Wings Over Scotland

So the Daily Mail emailed us earlier in the week, all friendly-like. They wanted to chat on the phone about this whole frightful “cybernat” business or send a reporter and photographer round, but as our head doesn’t button up the back and we didn’t just sail up the Clyde on a digestive biscuit we indicated that we’d rather keep everything nice and on-the-record in case of any unfortunate accidental misquotings.

So instead, we had them send their questions in writing and we sent back some helpful replies, accompanied by a clause that we’ve found effective in dissuading newspaper hacks from using extracts out of context. Below is a list of the Mail’s questions and the answers we sent them. In bold we’ve highlighted the parts that were actually used in the article, purely for the interest of readers who might find themselves in similar situations in the future and would like to know how it works.

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It’s mainly hilarious, if we’re being honest. Today’s hysterical “unmasking” of “cybernats” (in fact a collection of perfectly normal and varied people, using the internet under their real names and mainly with photographs of themselves) by the Scottish Daily Mail as part of its ongoing “Cybernat Watch” smear campaign is like a one-stop beginner’s guide to the paper’s lurid sub-tabloid modus operandi.

But much as we chuckle, there are deeply sinister undercurrents to the article.

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(Story.)

Something annoyed us a great deal this week, and for once it wasn’t some fatuous statement from Alistair Darling or Alistair Carmichael or Ruth Davidson (though all of those were in plentiful supply too). Rather, it was a comment from a distinguished academic and professional in what was otherwise a good-news story.

The chap in question was Patrick Layden QC, former Deputy Solicitor to the Scottish Executive (as was), prior to giving evidence to Holyrood’s European and External Relations Committee, and the quote published in several papers was a troubling one.

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When someone sent us a collection of tweets in the immediate aftermath of the Clutha tragedy late last year, we decided not to use them. It wasn’t for any great moral reason – we’ve previously highlighted despicable No-camp scumbags making political capital out of the deaths of innocent people – but we were just too sickened and sad (as most Scots were) to waste a moment’s thought on such human dregs.

As the Daily Mail ploughs on with its crusade against “vile cybernats”, though, it seemed worth pointing out for the record just what sort of a place the internet really is, and how pathetic its catalogue of mild swearwords and distaste is in that context.

Stop reading now if you’re easily upset.

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So, last night we mooted the idea of running a book on which “Better Together” scare story would crumble to dust next. We didn’t even have time to come up with odds for “the Clyde shipyards will close because the UK doesn’t build warships abroad”, and now it’s too late. We really need to move quicker.

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Tell you what, readers – say what you like about the Daily Mail, but you certainly can’t accuse them of not really going for it once they get an idea into their heads.

These are all just from the last week or so, and there’s more to come. The paper has been going around doorstepping random pro-independence tweeters for what we presume is going to be quite a sizeable feature any day now (we declined their offer to send a hack and photographer round, but answered a few questions by email, as much for the sheer curiosity of seeing how they’d twist them as anything else).

And the “Cybernat Watch” column is now our favourite start to the day.

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“Better Together” must be nearly out of green bottles by now. 2014 has seen a bonfire of the scare stories. First to go was the terror of debt, which also all but guaranteed that there WILL be a Sterling currency union after independence (because the last thing the UK government needs is to have whatever amount Scotland takes as a share of UK liabilities being denoted in a fluctuating foreign currency).

Then the warnings about EU membership crumbled from several directions at once, culminating in today’s rather low-key story in which respected expert (and Unionist) Sir David Edward dismissed the idea of Scotland being thrown out of Europe as being nonsensical and impractical, having made similar comments last week.

The latest pillar of the No campaign’s case to collapse in the blink of an eye is the much-pushed line that independence means forcing Scots to choose between being Scottish and British. But who says so?

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The Daily Mail is proving an even more consistent source of comedy than usual of late, nowhere more so than its superb “Cybernat Watch” column (which we were delighted to find ourselves in this morning, on only its second day). Today the collection of partial, out-of-context quotes from random tweets was nestled into a bizarre piece about Labour’s shadow something, Jim Murphy.

As with most articles from the Mail’s Scottish edition it isn’t available online, but we’ve attached the text below so you can digest the full disturbing madness.

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If it’s Thursday, it must be foreigners. Today’s terror attack on the independence movement is an attempted pincer movement, themed (again) around the dire menace posed to us by those swarthy, primitive, untrustworthy devils who don’t even speak the Queen’s English. And no, Glaswegian readers, we don’t mean people from Dundee. We’re talking about the ones from other countries.

Because not only do some of these unspeakable aliens want to come and work and make a life in our green and pleasant land, they also want to bomb it and kill us all.

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The front page of this morning’s Telegraph.

We can’t decide which part we’re the most proud of.

The headline above comes, with a small twist of artistic licence, from Philip Larkin’s brilliant poem ‘Toads’, and it’s easy to believe it if you should ever find yourself reading the Mail Online website. Those paddling in its perfumed waters would be forgiven for thinking Earth a bright, spangly place full of luscious women and rich men.

There are no heavier concerns in this world than which fad diet to try or whether the latest spray tan products give an even glow. We can read about how the fashion for the ‘scouse brow’ is so over, and then there’s that famous woman who married that famous man. There are popstars and juice bars and babies in mini-Gucci. All is well.

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