Murdoch Press Helps Scots’ Yes Vote

Rarely can there have been a more clueless intervention in an election campaign than that of the Murdoch Times yesterday, it its allegedly special Scotland edition, where patronising promotion, and clumsy stupidity from a Z-list politician, combined to rub up even the most ardent Scots unionist the wrong way. And the whole thing bore the paw-prints of Creepy Uncle Rupe himself.

That's what I think of youse bladdy independence campaign, ya bladdy Scots drongoes!

The centrepiece of the Times’ coverage reports on comments by Tony Abbott. Who he? To the embarrassment of many of his countrymen, Abbott is the current Prime Minister of Australia. He is also a gobshite, misogynist sleazebag, a chromium plated mountebank, a trickster, helped into office and kept there by the screaming and at times brutal intervention of Murdoch’s press machine.

Behold the Daily Patronising

Abbott is, in the context of contemporary European politics, an utter nonentity. So what on earth is the Scotland edition of a supposed paper of record doing giving him the time of day? Simples. He is, to all intents and purposes, a Murdoch property. So he gives his “exclusive” interview – as if anyone else wanted to give the SOB houseroom – to Rupe’s upmarket troops at the Times.

From here we get the headline “Yes vote is ‘threat to freedom’ ... Australian PM makes strongest claim of any world leader”. Straight out of the Lynton Crosby playbook, and utter tosh at that. Scottish independence would somehow curtail anyone’s freedom? That’s a straight-A f*** right off. And what business is it of Abbott how the Scots vote? Would he like us in the UK to interfere in Australian elections?

Who gives a flying foxtrot who he admires?

Damn right he wouldn’t, and he would be right to object. On top of Abbott’s clod-hoppery is the Times’ shameless promotion of the Premier League – that would be the English Premier League – on the front page of its Scotland edition. Now, I’m sure there are lots of Scots who follow the Premiership, but all that teaser does is tell them that their own Premier League isn’t up to it.

So who elicited those less than helpful sentiments from Tony Abbott? Who was the Times’ star interviewer sent to quiz The Great Man? None other than the acme of cluelessness himself, Tim Montgomerie, who, like Abbott, is in his current job primarily because he has been prepared to suck up to Creepy Uncle Rupe (“Rupert Murdoch has been an overwhelming force for good in this country's life and politics”).

Mr Clueless fails to apply reality filter

“Does any other world leader admire [the] UK so much” asks Monty of Abbott. But an embarrassing nobody who doesn’t qualify as a “world leader” is hardly any use, especially if he’s doing the bidding of the man who helped put him in power. This is Z-list punditry, Murdoch stooges in their own echo chamber. It is patronising and insulting to Scots. But it may help the Yes campaign.

That is, if anyone North of the border takes any notice. Which is highly doubtful.