yet spite of all his talents, some folk also see his foibles.
I don’t think he’s smarmy or cocky at all but I think he appears that way to many feeble minded people who can’t see beyond the exterior and would cast the most important vote they’re ever likely to make in their lifetime on a personal dislike of him confirming their stupidity,
I see man whose dedicated his life to a cause he passionately believes in, who doesn’t suffer fools gladly and one day gets the credit he fully deserves
Graeme
re the Brit Nat hate for Alex Salmond.
It wouldn’t matter to the knuckle draggers and other agents of the British State who was leading the SNP or heading up any Yes campaign, they would be quite deliberately and maliciously targeted by the Brit Nat Press and Media. The hate campaign against Sturgeon started months ago if not last year.
You just need to look at Salmonds standing amongst folk in the constituencies that he has represented. He gets elected even in seats where in theory he didn’t have a chance and I often heard seemingly rational individuals miscaw him. In fact Salmond was according to the Brit Nat hate brigade so disliked and hated that he kept increasing his majorities. The Brit Nats are escapees from reality.
What the escapees from the Brit Nat loony bins think and what people generally think of Alex Salmond are two totally different things. I think he could probably stand just about anywhere in Scotland and get elected and then at any subsequent election increase his majority by a large margin.
football season again.
boring sport.
but I am not without solution.
every game drawn should result on a penalty shoot out at 90 minutes, forget extra time, it would be just more boring football.
link to bbc.co.uk
Councils and households in fracking areas could get up to 10% of profits. There is still a majority against, so I predict this is just the opening bid, and it will end up around 25%
It makes sense of course, because we have the precedent of Scotland getting a large share of oil profits from Scottish waters to set up the massive oil fund that we are currently benefiting from. Oh wait..
I don’t think he’s smarmy or cocky at all but I think he appears that way to many feeble minded people who can’t see beyond the exterior and would cast the most important vote they’re ever likely to make in their lifetime on a personal dislike of him confirming their stupidity,
I see man whose dedicated his life to a cause he passionately believes in, who doesn’t suffer fools gladly and one day gets the credit he fully deserves
@Graeme
So we can judge a person’s “mental strength”
on whether they think Alex Salmond is a “God” (your word) , or that they think him cocky,
If we are to conclude that he is a “God”, we are mentally strong free thinking and brainwash-resistant,and if we think him “cocky”, we are indoctrinated sheeple ……
.;-)
“he appears that way to many feeble minded people who can’t see beyond the exterior”
One wonders if we are too dismissive of people in general, and should devote more time, unwrapping the layers.
“and would cast the most important vote they’re ever likely to make in their lifetime on a personal dislike of him confirming their stupidity”
There were intelligent and stupid on both sides as there are in everything, and people cast their vote as they see fit. its a keystone of our democracy.
I voted NO because the argument for yes seemed to predicate on welfare reform, because we have foodbanks in Scotland, and countries like ROI,and Norway, have no foodbanks, or poverty or inequality.
But they do, every country in the EU has them.
So anyway because of them, I mean why not, Job centres, unemployment? discount shelves in supermarkets.
Every country in the EU has them as well , but they don’t go changing their name and their constitutions every 5 minutes to avoid them.
As to “no more Tories” , another moot point, 2/3rds of Scots own their own property (according to Shelter), they spend their life accruing wealth, what part of them is not Tory, save the name.
they voted enmasse for the Red Tories for 50 years, and we are told there is no difference between the main parties.
So I would argue you don’t get rid of Tories, they are endemic in Scotland.
End of the day the shape of indyref2 will be different, divested of the social reforms, it will reduce to a simple Scotland right or wrong vs Britain right or wrong.
Lastly the referendum campaign meant, tons of leaflets through the letterbox, which I promptly put in the waste paper bin (from both sides).
It would impress me more if these activists, instead of wasting paper, actually spent time picking up some litter, which blights our country, if they had a hi- vis vest with a YES logo say,I would certainly be impressed by such selfless devotion to country and have to take their view point into consideration.
If my memory serves me right Alex was twice voted The Spectator’s ‘Politician of the Year’ 2011/2014 and the Herald’s ‘Scottish Politician of the Year’ 2015.
link to theguardian.com
Heard EBC refer to Rangers “return” to SPL on the late news last night tho I notice that Tom English ( EBC Sport) writes today (tongue in cheek?) of Rangers as ‘the newcomers’ to the Scottish Premiership – maybe he’s a closet WoS reader!
Just wondering if a householder gets a 10% bribe, sorry, share of the profits from tracking will they be liable for a 10% share of any pollution clean-up costs? Tainted money
OT Yougov sent me another survey today, questions about satisfaction with the nhs and recent experience of nhs services, followed by questions on support for political parties.
In the section on support for political parties, the choices were tory, red tory, libdum, green, ukip and other. On stating ‘other’ and confirming membership, my survey was ended. There was no option for SNP, which I thought was strange for a poll in Scotland where snp are far and away the largest party.
Don’t be too surprised if there are headlines in the next week or so about dissatisfaction with the nhs in Scotland.
I saw an advert in the Sunday Post advertising for funding to record a new Scottish national anthem, endorsed by a few proud Scot buts and if you wish to donate the email address is something like a.tomkinson29@hotmail.com !!
It can’t be can it ?
heed ?
Another day of tory BBC propaganda farts along but this is a bit disorientating from SKY. SKY mention SNP about as little as the BBC creep show too.
link to news.sky.com
The Labour MP said: “The Government has been facing both ways.
“While publicly proclaiming their determination to tackle global tax avoidance, they have been encouraging these practices by changes they have made to the UK tax system and by refusing to agree to some key OECD proposals.
Troughers gotta trough.
link to archive.is
A supersize team of 455 broadcasters will be jetting out to Brazil from the Corporation.
It is nearly 100 more than the number of athletes representing the whole of the UK.
Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said: “The fact they are sending more staff out to the Games than we have competitors makes it clear the BBC gravy train is still rolling.”
It can’t be can it ?
heed ?
[dot] tomkinson29 [at] hotmail [dot] com
Gave my Slovene girlfriend a phone but she’s in Brazil right the now, competing in the 2016 toryboy Olympics. They took any toryboy going but rancid The Graun’s comment section’s pretty dull without him. Anyway he passed the dope test,, he is one, and is now favourite to become an Olympic champion UKOK toryboy. He refused to represent Scotland and will return, wearing his gold medal for being a toryboy, in Holyrood, only part time though, too busy going UKOK berserk on rancid old Graun’s CiF, where everyone knows your real name, in Slovenia:D
Good grief, NEVER look at the daily star website, my IQ just collapsed after two stories..
Yes Heedtracker – the cost of the 455 BBC staff in Brazil will be the reason the vast majority of BBC TV output is crap. I knew they had to be saving for something!
As Kevin McKenna has already pointed out, we shouldn’t be very surprised that the dead tree press has their proprietors’ axes to grind. What puzzles me though is that this self-imposed “hollowing-out” of the media is ultimately self-destructive. Torrance is just one small example. It’s the journalistic equivalent of over-fishing. It’s depleting the stock of credibility to extinction. Thanks to social media, more and more people are becoming aware of how their interests are not being served.
This is unfortunately compounded by the (manifest to us) lack of objectivity in our public service broadcaster. Its proprietor is virtual: the English Establishment, willingly assisted by the Uriah Heeps of its northern outpost, and the consequences are more dire, since my guess is that it remains more influential than the gutter press.
But there’s only so much that together they can hide and obfuscate. The economic realities of Brexit will steadily become ever more apparent. Even the contemptible Daily Express (or Daily Slug as I prefer to call it) won’t be able to bluster that away. I liken this “phoney war” situation to the cartoon character who has run off a cliff but hasn’t fallen down because they haven’t quite noticed yet. But they are soon going to!
Brexit has shaken one or two people of my acquaintance out of supporting “no”. Another issue that is likely to have a significant effect on Labourites is the very strong likelihood that Labour won’t win the next UK general election (whenever it happens), so we have the very real prospect of an effectively unelected right-wing foreign government ruling over us for a considerable time to come, with only very limited powers to protect ourselves against it.
I believe that a big factor in Labour’s support for “no” back in 2014 was to keep the Scots in play for their intended “big push” in the following year. Indy was sacrificed so we could be sent “over the top” as “cannon fodder” for their WM ambitions. Which of course failed. So I think there’s considerable potential in convincing Labour voters that if they want to have any hope of continuing influence, it can only be in an independent Scotland. So if you happen to know any soft “no’s” among them, that’s surely worth trying.
Ironically, success with that may be contingent on them believing that Labour could still have a future in an independent Scotland!
I’m beginning to despair though of the SLab leadership. Continually behind the curve. They seem to be stuck in a permanent state of denial over, well everything, really. Hamstrung not only by a failure to believe in the ability of the people they presume to represent, but even it seems by a failure to believe in themselves. At the heart of it, their “better together” seems to be largely focussed on the handout that they receive from their comrades down south. Which of course is just another branch of the English Establishment (Corbyn included).
As for the LibDems, Steel’s recent comments (well, outright lies actually about EU membership and “having to take the euro”) quoted upthread are very difficult to tolerate. I think the same point might be made of him, at least, as the article makes over journalists.
Bill McLean
Its an astonishing amount of liggers on their freebies by any standards. Presumably they buy Brazil tv Olympic coverage so god knows what they all do. It all just shows how rich the BBC actually is and how the liggers can really spend money when they want too, on themselves. Watching the tennis right now and its a lot better without some plummy BBC twit waffling away about how women tennis players are also terrific totty. I say.
“What the escapees from the Brit Nat loony bins think and what people generally think of Alex Salmond are two totally different things. I think he could probably stand just about anywhere in Scotland and get elected and then at any subsequent election increase his majority by a large margin”
IAN MORE
Quite right, would be a great idea to put that to the test and get Alex Salmond to head the next referendum campaign.
Quite right, would be a great idea to put that to the test and get Alex Salmond to head the next referendum campaign.
Ooh you’re a right one sensiblePaps.
On Alex Salmond: The more they fear you the more they hate you just for existing
On Nicola Sturgeon: They hate her even more, now what does that tell you
And both of them are two of the nicest warmest people you could ever meet, and if you don’t believe it, watch childrens behaviour around both of them
You can’t fool the little ones, they know who they like
heedtracker says:
7 August, 2016 at 4:29 pm
Troughers gotta trough.
link to archive.is
A supersize team of 455 broadcasters will be jetting out to Brazil from the Corporation.
It is nearly 100 more than the number of athletes representing the whole of the UK.
Obviously quite a few promised jollies were due (licence payer funded of course). Utterly shameful. What a joke.
Robert J. Sutherland says:
7 August, 2016 at 5:04 pm
As Kevin McKenna has already pointed out, we shouldn’t be very surprised that the dead tree press has their proprietors’ axes to grind.
We’re effectively living through another Grub Street era.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Even the American dude that owns wiki was wheeled out 2014 by BBC vote NO gimps to instruct us to vote NO. UKOK liggers like Torrance will say literally anything yoonster toryboy for a buck.
Jump in anywhere in the wiki Grub Street thing and
“In describing his profession, Samuel Johnson, a Grub Street man himself, said “A news-writer is a man without virtue who writes lies at home for his own profit. To these compositions is required neither genius nor knowledge, neither industry nor sprightliness, but contempt of shame and indifference to truth are absolutely necessary.”
or
“Robert Walpole used Treasury funds to subsidise elements of the press that were sympathetic to the Whig government.”
Its all bit weird in the present information era too.
Re the business over “Alexsammin” and likewise his successor, I think we have to understand that not as a personal thing, but rather as a psychological phenomenon: projection of fear of a policy onto its most effective proponents. OK, individual characteristics may play some role, but for people with a weak understanding or in outright denial of some issue, by far the worst thing for them is to be faced with someone who presents an effective challenge to their beliefs. The shakier the belief, the more antagonistic the response. It’s unwelcome “rocking of the boat”.
Until such time as the tipping point is reached, of course, after which the antagonism vanishes “like snaw aff a dyke”.
—–
As for the fitba thing, leaving aside the vile and unwelcome associations with sectarianism on both sides of the “Old Firm”, there remains an issue with Rangers that is worth pondering. It all hinges on that treacherous word “club”.
Supporters see their continuing adherence to their team as historical and seamless, and are righteously affronted by any suggestion to the contrary. For them, “club” signifies that. I’m by no means one of them, but I can still understand that.
However, what they only dimly and sporadically realise is that in the current world of Scottish pro football, “club” doesn’t have the dictionary meaning at all – it’s not a mutual association in this case but a weasel-word substitute for “commercial business”. Unlike eg. in Germany, where by law fans must have a controlling stake.
The bitter irony of the whole thing is that fans’ loyalty to their “club” is wilfully exploited and abused by the small coterie of businessmen who actually run the outfit for their own narrow interests. They essentially parasitise off fans without feeling any obligation to them whatever. And who, when things get tough, happily create smokescreens to try to deflect supporters from understanding what’s really going on.
As far as RFC is concerned, their influence on the Herald’s shabby treatment of Haggerty and Spiers really tells you all you need to know. That there are no Scottish journalists doing more to support their erstwhile colleagues is a harsh indictment of them and their utter lack of professional standards.
The yoons call Salmond Salmonella
Because he makes them shit their pants!
The same people who hated Alex Salmond irrationally now hate Nicola Sturgeon irrationally.
Belief systems challenged. The more normalised and rational the idea of independence becomes, the more their hate level rises. It ain’t rocket science, folks. 🙂
The yoons really hate Nicola Sturgeon. Why?
Because she is so difficult to hate! It ain’t easy to hate such a strong, effective and likeable person – think of all that self-delusionary effort required. Alex Salmond had that wee bit of apparent “smugness” that eased it slightly for the Proud Scot Buts. Nicola Sturgeon, however – seriously, you are going to see irrational hate levels rocket over the coming months. She is difficult to hate and the yoons will hate her all the more for it. 🙂
Obviously quite a few promised jollies were due (licence payer funded of course). Utterly shameful. What a joke.
They are wildly greedy. And have little or no concept of the WTF is he on about concept. The ligger tells the Star
“We know that staff numbers can often attract criticism, but to put these into context we are deploying about one-fifth the size of the team of the US broadcast rights holder.”
What that BBC ligger omits to mention, is that US broadcasters are private corporations, businesses what have to turn a profit to survive. BBC trouser over $4 billion a year from the tax payer and if you don’t pay, you go to jail. Its not like that in your America.
For the accuracy, you don’t go to jail for not paying BBC licence fee, you get sent down for not paying the fine the courts hit you with, for not paying your BBC licence fee.
Hmmm my recent OT comment re yougov survey has disappeared, never got posted.
Anyway, today I completed a yougov survey which asked about recent experiences of, and satisfaction with various aspects of the nhs. It then asked if I had any allegiance or membership with a political party. The choices of political party were red tory, blue tory, libdums, greens, ukip or ‘other’. I thought that was a strange selection of parties here in Scotland.
When I answered membership of ‘other’ the survey ended rather abruptly. Quite a common occurrence with yougov surveys.
Just in case, like me you are struggling with the very frustrating coverage of the Olympics from the BBC, you might like to know that Murray has been relegated to the red button. ON NOW.
You can watch canoeing on the main screen though……..ggrrrr.
@Luigi 6.11
Pretty much and these levels of hatred will be quite deliberately stoked by both government narrative and elements within the media.
They are what they are, and about now that is desperate.
Strangely I don’t think they’re overly concerned with the collateral damage of their narrative to the public.
Louis B 1:51
Get the chip update from the SNP website, take the course!
Then get plenty of fresh air, I did at Comrie games yesterday! Real Scotland, real rain so went to the pub! Two nice English guys up on holiday said how lucky we were to have Nicola, had to agree! 🙂 now if I can just stay away from the British propaganda machine!
Re hatred of our leaders from a certain type of individual. In the wider picture, will it matter? There are many other categories on NO folk!
The wider picture … Compare the situation at IndyRef1 with where will be at IR2 …. What has changed from an Indy perspective …
Got worse? Only a vision of reality about oil prices, they go down as well as up. They will eventually go up again.
Got better? Jeez, where do you start! Tory government, a right wing one. Lab and LibDem collapse. Brexit and all that threatens. Promises of constitutional change never happened. Trident proceeding. Lies about what NO meant last time. Frigates. Carbon capture. Renewables. … for a start!
As I say, do mms driven opinions about individuals matter much?
Re the dislike of Salmond.
I remember talking to a weel heeled Edinburgh lady ( daughter put through private schooting) at a Cambridge uni parents formal dinner (would add son was there from state school) just before the Indy ref and asked what she thought about it. Her first comment was ‘Well the SNP and Salmond have done nothing for us’. Considering they were Dentists and had ( presumably) private health care with few money worries, I wasn’t shocked.
I managed to reply that you’re not voting for the SNP or Salmond, this is about Scotland’s future years which may or may not involve the SNP before my partner dragged me away fearing a bit of a stramash in the offing!
Again the MSM had made the ref all about Salmond and the SNP. The decades after it seem to be ignored.
Maybe this time we could help emphasise the long term future rather than falling for the MSM/Westminter attempt to destroy the government of the day.
@6.32 Meindevon
Go to the BBC website and select Sport from the top menu.
Then you’ll see their Rio coverage menu, select tennis and you should get to Andy’s match on centre court – currently :2 up in the first set.
@ fionan 6.17 pm
interesting! Should be posted far and wide. Completely discredits the Yougov polling org.
@ scotspine – commiserations re NE rellies. Can’t win them all but we haven’t even activated BREXIT yet so let’s see how things progress. The Tory vote in Scotland always seem to be about 18 – 24% which suggests that is the core Unionist vote. Leaves 75% open to change.
Watching oor Andy on the red button (or trying to). Good to see they have employed the Royal Coat of Arms of her maj on his t-shirt as used in Scotland rather than the UK or English versions.
Such detail- I checked Heather Watson’s match and she also appears to be wearing the Scottish Royal Coat of Arms. Interesting also as she was born in the Bailliewick of Guernsey- not even in the UK never Mind “GB”. It is a minefield.
If I have this wrong then I blame illness making me delusional. Perhaps an expert could confirm this interesting anomoly whereby the entire Team GB tennis team appears to be using the Scottish coat of arms… (small victories and all that)
Tam Jardine
On closer inspection it appears to be the UK one the wrong way round I think, ya arse
Meindevon
re coverage of Andy- the match is on BBC 4 if that helps
@Capeela
“The Tory vote in Scotland always seem to be about 18 – 24% which suggests that is the core Unionist vote.”
Thats a lot of pandas.
Going by those stats you would think Scotland had a lot of self employed people paying off a mortgage.
OK- it doesn’t even have a unicorn. I need to go to bed. If anyone can identify the coat of arms on Andy’s t-shirt please put me out of my misery. Drugs beckon
@Tam – It’s just made up guffage designed by Stella McCartney.
Bringing back the union jack motif from the 2012 kit, (which was also designed by the British designer), McCartney has layered the flag with iconography pulled from a new specially commissioned coat of arms that is loaded with symbolism. Created by the College of Arms, the new unifying design features a shield decorated with the floral emblems of the four Home Nations – a leek, a rose, a thistle and flax. Flanked by two lions brandishing torches and crowned with laurel wreaths, the shield is topped with a lion in a crown composed of medals and relay batons – a symbol of continuity, teamwork and shared responsibility. Underneath, the latin words ‘Ivncti in vno’ translate as ‘Conjoined in one’.
Core elements from the coat of arms are reinterpreted in the kit through embroideries and prints, while the GB logo has been scaled up and printed over different textures. ‘It’s something that will live on well beyond the 2016 games,’ says McCartney of the coat of arms. ‘That was my intention, to create something that moves well beyond the now.’
Dream on hen…
Not watching the Olympics as usual.
But watching ‘opportunity’ Russell Knox lying 2nd with 13 holes to go in the golf and playing well. 🙂 Fingers X’d for him.
Murray wins in two sets I see, but some not too happy with the flag thing says the Hootsman but that’s the yoons for you. 🙁
link to archive.is
Hi Paps,
See you’re making the occasional cameo appearance again today. Pity though you can’t find the time to respond to another recent post addressed to you:
link to wingsoverscotland.com
But like the Leavers, while you Unionists apparently entertain no doubts whatever about what you’re against, and are always happy to snipe from the sidelines, you never seem to be able to bring yourself to explain what you’re actually for.
Afraid of the justified ridicule, I expect. (Casually-assumed neo-colonial forelock-tugging just won’t fly these days.)
Her first comment was ‘Well the SNP and Salmond have done nothing for us’. Considering they were Dentists and had ( presumably) private health care with few money worries, I wasn’t shocked.
Another Crash Gordon Labour legacy, in teamGB action.
link to archive.is
Dentists pull out THOUSANDS of teeth unnecessarily every year because NHS rules pay them the same for a simple extraction as for complex surgery, probe finds
Dentists receive the same flat fee from NHS for extractions and root canals
Some are earning up to £500,000-a-year by seeing 60 patients every day
Fears contract introduced in 2006 is leading dentists to game the system
No idea why Crash Gordo thought this kind of thing made any social justiceriseing sense but he was no doubt only looking after his Labour vote base. They did a lot of that kind thing Labour because
Scott Arthur ?@DrScottThinks 28 Jul 2015 Islington, London
Labour’s recovery shouldn’t be about right v left, or rich v poor. It is about convincing everyone that social justice is in their interest.
Dr NO.
Actually, to be more accurate, the Tory vote has been 15 – 18% for several years then up to 24% at the last Holyrood election. That indicates that many Labour unionists voted Tory.
So less than a quarter of the population are Tory or Unionist.
@ Papko – not just the economically dependent, but also the old, the dispirited, the frightened. The craving for the status quo is driven by fear IMO.
“The Tory vote in Scotland always seem to be about 18 – 24% which suggests that is the core Unionist vote.” says Cappella.
Going by those stats you would think Scotland had a lot of self employed people paying off a mortgage. says the tit.
What you on about now ya diddy?
Thanks Andy..
Andrew McLean says:
7 August, 2016 at 6:49 pm
Louis B 1:51
Get the chip update from the SNP website, take the course!
I suppose the self help approach
(to digital over-eagerness) is to
remember which world we’re
living in.
The real one..?
Actually our communities, our culture and our identity, whichever nation we’re talking about.
Or the applied one..?
Of media, politics, polsers and marketing..that the UK state wants us all to believe we’re living in.
Croompenstein
Thanks Croomps.
So they ditched the unicorn… bastards. And not one saltire visible from the coverage I saw on the EBC. Watching olympics at 39.2 deg… Lord- don’t take me now before we’ve won indyref 2…
Malcolm Rifkind was chuntering away on BBC r4 lunchtime news for toryboys today, all about how the Scottish toryboys are now the second party in Scotland and isn’t that amazing and a real come back restoration of toryboy greatness in Scotland, all totally unchallenged by any BBC r4 news gimps, as usual.
Here’s Malcolm in the middle today, 20 minutes in
link to bbc.co.uk
Usual BBC tory stuff and Malcolm’s really in a good mood today, 20 minutes in, very exciting tory stuff for Scotland, and as ever not one mention of just how hard the tory BBC led media works to keep toryboy world alive. Its all just a toryboy miracle of toryness.
@heedtracker
re dentists,
they also steal your gold fillings,
they also stick the most toxic metal, mercury, in your mouth, even children and pregnant woman,
they also do root canal(and charge £600) when it is not needed,some say 80% of root canal unjustified,
any dentist that speaks out will lose his/her licence from the corrupt British Dental Association,
they make millions causing men,woman and children unnecessary pain and suffering.
O/T sorry.
Please can anyone archive the Sunday herald article” Future of Trident in doubt’ as I’ve read my free articles for this month and this is tantalisingly unreadable.
ta!
@Meg merrilees
Trident plans ‘in doubt’, says government watchdog
link to archive.is
Meg if you use Google, right click on the link to any Herald article you want to read and open in “Incognito Window”. works every time.
@Meg merrilees
Already archived apparently
link to archive.is
I use ccleaner to totally clean out cookies every 5 articles.
@heedtracker –
After being caught sloping around The City like Sam Spade, charming Chinese sting operatives into giving him some serious wodges of moolah for doing next to nothing, we are all ‘entitled’ to tell him to get to fuck each and every time he shows his face or raises his voice.
Mandelson leading the charge to pin the blame for Brexit onto Corbyn, Labour former prominenti forming an orderly queue to add their tuppensworth. What a slimy shower of bastards occupy Labour’s back benches.
Ian Brotherhood says:
7 August, 2016 at 9:41 pm
@heedtracker –
But the fact that the chancer can sit in a tory BBC r4 studio and waffle away for planet toryboy is the deep corruption of UK democracy.
What’s happened to the last general election fraud scandals that loads of toryboys were er, implicated, in for example? BBC news gimps didn’t even report it, let alone investigate.
We’d never have heard about it all without that one C4 Micheal Crick blighter.
If its the case that countless toryboys cheated with the election expenses and won last GE on this basis, but you know what, it doesn’t matter, none of it matters. The BBC has buried it all away and even if anything comes of it, they’ll bury that too and then they’ll carry on wheeling out vicious old tory buffers to keep up their great toryboy lie.
So in precis, the BBC is a tory shithole, and where the hell is the opposition in England land, land of the tory, and completely smited Labour?
Because
Scott Arthur ?@DrScottThinks 28 Jul 2015 Islington, London
Labour’s recovery shouldn’t be about right v left, or rich v poor. It is about convincing everyone that social justice is in their interest.
Dr NO.
Sorry but that choob really cracks me up.
I stuck this up in the early hours so here it is again. 🙂
link to archive.is
A wee vision of raw British nationalism. Pure blood and soil stuff. May 2007, from Tony Blair’s farewell speech…
“This country is a blessed nation.
The British are special.
The world knows it.
In our innermost thoughts, we know it.
This is the greatest nation on earth”
… and yet we get called ‘Nats’ and worse!
@heedtracker (9.54) –
True dat…
@heedtracker says: 7 August, 2016 at 6:15 pm:
“For the accuracy, you don’t go to jail for not paying BBC licence fee, you get sent down for not paying the fine the courts hit you with, for not paying your BBC licence fee.”
Well in fact what you get done for is watching live TV transmissions of any type, from any source, while not licenced to do so.
Although the BBC collect the licence fees they do not get the cash collected. That goes to the Treasury and the Government make a grant to the BBC which is in fact not just for broadcasting TV and radio programmes.
The BBC are responsible for dealing with such things as radio frequency interference, inshore Radio Stations for shipping, they also collect licence money from commercial services such as TAXI business’s, shipping and aircraft radio, radar and such like.
Anyway, if you do not watch live TV then you have nothing to worry about but, believe me, even if you tell them you do not watch live TV they will leave you alone for a while and then begin to threaten you all over again. They expect you to regularly always answer their accusations that you are criminally watching TV and do not have a licence.
In other words they presume you guilty but have no proof you are a criminal but they will continue to threaten you with court action, big fines and jail sentences.
Scot@9.07
Sorry man, I have to disagree, My personal dentist is basically a god in my humble opinion.
The guys a genius, he is Polish, but root canal, implants, fillings ,NO PAIN, just a good guy, yes he is private, but where I live I have been on the NHS list for about 8 years, you get what you pay for as far as dentistry goes.
I would rather spend the money on something else but it could be worse, my niece who lives in England has had major problems with her dentistry. At least 1 month to get an impacted tooth removed and she has private treatment.
Not all dentists are shysters.
@Robert Peffers
I told the BBC via their website before the referendum:
link to tvlicensing.co.uk
I had 2 emails from them, the second saying they would contact me again in 2 years time. Not yet 2 years and heard nothing. It’s straightforward if you don’t watch you don’t need a licence.
If I’m hassled about that then I think I will take it further. I will not be bullied into buying a product I have no intention of using.
Golf. Knox, Knox whose won…? Rusell! Well done 🙂
@ call me dave, Thepnr & yesindyref2
Cheers Wingers!
Thanks for the link and the technical tips.
Interesting reading as expected
Hi Paps,
See you’re making the occasional cameo appearance again today. Pity though you can’t find the time to respond to another recent post addressed to you:
link to wingsoverscotland.com
But like the Leavers, while you Unionists apparently entertain no doubts whatever about what you’re against, and are always happy to snipe from the sidelines, you never seem to be able to bring yourself to explain what you’re actually for.
Afraid of the justified ridicule, I expect. (Casually-assumed neo-colonial forelock-tugging just won’t fly these days.)
True Robert, I don’t like being ridiculed, that’s why I follow the herd.
As I have mentioned many times, I don’t consider myself a YOON, I just have a British identity, therefore many arguments for Scotsindy, like the democratic deficit etc, don’t work, if you are British.
I don’t accept there is much difference between the people of Wales, Scotland and England. and if there is , the differences are as marked as between, Fifers and Aberdonians.
I have replied to you on the thread you mention, thx for your courtesy in any case.
Talking of Aberdeen, I was greeted by a real zoomer at the weekend prancing around union street waving a “no more referendums” panel above thier head.
They got duly booed by our contingency which was nice.
link to scotlandinunion.co.uk
Should be renamed bettertogetherinscotland.eng
True Robert, I don’t like being ridiculed, that’s why I follow the herd.
As I have mentioned many times, I don’t consider myself a YOON, I just have a British identity, therefore many arguments for Scotsindy, like the democratic deficit etc, don’t work, if you are British.
SensiblePaps you know full well Scottish independence would never mean you giving up your British citizenship. This is one of the creepier sides to your yoonster stuff. You know no one wants you, or any No vote, to stop being British but you lot are absolutely determined that people like me will never have the choice to be Scottish.
Its a very very creepy mind set but such is the tory BBC style yoonianism in Scotland sensiblePaps. We’re British, we will always be reined over by the tories, English tories in particular, and we will never be Scottish. Because we’re too poor, small, stupid and British, forever and ever, JK Rowling style.
Just thought I’d make things easier for you on here sensiblePaps.
There’s a link to a YouGov poll on the first article.
link to d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net
@Titty
I just have a British identity
Nobody here really cares about your identity, so why are you bothering to tell us all about it?
Your British identity is bought and paid for, I have no doubt of that.
“You know no one wants you, or any No vote, to stop being British but you lot are absolutely determined that people like me will never have the choice to be Scottish.”
That has never occurred to me Heid,that is distressing to think, that one precludes the other.
I am so pre-occupied with being British, I thought it was enough that a YES voter and a Scot, carried the Union Jack and led the British team at the Olympic opening ceremony.
A conciliatory and magnanimous gesture, to heal the wound.
It has just donned on me that all this debate in essence is, you want your own Scottish Olympic team.
I must leave now and reconsider how we can reconcile our differences.
@Papko
You are a sham, we’ve had our fair share of Unionists trolls over the years, you however are different. Your not a troll in the normal sense, your a paid troll.
Paid for by Scottish taxes too. You make me puke.
First time I’ve seen this documentary about the colonial media’s bias during IndyRef#1. Even although it tells us here on WoS what most of us already know, it’s still worth a look and ia a useful Doc to point soft NOs to, just to let them see how much the colonial media totally duped them:
link to youtube.com
@Proud Cybernat
Can’t believe I’ve never saw that either. The Independence movement obviously have a problem in getting the message out.
Anyway, thanks for posting great documentary and well worth watching.
Are you listening Paps?
OT while I think of it
In terms of the internet, the UK has the well known ccTLD (country code top level domain) of .uk but also has .gb reserved for it – the only country that has two ccTLDs. It’s historical, and .GB was rarely used and only apparently by hmg, so the only current use seems to be 3 domains of the form “*.hmg.gb”.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Not a lot of people know that!
@Graf Midgehunter
Thanks for those wee black books, finally I’ve given away most of them. For some reason I was sent 2 packs of 25, well, I’m keeping 10 of the 50 but have disposed of the other 40. I decided to go for keen YES people who didn’t do much Wings. One was really keen, I offered 4, yes please, could you use 10, yes please, ended up with 15 I think. Another was my son who knows loads of people he’s giving them to. The idea is the more YESsers know, the better the spiel.
So it’s kind of a sub-distribution.
My own approach with NOes and undecideds isn’t a sell of YES, I like to blether and find out what the concerns are. I find from being aggressively NO at times, when they realise I’m not going to try to persuade them they’re a lot more open, and generally less determined a NO than they make out to be. I guess it’s like the natural response to a double-glazing salesperson “I got it all done last month”. I do let them know I’ve supported Indy for more than 40 years which surprises some people for some reason.
I’d probably be classed as a “warmer”, and perhaps some time after, a “closer” might turn them to YES. But there’s a point to this (oh YES). Some people probably think they’d be no good as campaigners, trying to convince people to vote YES. Well, don’t bother. Just talk and particulalry listen to the NOes / undecideds, make the odd little comment like “well, media is biased whether it’s against Indy, Corbyn or even Cameron”, and let them do their own thinking. Every little helps!
Oh yeah, a point I forgot to make is that perhaps grassroots YES2 should deliberately go for a good few “warmers” – bletherers rather than doing the hard sell. It’s good to talk!
Here’s a good article from a good straight Herald reporter / editor
link to archive.is
“Decline in Scottish economy after Brexit vote less steep than elsewhere in UK“
Hey, Papko @ 2.51 PM.
Are you making a self assessment?
Alex Salmond appears to be aware of many things as we all, ie those with more than a single cell in the brain, have become aware of over the years. I’m sure if he knew it all, he’d be banned by every bookmaker.
You, yourself, there must be SOMETHING you don’t know about. Go on, admit it. Let us all know. Quantum physics?
I don’t normally lower myself to miscall posters on this site but I’ll make an exception in this case.
Give us all a rest, (politely) please.
.
,.
Sorry, 2.51 PM.
Sorry 2.15 PM.
G4jeepers says:
8 August, 2016 at 12:02 am
Talking of Aberdeen, I was greeted by a real zoomer at the weekend prancing around union street waving a “no more referendums” panel above thier head.
They had a stall in Perth as well
Graeme
Graeme,
Luckily most folk were giving them a wide berth.
Thing is though, they’ve been getting gullible members of the public to hold up thier “no more referendums” board then posting pictures of them on thier website and on facebook. Pretty sure if those people pictured are real people and they spent just 5 minutes looking at the blog section they’d be wanting off of there pdq.
Re the yoons demonstrating in Aberdeen.
I saw four guys doing the same thing in Elgin a couple of weeks ago, when I engaged them I conversion they spoke with English and upper middle class accents. They seemed determined to deny people in Scotland democracy and their minds were closed to any reasonable argument. They were ignored by most people and a few people shouted at by a few.
Re the yoons demonstrating in Aberdeen.
I saw four guys doing the same thing in Elgin a couple of weeks ago, when I engaged them I conversion they spoke with English and upper middle class accents. They seemed determined to deny people in Scotland democracy and their minds were closed to any reasonable argument. They were ignored by most people and a few people shouted at them.
So the GB crest for these olympics has 3 lions?
Three fucking lions?
Seriously?
Why has McAveetie dragged his feet over the planned monument to those who died in the Great Famine intended for the Broomielaw? Does he view it as a vote loser when his jaiket’s on a shaky nail. THe famine was no respector of persons or indeed religions.
Yoons demonstrating in Aberdeen.
Yoon do not ‘demonstrate’. They posture.
The increasing desire for independence in Scotland has been driven by a commensurate increase in the worse kind of nationalism.
A nationalism based on misplaced concepts of privilege and superiority which results in an undervaluing of other, different, national cultures.
‘British’ nationalism
Thanks for all the info on how to catch up on the Olympic channels.
I’ve also discovered the red button channels are on Sky from 472-487. It shows what’s on and what’s on next. It is also recordable which is handy for the middle of the night stuff.
Links
link to sputniknews.com
link to politicshome.com
link to gerryhassan.com
link to alynsmith.eu
I ranted some days ago about the standard of yoon, from a not very good pet food salesman to bra saleswoman, but I forgot how poor the standard of Yoon posters here are, so thank you Papko for proving that fact.
Anyway a brisk walk in St Andrews is lovely this time of year.
Good luck to Kezia and Louise tying the knot.
Sounds like a film…no car crash I hope.
The SNP should listen to their ‘critical friends’ over the NP scheme according to Iain Gray on radio shortbread.
🙂
Some posters on here should get a life – FFS, somebody earlier was getting het-up about Team GB showing the three lions (leopards actually).
TV shots of Adam Peaty on the rostrum clearly showed a rampant lion on his track suit top – well, that’s going to get the Little Englanders wound-up, and we have to be better than that.
I don’t have a problem with the Olympic Games team which represents the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland being called “Team GB”. That is a bit snappier than Team UKOGBANI.
I don’t have a problem with Ian Robertson referring to the Women’s Rugby Seven as “England”. It is, to all effect an English selection, and he’s used to calling them England for the rest of the year. Ian is now in his 70s, cut him some slack, and, to be fair, even Sir Clive Woodward is being scrupulous in using Team GB.
Off on a tangent, it would have been nice had there been a Scot in the squad, but, none was good enough, live with it, and watch the boost Mark Bennett and Mark Robertson will give the mainly-English men’s seven.
The reality is, we are part of “Team GB”. OK, I would, like most on here, rather see Andy Murray, Elidh Doyle, Hannah Miley, Ross Murdoch, Elish McColgan, Laura Muir, Kate Granger and the other Scots in Rio competing for Team Scotland.
That day will come, if we work hard enough towards it, but, moaning about one part of the team kit doesn’t bring that day any closer.
I am so pre-occupied with being British, I thought it was enough that a YES voter and a Scot, carried the Union Jack and led the British team at the Olympic opening ceremony.
A conciliatory and magnanimous gesture, to heal the wound.
Make it about these issues if you like sensiblePaps but UKOK fact is, its all about tory rule over Scotland and England ofcourse. Planet toryboy came very close to losing control of Scotland for good 2014 but somehow they clung on.
But look at how hard BBC Scotland had to work for starters Paps and they can never stop either, Scotland always has to be shite under SNP Holyrood, you must vote red tory but maybe blue now Scotland, is all we get rammed down our throats, Pacific Quay style day in day out.
It all makes sense toryboy wise paps. They assumed red tories would rein over Scotland for ever, leaving England happy and tory glorious. Lose control of Scotland to a PR Holyrood though, the North of England will want it and that just cant happen. Toryboy rein over Ireland ended very quickly but British and Irish people can come and go as they please and that’s how Scottish independence will be. Not over the toryboy BBC dead body, right Paps.
Scots and English are the same and different in several ways Paps, we just had our EU citizenship ripped up by the English for example. A giant Scots issue, all being buried by tory BBC Scotland led British propaganda, just like their historic The Vow devo-max shyste 2014. Brilliant BBC propaganda by any standards.
Also Paps, trolling Scots with Andy Murray and teamGB makes no sense. Like all great world class athletes, Murray’s going where his talent and athleticism takes him. Enough proud Scotbuts voted No 2014 but its got nothing to do with Scotland’s greatest ever athlete.
Just keep telling Scots your usual BBC Scotland style UKOK grot Paps, SNP liars, too small, poor, stupid, Salmond the great crook, Sturgeon the kranky wee upstart clown, Scots oil expro’s worthless, our £15bn black hole has “arisen,” sneering tory twerp demand we know it, “fiscal transfers” from the ever kind, generous England save you silly Scots, Andy Murray is British, you are British… it all means Scotland cant possibly run Scotland.
Murray is a Scot paps, no matter how hard yoon culture wish he was English:D
Rangers are 20 years behind Celtic in terms of mindset.
Rangers see the ascendency (not return) to the Premier League as the means to print money again. This is not going to happen whilst the orange mindset prevails.
Celtic can capitalise upon both Scottish and Irish heritage, quite a powerful winner and importantly non threatening. This will attract new fans of all religions and none.
Rangers on the other hand can’t get out of the no surrender rut, and a rut it is. This cul de sac will ensure stagnation and prolonged decline.
You can fly a union flag, but in Scotland this marks you for a figure of fun and likely bigot, not a winning formulae for a club in a country that is leaving the uk.
And what are you going to use for currency meh?
GBP EURO £1.18
GBP $ £1.30
Euro now trading 4 places higher than the GBP with the GBP still falling and heading for parity with the Euro according to Bloomberg
It seems the great and powerful OZ (previous chancellor) was about right, Brexit has doomed England to just being equal to other people
How will they stand not being superior to the Frogs and the Wogs and the Krauts and all those other horrible little countries that they’ll now have to say please and thank you to
Although they’ll still be superior to us, that’s a given
@papko “I just have a British identity, therefore many arguments for Scotsindy, like the democratic deficit etc, don’t work, if you are British.”
——-
To me this would just be kidding myself.
Nothing wrong with a British or part-British identity in a cultural sense, but when it comes to politics and the UK, then out of the 4 nations, England basically calls the shots just by sheer weight of numbers. The Brexit vote being the most recent example.
If you are against independence by saying you have a British identity, you are effectively saying “I am ok with English voters deciding Scotland’s future”.
To me, it seems like Britain would be enhanced with independence and a Britain comprised of equal sovereign nations.
Socrates MacSporran
I consider myself admonished for raising the subject of the coat of arms last night.
Can anyone help- I am trying to find the review of bbc local programming that was released earlier this year highlighting the audience perceptions in the different “regions” of the UK. It was fairly hard-hitting stuff and relevant to the debate on the Scottish 6.
I cannot recall if it was offcom or hm gov that carried out the review- anyone remember?
@Tam Jardine
Try typing bbc local programming review Scotland into google. There are a couple of pdfs
link to bbc.co.uk
Was it the public attitudes survey? I think I linked to it at the time. Not sure if this is it
link to bbc.co.uk
Don’t follow football, but this article is as excellent as it is fair. Reasoned argument and fact, something I respect, unlike the gutter press who continually misrepresent and propagandise.
Nana
Thanks- I found it.
link to gov.uk
Long document but if you do a wee search on “scotland” it soon becomes magically clear.
The Olympic arms don’t show the English leopards, they’re pretty tacky however & look like something off a fag packet, which they probably are! 🙂
@proudcybernat
Of course, the key is to challenge the SMSM credibility, which Stuart does here at least as well as anyone.
Here is an offering from indref1 we used in Kirrie Yes shopwindow. No sound, since broadcasting sound into the street was a no no. Also, a bit dated now.
youtu.be/ygG1hMEm4f8
Rev I thought this site was about Scottish independence? The Rangers issue is trivial. You are diluting the other good observations you make with this nonsense. The goal is not to prove you are an incisive journalist and ‘better’ than the SMSM. Sometimes you go off on a massive ego trip and this Rangets pysh is another example. We know you are an Aberdeen ‘supporter’ and you hate Rangers. We heard it first time and we get the point about the SMSM being pysh. Focus on the cause and build support instead of dividing people. Every country in Europe has its journalist lackies fawning to the big teams. Punters like it. Supporters of small teams like Aberdeen hate it but it’s a fact of life. Get over it. It’s not important.
We are the future of tomorrow xx
Primal Scream rockin’ it out in the bandstand.. Go Glasgow ?
That question mark was supposed to be an explanation one.. again..
Scotland!!!
[…] all, who cares? Well, I’d like to think it’s for a similar reason that Stuart Campbell talks about football on Wings Over Scotland – it illustrates an issue far wider than itself. Here, the issue is […]