Wings Over Scotland

Remember when some of us made a bit of a fuss about the epically tasteless plans for the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1, and were angrily told by various indignant British nationalists that the planned events were a “commemoration, not a celebration”? Turns out you can’t keep the truth down for long.

Astonishingly, the government even wheeled out some unbelievable numbnuts of a defence minister who offered up the following quote to describe this great sporting showpiece in which we will again be encouraged to see the Germans as our enemies:

“A no-brainer in terms of an event that is going to reach part of the community that perhaps might not get terribly entrenched into this”

Yep. He really said “entrenched”. Still, we agree with the first three words.

Try as we might, we’re only one small website and we can’t track every last news story in the world. So we’re not sure who died and made Calum Cashley chief of the Internet Police. But whoever it was did the cause of independence a great disservice by not clinging to life for a couple more years.

The Herald’s front-page headline this morning – that is, the most important thing the newspaper considers to be happening in the world today – is “Yes campaigners launch bid to silence cybernats“. We won’t insult our readers’ intelligence by naming its author. It exists solely as a result of the actions of Calum Cashley, and it manages to turn an event of such microscopic non-significance it wouldn’t have raised a gnat’s eyelash into a bilious spew of toxic No-campaign propaganda. Nice work, officer.

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We hadn’t previously bothered commenting on the Guardian cartoon by Steve Bell that had a lot of independence supporters hot under the collar this week. We’d assumed, as seemed the most likely explanation, that it had actually been a comment on what David Cameron was alleged to have mouthed to Angus Robertson at Prime Minister’s Questions, and that Cameron was therefore the main intended target.

We worried that the nationalists who beseiged the paper with angry comments were perhaps being a little oversensitive and looking for offence where none had been meant. Ironically, the cartoon happened only days after we’d highlighted our own habitual inability to understand what Bell’s cartoons were supposed to be about, and that comment turned out to be prophetic, because we had indeed called it wrong.

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The UK’s respect agenda, from last night’s Question Time on nuclear waste:

It’s commonplace for professional journalists these days to dismiss bloggers and social-media users as “internet bampots” – frothing, furious, abusive lunatics ranting at parked cars. But in fairness, some do tend to get a bit over-excited from time to time.

By way of example, let’s check out a couple of the wilder-eyed nationalists who’ve been allowed out by the nurses to air their rage in public this week.

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If you raise the slightest voice of dissent to the increasing fetishisation of the military in the UK these days, you risk drawing down a barrage of foul-mouthed ire on your head from furious British nationalists, inexplicably enraged at the expression of the desire not to send the sons, daughters, friends, fathers and mothers of Scotland off to die pointlessly in foreign countries where we have no legitimate business.

So it was nice to have our comments about the crass, jingoistic “commemoration” of last year’s Remembrance Day circus at Ibrox echoed this week by the joint chiefs of Scotland’s armed forces, who have ordered that the grotesque, “inappropriate” scenes will not be repeated in future. We hope the club’s fans, and others of the same mindset, will pay more attention when rebuked by such impeccable authorities than they ever would to the objections of evil traitorous cybernats like us.

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There wouldn’t be many people left in the No campaign if these were the rules.

So remember, folks – calling someone a Nazi isn’t political debate. Nazis weren’t comical figures of fun. That sort of poison is “sick abuse and gutter politics”, and must be stamped on if we’re ever to raise the level of debate.

(Another nugget from the Scottish Political Archive.)

We’ve got a bit of a dodgy Freeview picture this morning thanks to the weather, but we THINK this is what we just heard on the news from all the Tories (and others) who want the UK to leave the EU, but Scotland to stay in the UK.

Thanks to many alert viewers for sending in some we didn’t quite catch.

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We hope you’re just drunk, Ian. Honestly we do.

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We’re indebted to commenter “DougtheDug” on A Sair Fecht for spotting this one. On Tuesday in the House of Commons section 30 debate, Labour MP Ian Davidson bitterly attacked the Scottish Government for allegedly timing the independence referendum to coincide – at least to within six months – with the 700th anniversary of the Battle Of Bannockburn. (Ignoring the fact that the referendum would have happened years ago had it not been vigorously opposed and blocked by Labour.)

Davidson claimed that the timing amounted to “celebrating the murder of hundreds or thousands of English people“, and accused the SNP of exploiting anti-English sentiment for “partisan advantage”. It was a contemptible enough piece of dog-whistle politics in its own right, but all the more extraordinarily hypocritical in the light of this:

Lurking in the Westminster archives is an Early Day Motion from late 2003, in which Mr Davidson was happy to attach his name to a Parliamentary celebration – tabled by the Conservative MP for Romford, Andrew Rosindell – of what we presume we must call “the murder of hundreds or thousands of French and Spanish people”.

We must admit, we’re a little confused. Apparently openly and explicitly rejoicing at the historic deaths of enemy troops is fine if you’re a British nationalist, but disgusting, racist political chicanery if you’re a Scottish one (even when you’re not actually doing it). Can anyone point us at the rulebook for this sort of thing?

We hate to be banging on this drum again, but we can’t help asking: if these British nationalists had instead been Scottish nationalists, setting cars on fire and attacking policemen because they wanted the Saltire flown more often from public buildings, would the Scottish media be covering it in such a low-key, non-political way?

That’s a rhetorical question, obviously.

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Alert readers will recall earlier this month, when the Herald reported that the “flag riots” still going on in Belfast were to spread to Scotland. The paper noted that:

“Demonstraters supporting the Loyalist Union flag dispute in Northern Ireland are turning their attention to Scotland’s independence referendum, with a protest planned against senior SNP figures next week. The protesters are planning to picket Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s constituency office on Glasgow’s south side a week on Saturday.

One demonstrator said the protest at Ms Sturgeon’s office was a “No to independence and to protect the Union”.”

The protests in question took place today, with a number of Wings Over Scotland’s intrepid citizen journalists (whose names we’re withholding for their own safety) braving the ever-present threat of British-nationalist violence to record the events for posterity.

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