Wings Over Scotland

There seems to be a disconnect for many Scots between how they feel about the London Olympics and how they’ll act when the Games are on. Many will bemoan the cost, lost opportunities, lack of access or significant national legacy, but will simultaneously be cheering on the athletes in Team GB. Is it a form of Olympic schizophrenia that we should despise the Games and yet love them at the same time?

Schizophrenia isn’t, of course, really the correct term to use for this phenomenon. It’s a mental disorder characterised by a breakdown of thought processes and by poor emotional responsiveness. Despite the etymology of the term from the Greek roots, schizophrenia does not imply a “split mind” and it is not the same as Dissociative Identity Disorder – also known as “multiple personality disorder” or “split personality” – despite often being confused with it in the public’s perception.

So perhaps it’s more accurate to say that myself, and many others, suffer from a form of Olympic split personality disorder. But what is it that causes this affliction? In order to find out, we need to look at the history of London 2012.

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Right then. Around 14 hours after we first saw the SFL reconstruction proposals, we’ve just about coaxed our eyebrows back down off the ceiling and cranked our jaw shut again. Without further ado, let’s take a wild and wacky journey, line by line, through the tacky Powerpoint presentation comprising the most…

• stark-raving-bonkers
• howling-at-the-moon
• loopier-than-a-box-of-Fruit-Loops-looping-the-loop-over-the-Leeds-City-Loop-Road
• lights-are-on-but-the-hamster’s-got-the-house-keys
• ten-sandwiches-and-seven-cans-of-lager-short-of-a-picnic
• madder-than-a-suitcase-full-of-weasels-in-a-tumble-drier
• wasn’t-April-Fool’s-Day-three-months-ago?
• oh-my-God-they’re-actually serious

…document ever issued in the entire long and murky history of Scottish football.

We’re going to assume you know the fundamentals already, and will therefore get straight down to the analysis. Buckle up, readers, it’s going to be bumpy.

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The BBC is reporting today that the Scottish football establishment hasn’t yet resigned itself to a reanimated zombie form of Rangers playing in Division 3 of the SFL next season. Despite half-a-dozen SPL clubs having made it clear that they won’t allow Charles Green’s new company directly back into their league, and despite it being the overwhelming wish of almost 100% of the fans of every other team in Scotland – and a large percentage of Rangers fans too, for varying reasons – that any new club start at the bottom, the craven moneymen of the SPL are still trying to find ways to get the Ibrox side back into the top division with the absolute barest minimum of delay.

It’s a mindboggling plan, and one we find it hard to attach much credibility to for a whole raft of reasons. Let’s look at just a few of them.

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Now, let’s get something straight right from the start: the headline on this feature ISN’T referring to the people pictured below. We’re sure they’re fine, lovely, good and honest Scottish folk you’d be happy having live next door to you, who just happen to disagree with us on a particular political issue. Nothing wrong with that.

But the “Better Together” campaign’s launch video appears to have gone out of its way to make them appear to be simple-witted idiots, in order to try to disguise the utter hollowness of its argument.

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On the few occasions we’ve bothered reading Better Nation in recent times, it’s usually been as a result of something posted by Kirsty Connell. She’s penned several thoughtful, interesting blogs since joining the editorial team, and we’ve even tweeted a few of them before now. Today’s piece, in which she explains why she’s finally lapsing her membership of the Labour Party, is unmissable.

We won’t keep you from it, but there’s one enormously telling phrase in particular in the post. Connell dates many of her doubts about Labour back to a traumatic experience when campaigning in the famous Westminster by-election in Glasgow East, a deprived area whose troubles she attributes to “a Thatcherite government [which] strangled funds to a Labour-led council”. Perhaps it’s some last remnant of tribal loyalty which prevents Kirsty from coming out and saying it: the “Thatcherite” government strangling those funds went under the banner of the Labour Party.

The Glasgow East by-election took place in 2008. By then, the “Labour” government of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had already been in power at Westminster for 11 years. Even as the party’s support reaches all-time lows in Scotland, a dogged hardcore of wilfully-blind loyalists continues to desperately gloss over the fact that Labour long ago abandoned most of the honourable socialist values and principles on which it was founded and surrendered to Thatcherite ideology in order to grab power. We rejoice that one more member, in a long and continuing line, has seen through the deception, and hope that the others will one day choose to open their eyes too.

So we’d probably better comment on Willie Rennie’s personal attack yesterday. It was hardly surprising, and indeed a little flattering that the leader of a formerly-major political party would take time out of his day to send out a press release excoriating little old us and our insignificant wee blog, but it’s still a tad disappointing to see a senior politician happy to tell so many lies in a few short sentences.

We’ll skip through it quickly, then move on with our lives.

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EXCLUSIVE! Keen-eyed viewers will have noted that our shadowy agents buried deep in the heart of the No camp have already managed to bring you two sneak previews of the Better Together" campaign posters which will soon be appearing on lamp-posts, walls and billboards all across Scotland to explain the benefits of unity. We're delighted to reveal today that they've smuggled several more out of No HQ under cover of darkness, enabling us to help you be prepared for the debate. Here's the first.

More on the way throughout the day.