You really couldn’t make it up, well actually you could, but it wouldn’t be half as much fun as the the real thing.
It’s an absolute twitter storm gone completely out of control which has now spread out into the real world of our parliament, newspaper columns,soon to make the courts,and is causing far more damage to the Yes movement than all the Unionist attacks on Independence movement put together.
An Independence writer makes an off colour remark about the parentage of a Tory MSP and his father who happens to also be a Tory MP and Secretary of State for Scotland on twitter. This remark causes high umbrage and the said writer finds himself publicly named and shamed by the Leader of Labour in Scotland as a vehicle and stick to bash the SNP First Minister and On line Independence commentators (otherwise known as CyberNats) with, in the Scottish Parliament.
The Initial furore soon dies down and seems to be forgotten about until suddenly with both parliaments going on holiday and nothing much but Brexit to talk about we suddenly find a newspaper article with the picture of said heinous villain saying that he is now taking said Labour Scottish leader to court for defamation, and on his own website starting a fundraising effort from Yes supporters to raise funds for his court costs in this action.
To muddy the waters further, said nasty piece of work is not an SNP member nor even lives in Scotland,but lives in the South of England of all places..for Gawds Sakes…
It also happens that said potty mouth also has a very sizeable Independence supporting following, and is one of the very best forensic journalists cutting through Unionist lies like butter through a knife, and he is a considerable thorn in their side.
Furore part 2:
Immediately prior to furore part deux taking off we had another slightly less unsavoury spat going on, where the Co founder of the politically insignificant party Rise came out and said that she voted for Labour in Scotland in the General election where the SNP lost 21 seats as a result of a seemingly coordinated pincer movement between Labour Scotland and Tory Scotland parties to Just Say NO, and vote for whichever of them had the better chance of gubbing the SNP in every seat. Why did she, seemingly an Independence activist and supporter take such an action? Because She liked Jeremy Corbyn she said. This of course raised quite a few eyebrows among Independence supporters, not least mine.Given that said individual is a public figure and a writer for the Independence supporting newspaper “The National” it was bound to raise comment, and comments there were, some not very polite either!
This reaction in turn had her coffee house socialist pals and her journalistic mates defending her and deriding the flood of angry complaints being directed towards her.
I very politely enquired of her on her twitter account how on earth could she further the cause of Independence by voting for a Unionist party? To which I had responses from her hangers on accusing me of being sexist! Given that I would have made exactly the same comment had she been male, that allegation was of course utter drivel!
So with the scene nicely set, and social media in a ferment, perfect timing for absolute mayhem to take place.
The lead writer and editor of another pro Indy,coffee house socialist online newspaper, and also a columnist for pro Indy Sunday paper the Sunday Herald with a personal disliking for alleged homophobic arsewipe in Bath got really stuck in and began on her anti homophobic he is a total shit campaign on twitter. She and her coffee house socialist pals all ganged up to tell Independence supporters to ditch their Wings or be forever damned as being homophobic apologists!
This only encouraged others to get involved and a clear division soon emerged between supporters of the Uncommon space site and the Wings site. Other Coffee house socialist commentators soon started their little blogs and twits on the matter, and a rift between the views of LGBT supporters on what was and what was not homophobic came into the mix too.
A wee ginger dug came out on the side of said alleged homophobic ignoramus to say he was nothing of the sort and what he said had not been at all homophobic….crass and obnoxious maybe, but not homophobic. A Thousand Flowers took the polar opposite view and said it was homophobic and castigated the wee ginger dug for being a sell out and apologist for his despicably homophobic pal.
Meanwhile Doctor/captain or whatever other title she chooses to randomly give herself of Uncommon Space was in her element and got a young chappy to write a piece on how he thought alleged homophobic imbecile was definitely not alleged but a real deal nasty bigoted piece of work.
captain/doctor Hag for tea finally got her editor at the Sunday herald to approve more of this bilge ,and you can read it if you are particularly masochistic in todays paper.
So to date we have a load of people saying unsubscribe and do not support Uncommon space, Wingnuts, and boycott both The National and the Sunday Herald….
And what comment caused all this furore and utter insanity in the first place?
It was a suggestion that it would have been better had Mundell Juniors father Mundell Fluffy come out sooner and not got married and help conceive Mundell Jnr then we would have been spared his existence.
Nasty…sure …. homophobic? I don”t think so, others do.
would it be misogynistic to say that it would be better that the DONALDs mother had not left her native Scotland and gone to America and met his father?
REAL ISSUES
What this episode does do however is raise a host of other questions.
Has the Mad Cows now found its way into humanity?
The utter craziness and anger and downright mental things which have been going on in the world these past couple of years, are they now taking root in Scotland?
With Brexit and all else that has been going on. The increase in racism, sectarianism, and every other sort of Ism. The World seems to be going to hell in a handcart.
Is this episode an example of peoples behaviours and attitudes we can come to expect in an Independent Scotland? If so….I want no part of it…. I don’t want to live in such a country.
Does the language which we see used highlight a class divide? Where one has to check absolutely everything that they say or write to ensure that it is politically correct,and nobody anywhere can possibly take exception to one of our throw away comments?
If so..we truly have entered the George Orwell world of 1984 and surpassed it. Thought control has become the norm. The ruling class retains control by engendering the division of the other classes. The propaganda machines of the box in the corner and in our not free press are the drivers of enslavement of thought and personal freedoms.
If that is the case…. I am outa here and find myself a desert Island somewhere…..shut the door and turn the lights off when the rest of you leave.
In the meantime…..
I accept your Right to be Offended, and to Offend
Now SOD OFF
I have better things to take up my time.
Auld Acquaintance 
Aah, an independent Scotland would help put the brakes on a load of jealousy amongst various websites because then we would be concentrated on getting back to “normal” political fechtin’. There are, of course, some crackpot characters who will always choose to be offended (big difference from being defamed), but, perhaps those who are trying to be noticed in this way as they try to climb their personal greasy pole to gain a wee bit of power will find themselves on a slippery slope instead because the rest of us plenty of serious work to do.
totally agree
Reblogged this on charlesobrien08 and commented:
I have said in the past around 50 or so years ago,to somebody and it was meant as humour and it was taken as humour,I said” Pity your dad was not gay” Why” he asked my reply was well he would never have had sex with your mother (I used words used by 15 year-old-boys back then as I was 15) and you’d not be here to annoy me.It was funny then and still is.
I have said in the past around 50 or so years ago,to somebody and it was meant as humour and it was taken as humour,I said” Pity your dad was not gay” Why” he asked my reply was well he would never have had sex with your mother (I used words used by 15 year-old-boys back then as I was 15) and you’d not be here to annoy me.It was funny then and still is.
Now Rod has said it a bit better by taken a rise out of petty mindedness.(pun intended)
Thanks for articulating the damned irritating thoughts that have been buzzing around the back of my head for weeks. I don’t use Twitter because it would be such a temptation to shout, very loud, “JUST SHUT UP!!!” Kezia Dugdale’s accusation was that Stu Campbell is homophobic. Not that he said something that might – if you squinted at it from a long distance – be interpreted as showing a fear or dislike of homosexual people. It was a cheap personal shot at a skilled opponent for political reasons and she deserves to be forced to defend her assertions in court.I just wish the rest of the babbling commentariat would now shut up and let them get on with it.
Noted also that it was not Stu Campbell that leaked the action to the press but Dugdail herself….obviously to create the reaction it has
At times like this I find it hard to resist the idea that this was all planned and premeditated to ferment exactly this kind of stooshie, and that some of the parties involved are knowingly stoking the fires of “division” and “divisiveness” to do two things.
1. From useful idiots on the Indy side: Cause confusion and distraction to the upcoming review of the YES campaign, and to make the choosing of sides part of the equation. (Of course those with most to gain from this are these so-called influential people in the nicely named “Coffee house socialists” clique of media pals.
2. From a Unionist perspective: Create the environment whereby Wings over Scotland (one of the few pro-Indy sites with a high reach – readers of over 300k a month according to stats) is shut down, OR that there is enough “bad press” to persuade YES/Indy supporters to stop visiting/supporting the site. (An obvious WIN for the NO / Unionist side as he is a real thorn in their side).
I would like to think that this is all about personalities rather than conspiracy, but we know from history the lengths to which the British state will go to preserve their Establishment’s rank and privilege. An Independent Scotland, with all her resources, challenges that, and the one man who has done most to challenge the Unionist propaganda is Rev. Stuart Campbell.
In my opinion it is now critical that we continue to expose the hypocrisy here, and stick to the key principle of justice – no one (especially not politicians) have the right to defame someone without fearing a recourse to the law. We will find out what the law thinks soon enough.
Apologies for the length of this reply, but I am mightily frustrated and disappointed with a lot of people I used tp have great respect for.
I wonder if Dugdail will call Mondale as a witness, just to complete the circle. I hope Campbell fails on his crowd funding, just cannot see why others have to pay for a cheap nasty jibe open to the public domain.
You’re clearly not paying attention as his crowd funder has already exceeded the amount asked for. Contributions are voluntary so clearly many people are happy to pay.
Before raising the defamaton action, Wings did a poll of readers, asking whether he should go ahead or just ignore what KD had said; the vote was overwhelmingly in favour of proceeding. Then he asked whether he should do a separate fudraiser, and that again was overwhelmingly supported. He then reached his initial target within a few hours.
Everything he has done since she allegedly defamed him has been with the explicit support of his readership. Nobody’s forcing you to make a contribution.
*fundraiser* not fudraiser, obviously!
“I hope Campbell fails on his crowd funding, just cannot see why others have to pay for a cheap nasty jibe open to the public domain.” Nobody HAS to do anything least of all give money to the crowdfund…. I thought it was funny and I also think that any politician to try and make capital out of this “off colour remark” in the Scottish Parliament deserves to be held to account for their action!
Please do not retreat to Rockall. You make me laugh out loud and I appreciate that =)
I thought Rev Stu’s twitter comment was pro-homosexuality 🙂
Kez and AH just do not take the time to read properly.
Thanks…I may postpone my departure a while yet…It can be gey wild out there in the Atlantic 🙂
dugdale scoring political points snp bad independence movement bad indie supports fall for it hook line and sinker causes division job done remark play ground stuff just like the remarks we used as kids e g your mother should have crossed her legs and strangled you at birth and we would never have this problem same type of remark same context daft indie supporters typical reaction unions love it get a grip concentrate on the the job in hand independence for scotland free from westminster rule
AA, If I may say so in under-stated jest, you continue to sound very Scottish. (Insert smiley face if WordPress allows) When I read your stuff, although my ancestors have ensured that I have the right to claim to be English, with all the exceptionalist baggage that that involves, it makes me feel really pleased that over 50 years ago I became an English Scot. Too much though of that half century was spent in the service of and the promotion of UK and I am now trying to make amends for past misdeeds, commited without proper knowledge of the real situation, by doing whatever I can for the Indy cause.
Please forgive me if I connectedly rant, in the perhaps vain hope that I can say something that you might find useful in your writing to a wider audience. The UK that I tried to help promote, driven my naive belief that UK was a force for good in the world, is commonly though to have evolved to its current form. This has been a largely peaceful “evolution” if you disregard the “little local difficulties” at the time of the Highland and Lowland Clearances, the Tolpuddle Martyrs, ‘Peterloo’, the Easter Rising which led to the creation of Eire, or the bloody and murderous social unrest which led to and were present in the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately the “peaceful evolution” might be in vain as the foundations of UK are rotten and have not been properly sorted. UK is on the point of implosion IMO because of the effects of the Brexit shock and the forthcoming #ScotRef.
The rotten foundations were laid during the times of Henry VIII and fundamental weakness started with his determination to invent a church so that he could have as many wives as he wanted. The corruption involved in that Church of England creation was institutionally transferred into the House of Lords where the Lords Spiritual were previously a real force to be reckoned with. Until about 100 years ago, as you will know, their Lordships wielded real power. Nowadays HoL’s main poisoning effect on the country is by means of the seats offered to people judged worthy to be offered Lordships, even though they might themselves be as unworthy as the people judging them (rather than “judging” it might be more accurate to speak of “testing to see whether the prospective Lord-unelect has done their bit to help shore up the system’s edifice) When unworthy people are celebrated it has an unfortunate effect on the rest of us if we are told the truth about it. Hence the continuing need to influence the media by a series of corrupt pratices. There was probably much hope for UK before Labour became involved in this corrupt conservative practice of providing Lords from ancient and retired MPs or, far worse, MPs voted out of office by the people who, under the UK system, are supposed to know them best. When Labour MPs started to accept peerages, hope for UK’s deliverance reduced. Scots like me have given up on Westminster. #ScotRef is the only way out for us IMO.
Please forgive me if I have included in my rant material from the past that you have previously spoken about, I may have said to you before that your writing encapsulates for me so much of the Scottish culture that I have acquired in my half century in Scotland from the many authentic people, highly and lowly placed, that I have been fortunate enough to have encountered. Please do continue your own writing and if you need any sort of ‘gofer” in connection with the book, or any of your other writing, please include me in the list of people that you can call upon to assist.
Thank you very much Tom….very much appreciated… I wish often that some native Scots would manage to see themselves and the Country in a more positive light. New Scots such as yourself, no matter where they come from bring their own history and tradition and culture with them and only positively serve to enrich this wonderful country of ours. We need more such positivity and willingness, and with that a fairer more just land than what we currently live in.