The enemy within 228
The Steve Bell cartoon in yesterday’s Guardian caused a fairly predictable reaction. SNP supporters and Yes voters were offended, some Guardian journalists drew ludicrous defensive comparisons citing Charlie Hebdo – as if people had called for Bell to be beheaded, rather than just expressed the opinion that the cartoon was nasty and racist – and lovers of comedy went off scratching their heads after fruitless attempts to understand what the joke was supposed to be.
(“It’s a quote!”, shouted quite a few people, naming about a dozen different historical figures as the alleged source of a line about trying everything once, but none of them offering anything by way of explanation on how that was connected to any comment or policy of Nicola Sturgeon’s or the SNP’s.)
Anyone naively thinking that the publication of the cartoon was just an unfortunate lapse or oversight will have been disappointed by today’s paper, which carries another painfully unfunny and incomprehensible Nat-bashing effort from Bell, although this time the offence is limited to the portrayal of Sturgeon and Alex Salmond as a pair of stereotypical kilt-wearing Jocks.
(The caption explains the strip as being purportedly about “Salmond and Sturgeon’s Highland fling”, but we haven’t a clue what that’s supposed to mean. We’re not aware of them having visited the Highlands recently and we can’t think of any characteristic of full fiscal autonomy that resembles a traditional dance.)
Unionists, meanwhile, indignantly pointed out to some complainants that attacking the SNP isn’t the same thing as attacking Scots as a whole. But as media hysteria about the apparently-unconscionable prospect of Scottish MPs influencing a UK government reaches fever pitch, that distinction is getting less and less meaninfgul.
