Here’s an extraordinary display from Labour’s Jim Murphy, still standing on an Irn Bru crate and drawing crowds of up to a dozen people (several of whom sometimes aren’t even Labour staffers) in 100 locations across Scotland. This one’s apparently Ayr.
Not only does the former Secretary of State for Scotland spend most of his time bellowing furiously despite already being the only person with a microphone, but the demented rant he embarks on when asked a question by a lady in the crowd about Gordon Brown’s disgraceful lies over organ transplants will have readers used to Mr Murphy’s normal TV persona blinking and rubbing their eyes.
Most striking, though, is his complete refusal to meet the woman’s eye at the end of his extended “SNP BAD!” outburst, in which he’d completely ignored her simple and reasonable question. Several times at the end you can see him consciously turn away from her so as not to catch her gaze, presumably out of shame.
Vote No and trust him with Scotland’s future, readers.
It’s all in there – “tear apart”, “rip to shreds”, Braveheart, two world wars, Rule Britannia blah blah etc – inside the first 100 words, so you know what’s coming. Although we’re pretty sure you’re not supposed to leave umbilical cords attached for centuries.
But as it turns out, that’s the most sensible part.
And this time we’re not being sarcastic. We were bemused yesterday when a number of people on Twitter started swapping referendum-based jokes about Stanley Baxter, who for younger readers used to be some sort of pantomime star and vaudeville performer. The jokes were explained today when it was revealed, to our considerable surprise, that Mr Baxter was in fact still alive and urging a No vote in the referendum.
Baxter, who left Scotland 55 years ago and told the Times that he now returns only for “the odd funeral”, nevertheless felt able to assert from these occasional visits that support for a Yes vote was founded in hatred for the English from simple-witted Scots who “don’t know any better” caused by “Braveheart” and hey, stay awake at the back there because we’re coming to the important bit.
(We note with passing interest and without comment the paper’s own description of Rod as a “Scotland fan” rather than a “Scot”, and that a few lines later in the same piece he says “as I don’t live there I shouldn’t comment on independence”. Whoops!)
Hmm, what could have brought that on all of a sudden?
When UKIP’s Nigel Farage was recently made rather unwelcome in Edinburgh, a whole slew of Unionist politicians and commentators – most notably Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie – took to the nation’s airwaves and newspaper columns to piously condemn the protestors who peacefully but loudly voiced their disapproval of Farage’s policies. Angry online No supporters, as is their wont, were less measured in their fury at the “suppression” of Farage’s free speech.
Today, the subject of the media’s blanket outrage – there are sizeable stories in the Daily Mail, Telegraph, Scotsman, Herald, Daily Record, The Times, Express and many more – is the saintly British Olympic cyclist, Sir Chris Hoy. The unfortunate sportsman has been the subject of what the Mail calls “vile abuse” for some comments in yesterday’s papers in which he ostensibly refused to take sides in the independence debate (but in reality could barely have made his position any clearer).
But another similar (and rather more serious) story, about online abuse directed at a Scottish public figure every bit as well known as Hoy, inexplicably gets only a microscopic fraction of the coverage.
We’ve spent a fair bit of time over the course of this website’s existence documenting the multi-media witch-hunts that invariably arise in the Scottish media whenever some obscure and/or anonymous independence supporter on the internet says something slightly intemperate (or even just expresses an unpopular opinion).
We especially enjoy contrasting it against the way that the elected, taxpayer-funded representatives of major political parties can get away unremarked with comparing the First Minister to dictators and genocidal mass murderers (of the sort “Better Together” donors like to give hundreds of thousands of pounds to).
The vast difference in the amount of media weight given to abusive behaviour from British nationalists and that from the independence side (the infamous “cybernats”) has long been a feature of Scottish political debate, but over the last 12 hours the phenomenon has seen an intriguing new twist.
We stumbled across this quite by accident yesterday. We think you’ll enjoy it.
The clip is from last year, and was aired on Canadian national news channel Sun News. Douglas Murray is a British writer who claims to be half-Scottish on account of unspecified links to Unionist breeding ground the Isle of Lewis, popular haunt of No-camp luminaries like Alistair Darling, virulent Labour anti-devolutionist Brian Wilson and controversial “Better Together” donor Ian Taylor.
Murray studied at Eton and Oxford and writes for august UK journals like the Spectator and Guardian, as well as appearing on numerous BBC political shows. For some reason, the Canadians consider him an expert on Scottish politics, qualified to inform and enlighten their viewers. See what you think.
We recently received the same letter from the Radio Times as many other people did, in response to our complaint about the magazine’s misrepresentation of respected Scottish historian Dr Fiona Watson last month. The problem related to an article about the film “Braveheart”, which made some deeply unpleasant implications easily read as saying the SNP were xenophobic racists encouraging anti-English violence.
The reply didn’t address the very specific issues we’d raised about what Dr Watson did or didn’t say, so we wrote back to the mag’s editor Ben Preston seeking clarification on a couple of important points. His reply is below.
The Radio Times was funded by the licence fee until the government sold it in 2011. We don’t remember receiving a cheque for our share. The extract below is from a feature about William Wallace in this week’s edition.
Let’s read that carefully. “Braveheart” has allegedly been “a gift to Alex Salmond and the SNP”. In what context? The context of “fuelling anti-English sentiment”. There’s no mention of winning elections, no mention of making people feel more positive about Scotland, no ambiguity whatsoever – the specific end to which the film has served the SNP, according to Dr Watson, is “the justification of anti-English sentiment”, and the associated perpetrating of violent assaults on young children.
We’ll run that past you again – the SNP love “Braveheart” because it helps them in their cynical aim of fostering xenophobia and getting little kids beaten up.
Unionists never miss a chance to sneer at “Braveheart”, a film which won five Oscars and tells a true story (very heavily embellished by Hollywood) about a people’s fight for self-determination. Only last night, Scotland Tonight retweeted one eager young No voter using it as an explanation for the increase in support for independence among the 18-24 demographic, even though the film came out almost 20 years ago.
This sort of thing, though, is fine:
That’s because nationalism is great, so long as it’s British.
I’ll make a confession: I don’t think Scotland needs independence. I’m not certain full independence is the most desirable option. At this stage in the debate, on Wings Over Scotland, that might be a quite contentious assertion. But last year, on numerous talkboards and comment threads, starting with that statement frequently saw me being called a “cybernat”, an “SNP stooge” or in one instance, “Salmond’s stormtrooper”.
That was because the statement always came with a “but”: “…but we do need control of welfare” or “…but we do need fiscal autonomy”“. And the “but” never went down well.
Full fiscal autonomy was the reason I voted Liberal Democrat in 2007. It had much to recommend it over the SNP’s full independence policy, both for Scotland and the rUK. It would have been a gradual approach that wouldn’t have scared many horses, north or south of the Tweed. It was an “I do want independence but am too polite to say so, in a very British way” kind of option.
It could have passed barely noticed by the UK media. Friends and family in England would have responded to your declaration of being a “full fiscal autonomy supporter” with a weary eye-roll and “Do shut up about Scottish politics, dear”. Independence, even if virtually synonymous in the detail, instead attracts “What? You want to rip my country apart, literally destroy 300 years of history and rob me of my entire identity, you evil separatist nat bastard?”
Bilbo on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “I wonder if that is a Freudian slip with the idea that men who have relationships with Trans women thinking…” Jul 22, 19:03
Young Lochinvar on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Yup. It’s weirdly similar to the behind the scenes shenanigans recruiting people to testify against / stitch up Alec Salmond.” Jul 22, 19:01
Mark Beggan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “It looks like Dr Searle has taken it upon herself to be Judge, Jury and executioner.” Jul 22, 18:42
Young Lochinvar on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Gilruth! Jesus H Christ.. The phrase “inept clown that’s achieved nothing worthwhile and effed up a shed load of stuff…” Jul 22, 18:39
robertkknight on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Welcome to Sturgeon’s Scotland, a.k.a the tartan shitshow, that can’t distinguish a woman from a man. Meanwhile, Swinney fiddles whilst…” Jul 22, 18:26
Young Lochinvar on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Well said. I saw that too and just gave up bothering even trying to understand their jibber jabber claptrap..” Jul 22, 18:19
Dan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Ach, as an occasional engine builder, I thought bigender described an entity that identified as being / or was attracted…” Jul 22, 17:53
DaveL on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “That’s a question for Greens MSP Patrick Harvie. He’s the proud recipient of an award from the deceased chief cheese…” Jul 22, 17:51
Fergus on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: ““… straight (attracted to the same gender)” I suspect “same” was meant to say “opposite”. [but they can’t say that…” Jul 22, 17:38
Neil Mackenzie on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Ah… Nope. If you’ve used ‘male’ or ‘female’ to mean someone’s gender, you’ve made a mistake and used the wrong…” Jul 22, 17:26
Rogueslr on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “We knew at 13 weeks that we were expecting a daughter, that’s approximately 24 weeks before birth. So AFAB is…” Jul 22, 17:20
James Barr Gardner on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “I wonder if NHS view Paedophilia as normal and reducing the age of consent down to 10 years is normal…” Jul 22, 17:16
KOF on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “” … an illustration of how far Scotland has sunk since Alex Salmond stood down.” Alex Salmond voted for the…” Jul 22, 17:04
agent x on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Meanwhile the warped and twisted evidence continues today with Kate Searle!” Jul 22, 17:03
Mark Beggan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “I would like to dedicate this song to Mr. Upton: “Boys Keep Swinging” Heaven loves ya The clouds part for…” Jul 22, 16:48
Mark Beggan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Holyrood is the only sinking ship where the rats have decided to stay.” Jul 22, 16:15
I. Despair on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Anent the uselessness and idiocy of NHS Fife management – I don’t know if her post technically counts as management…” Jul 22, 16:13
Aidan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “@Xaracen – thrown out is a figure of speech, it’s not been printed out and physically thrown out of the…” Jul 22, 16:12
Stuart on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Meanwhile in other news, (and pay attention to the last paragraph from the article re devolution) Farage has spoken, this…” Jul 22, 15:39
agent x on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Does NHS Fife not welcome Heterosexual? No mention of the majority of people.” Jul 22, 15:07
Xaracen on The Pillars Of Sanity: “But, Aidan, that is not at all the same thing as saying that Scotland’s petition was ‘thrown out’! You made…” Jul 22, 15:05
James Cheyne on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “For those still hanging on to the treaty of union, It must be correctly mentioned that there are only two…” Jul 22, 15:01
Andy Wiltshire on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “BBC News / Scotland / Edinburgh Fife and East. Nothing on the Fife NHS and Sandie Peggie case yet today.…” Jul 22, 14:34
crazycat on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Oh dear: a) NHS Fife re Intersex “…sexual organs. This can mean internal organs – such as chromosomes or ovaries…”…” Jul 22, 14:33
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “Some may find of relevance this comment from a previous thread: DOOYEWEERD: NORMS AND NORMATIVITY https://wingsoverscotland.com/just-good-friends/#comment-3012464” Jul 22, 14:23
willie on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “To use the vernacular this article sets out the utter bollocks waste of time and resources that organisations like NHS…” Jul 22, 14:16
Aidan on The Pillars Of Sanity: “Because JPTI posted on their website that the case of Scotland couldn’t be discussed at the C-24 conference in June,…” Jul 22, 13:51
Mark Beggan on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “They may have a million or more genders on their charts but there is only a handful of nutters who…” Jul 22, 13:46
Jim Anderson on Everybody’s Normal Nowadays: “The definitions in the lesbian and gay boxes refer to girl and boy which is surely illegal given the age…” Jul 22, 13:45