There is an old saying: ‘get your retaliation in first’, and Angus Skinner has certainly applied this advice in his article ‘Rory Bremner and the fear of reprisal’ (13 June) concerning a programme which, at the time of writing this, has not yet been televised.
However, ‘Rory Bremner fears such a backlash from a programme on Scottish politics which he has made that he takes advance action to defend himself, asking for Scottish politicians and their supporters to calm down and saying, reportedly, that he has never encountered such hostility’.
It goes without saying that Rory Bremner is entitled to the opinion he will express in his programme, but it seems almost certain that there will be criticism of the programme. Has there ever been a programme in the history of TV that has not encountered some criticism?
Criticism though is varied, and I would agree with Mr Skinner that there are types of criticism that are not appropriate. For instance, if I find Bremner’s programme to be less than amusing or entertaining, I think I am entirely within my rights to say so. On the other hand, personal abuse is both improper and unacceptable. So what evidence is there to support Mr Skinner’s concerns about abuse of Rory Bremner by supporters of independence for a programme that hasn’t yet been broadcast?
Well, obviously the Susan Calman incident is given another airing, despite the fact that the claimed abuse has never been put into the public domain, no complaint is known to have been made to the police (who have the technology to track people down who engage in such behaviour), and, when, given the opportunity to appear on Newsnight Scotland to discuss the alleged abuse, she apparently declined. So this seems an episode fairly long on assertion but short on evidence, to the extent that it has taken on almost mythical status.
Mr Skinner might also have referred to the ‘abuse’ of Sir Chris Hoy when he suggested that to maintain Scotland’s place in world athletics Scotland would need world-class training facilities which it currently does not have. The fact that this ‘abuse’ was no worse, so far as I am aware, than someone who unacceptably described Hoy as a ‘twat’, does also nicely deflect attention from any discussion as to why it is that Scotland doesn’t already have the world-class facilities Chris Hoy says are required.
Is this the much lauded ‘union dividend’ we Scots are supposed to value? Is it any more acceptable that talented young Scots need to go to England to further their careers in athletics? Are we content that this is how the union ‘works’ for us?
However, what is particularly worrying is the more generalised attack that Mr Skinner engages in toward the end. The assertion is made, without a single shred of evidence or argument, that independence is ‘utopian’ – ‘promising what may not be deliverable’ – and that false hopes may be raised which could be dashed by a No vote, or the failure to deliver in the event of a Yes vote.
Perhaps Mr Skinner might like to consider the possible reaction of the committed unionist, who, waking up on 19 September 2014, finds that he is in a country that has voted to break up his (or her) United Kingdom? Are individuals who hold such views not equally capable of the kind of backlash Skinner so readily attributes to supporters of independence? Or, might Scotland as a whole, if a majority is convinced to vote No, not find its hopes dashed if we discover over the next 10 years or so that we aren’t actually ‘better together’?
I fully agree with Mr Skinner that ‘Whatever the result that will be a crucial time for tolerance and reconciliation, amongst ourselves and with our neighbours’, however this cuts both ways. Mr Skinner’s admonition ‘come out you SNP and Green leaders and say clearly that this behaviour is not acceptable’ applies just as much to those of a unionist persuasion.
Indeed, the quality of the referendum debate would, I think, be raised if Better Together and HMG could engage in debate. They could do this by resisting the temptation to, almost by reflex, disparage every proposal about independence and/or set out a list of questions which simply could no more be answered today by the Westminster government than by a Scottish government (eg ‘What would be the level of the state pension in Scotland and how would it be up-rated every year?’).
Alternatively, questions are posed that could only be answered through the negotiations that David Cameron has clearly said will not happen this side of the referendum. ‘Won’t work’, ‘we may not do this’ are not to engage in debate, but to close it down.
Mr Skinner is right that the current debate reflects less well on Scotland than we might have hoped, but addressing this is the responsibility of both sides and certainly not only one.
Alasdair Galloway
Angus Skinner’s plea for calm shows all the signs of being influenced by No campaign supporters’ attempt to characterise those Scots who have a desire to see decisions affecting Scotland made by those who live and work in Scotland as evil, racist, English-hating ‘cybernats’ who constantly take to the internet heaping abuse on all those who hold different views.
He cites two recent examples of such ‘abuse’: the treatment of poor Susan Calman and, even poorer, Nigel Farage. But both were examples of No campaigners at work.
The Susan Calman affair has not so far been shown to be more than an invention of the mainstream press. Any examples of ‘foul abuse’ that anyone has so far been able to identify were at the level of ‘she didnae mak me laugh’. Not a comment that would normally attract such mass coverage as followed her talking about it, nor one that could be described as ‘foul abuse’. Calman herself did not even claim to have seen the ‘abuse’. Someone, she said, had told her about it. However, no doubt the attendant publicity would help to swell the audience at her next event.
Nigel Farage’s treatment in Edinburgh has to be put in the context of his political views, extremely right-wing, anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner and, as far as can be read into the comments of many of his supporters, anti-Scottish. His later claim that the affair showed the anti-English nature of Scottish nationalism only holds water if he is taken to be representative of England (I hope not) and if the (very small) crowd involved were all nationalists, which, of course, they weren’t. Some were left-wing members of the Labour Party (I was surprised they still exist) who weren’t keen on Farage’s views. However, the mainstream press were only too happy to take his comments at face value.
Mr Skinner’s plea to the SNP and Scottish Greens to ‘say clearly that this behaviour is not acceptable’ seems strangely one-sided. Has he not seen examples of ‘foul abuse’ from the other side of the debate? Or does his pair of union jack spectacles only allow him to see comments from ‘evil cybernats’? ‘
I hope that Mr Skinner’s view has indeed been naively formed by too much Daily Mail reading, as I would hate to think he was himself trying to advance the same characterisation of all independence-supporting Scots.
Mr Skinner, we’re not all ‘evil cybernats’, and certainly not to blame for the current level of the referendum debate.
Ron Strathdee
Kenneth Roy hardly needs me to defend him from the political infantilism of Alan Bissett (11 June) but for the edification of other readers I’d like to point out that many of us have been warning Alex Salmond for several years that the activities of the cybernats will come back to haunt him. For that reason Kenneth’s latest wise words on the matter are timely:
I am not convinced that the first minister is fully alert to the alienating effect of cybernat activity.
I’d go further and state that the excesses of the cybernat shock troops and Salmond’s outright refusal to condemn them are one indicator of the confused political direction of the Yes campaign. In support of my opinion we need look no further than the recent public statements of Jim McColl, the leading billionaire, independence-supporting businessman and GA Ponsonby, a leading writer for Newsnet Scotland, the nationalist online newspaper.
McColl has long been courted by canny senior nationalists and for good reason. He’s an exemplar of successful Scottish entrepreneurial activity and his words carry weight in business circles. Salmond appointed him as a leading member of his council of economic advisors after the famous nationalist victory in 2007. However, being good at making money is sometimes not entirely the same as being good at making politics. At a recent Edinburgh conference on the referendum aimed at the business community, Mr McColl is reported as saying:
Don’t let us be fooled by mischievous scaremongering about what we are voting for in 2014. We’re voting for an independent parliament within the UK.
Meanwhile, over on the other extreme of Yes campaign opinion, we have Ponsonby of Newsnet Scotland, almost to the day of McColl’s pronouncements, writing a piece under the headline – ‘Scottish Unionism, British Nationalism and their creeping fascist tendencies’. No, no, no…titter ye not. He’s come across a book written by a Dr Lawrence Britt back in 2003 which defines 14 identifying characteristics of fascism and Ponsonby has come up with the theory that our unionist friends in Scotland and the British state meet the criteria set out by the good doctor.
I hold no brief for Britt’s writing but suffice to say that it has attracted the same type of support on the web as has the theory that the CIA were really behind the attack on New York’s twin towers. The most worrying aspect of the Newsnet Scotland article is not that it appeared but that the online comments section of the website is wholly supportive of Ponsonby’s ravings. The cybernats strike again.
So there we have it. A leading supporter of the Yes campaign, who is also very close to the SNP leadership, backs Salmond’s view that a post-referendum independent Scotland will be in a social union with England. Apparently it’s all to do with the Union of the Crowns, family ties, etc. On the other hand, the cybernats believe that the UK is becoming a fascist state and that Scottish unionists are colluding in the process.
David Cameron’s senior colleagues may believe that Tory constituency associations in England are stuffed with swivel-eyed loons. To experience the genuine article they need to take a look at elements of the Yes campaign in Scotland. Alan Bissett’s plaintive cry will just not do when he says that the term cybernat:
…is now simply used to ridicule and marginalise anyone on the internet who happens to be in favour of Scottish independence.
If he cannot see the difference between honest political debate on the future of Scotland and the description of the UK and unionist opponents of the SNP as fascist he needs to go back to writing plays and leave political analysis to the grown-ups.
Perhaps the first minister will now let us know who he supports in the current debate? Jim McColl and his independence within the UK line or Newsnet Scotland and the cybernats who denounce the union and its supporters as fascist.
Dick Mungin
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