Saturday 27 February 2021

Alex Salmond And The English Press

One part of our free and fearless press has been getting itself terribly worked up over events about which its hacks know little and care even less: the Barclay brother (now singular) empire, meaning the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph and the alt-right Spectator magazine, have become terribly judgmental about the split between former SNP allies Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond.


This obsession manifested itself in the pointless legal challenge from the Speccy, where the mag sprayed lots of money up the wall, came away empty handed, and could still find itself in contempt of court. A further manifestation was the Speccy’s ultimate boss Andrew Neil in the Daily Mail, proclaiming “Censorship, bullying, threats of jail ... how Nicola Sturgeon's storm troops turned Scotland into a banana republic without the bananas”.

At the Tel, last week brought the supremely clueless and hopelessly over-promoted All-star Heath to the fore, announcingThe useless and authoritarian SNP is turning Scotland into a failed state”. He falsely claims that the Judge in the Spectator case “sided with the magazine”, details Salmond’s allegations against his successor, and declares “Imagine if the latter allegation in particular had been made in England”. England. Not the UK.


Leaving for a moment the Oh What A Giveaway slip made by Heath - that the Westminster Parliament is really England first, with the rest of the UK grudgingly considered later - he knows, from coverage of alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, what would have happened if such claims had been made south of the border - he and his pals in the press, Bozo boosters one and all, would have swept them under the carpet.

Thus the hypocrisy, allied to the dishonest retelling of a pointless court case. But what is the point of all this froth? Simples. There is an election coming up in May, and the SNP is riding high in the polls. Gains for Ms Sturgeon and her allies will bolster the case for Scottish independence. So the London-centric establishment ropes in useful Scots idiots like Brillo and Speccy editor Fraser Nelson so put the boot in.


The problem is that they are no more effective than the ridiculous Heath blustering “I dread the consequences for Scotland of absorption into a declining EU” and channelling Enoch Powell with “the horror show in Holyrood over the past few weeks fills me with foreboding”.

As to the idea that allegations made in England would be pounced upon by the press pack, LBC host James O’Brien has seen through that one, noting “Either George Eustice forgot about this letter from George Eustice *or* he lied to [Cathy Newman] on Channel 4 News. Hardly reported at all. Respect to Martyn [Oates, from BBC South West]. Maybe right-wing newspapers only care about ministerial codes in Scotland?


And to put the lid on it, Dan Vevers of the Scottish Sun - yes, a Murdoch journalist - noted after the Salmond Show had ended that “Alex Salmond confirms he has no documentary evidence that suggests Nicola Sturgeon was involved in the plot he alleges among top SNP officials”. Which rather pisses on the Westminster press’ firework.

The SNP bashing is mainly little more than the English press establishment showing its paranoia at being unable to cut through to Scottish voters, while wanting to distract from the dishonesty and corruption endemic at Westminster. I’ll just leave that one there.


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8 comments:

  1. Dear Zelo ,
    The main question stll outstanding is not whether Alex Salmond has documentary evidence as to Nicola Surgeon’s complicity in the alleged ‘plot’ against him , but whether Nicola ‘lied to the Holyrood Parliament’ with regard to when she had her first knowledge of the rape allegations against Salmond , and whether the meeting where she discussed those was at her own or someone else’s request . Documentary evidence does exist about this and the Scottish Crown office are refusing to allow that to be made public or even referred to in current legal proceedings , a position described as ‘absurd’ by the presiding judge . Obviously your comment about the current UK Gov. routinely employing similar tactics , is true ,
    Derek

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  2. You should see the Brexpress.

    SNP poison is on display and it could herald the end of toxic nationalism - DOUGLAS ROSS

    UK leaving the EU-Independence
    Scotland leaving the UK-toxic nationalism

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  3. The biggest puzzle is who the bigger sassanach is:
    - the editor of the Spectator who got publicly humiliated by Emily Maitlis on Newsnight when she (rightly) did the job said editor hasn’t done in good faith for years
    - the chairman of the Spectator, and soon to be launched Gammon Broadcasting News, pontificating to This Morning viewers and everyone else he considers worthy of his bile from his bolt hole in the South of France.
    I’m sure Tim mentioned the words ‘contempt of court’ as well...

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  4. You are really off the mark with these observations. I am no fan of the political agenda of the Spectator or the Telegraph, but pro-Scottish nationalism bloggers like Craig Murray and Wings of Scotland have closely examined the controversy and support what Salmond has been saying. And yes the Spectator deserves credit for pursuing the story - it was acting in the public interest. This isn't some about London agenda to do down the cause of Scottish nationalism, there's more to it than that.

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  5. Parliament isn't "... really England first..."

    It's London first. As all the daft twats who voted tory are slowly realising. That includes the Starmer Quiff Quislings.

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  6. "the Spectator deserves credit for pursuing the story". I believe in the teletubbies too :)

    "it was acting in the public interest" lol Sure it was.

    "This isn't about some London agenda to do down the cause of Scottish nationalism". Yes it is.

    "there's more to it than that". Yup, more desperation. And it's looking like that's all they've got.

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  7. The UK can leave the EU, but any UK nation or those pushing to leave the cabal will be dealt with, or Scotland invaded by the English yet again, if necessary.

    But who knew what when seems pretty confusing, or at least to me.
    Yet the stitch up to frame Salmond seems clear enough (from the usual dark forces)

    Was Sturgeon involved, probably not, she still wants Scotland to leave, any bad publicity was obviously never going to help.
    Did she want Salmond out the way, so she can lead Scotland and out, probably,
    Salmond can be quite annoying at times.

    The sooner Scotland leaves the better, but what about a trade deal with the rest of the UK.
    The Tories would add huge tariffs for any goods coming from Scotland and do all in their power to destroy Scotland, until it agreed to rejoin.

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  8. Alex Salmond courted Murdoch for many years to get him to support the SNP, rather like Tony Blair courted him to support New Labour. Both regarded the support of the Scottish edition of The Sun (Salmond) and its English/Welsh edition (Blair) as essential to increasing the number of people who would vote for their parties.

    Both succeeded, but I am not sure what price they paid for Murdoch's support. Certainly Blair never got round to removing Thatcher's restrictions on trade unions.

    I believe Salmond offered a low-tax deal for Sky (then owned by Murdoch) in an independent Scotland---although the Scottish Sun, whilst supporting the SNP, would not support independence: it sat on the fence throughout the indyref campaign. For Murdoch it was all about Labour losing a lot of voters in Scotland and around 45 seats to an SNP supported by The Sun---and also losing the ability to ever form a majority government in Westminster under FPTP.

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