Glasgow Didn’t Let Us Down

I stand corrected. Question Time from Glasgow turned out to be not what I expected at all, mostly. I got it completely wrong when it came to the guy from the Institute of Economic Affairs, who was, admittedly, awfully sure of himself, and fond of the sound of his own voice. However I thought he was there to tell us how really bad an idea independence was for Scotland, but when he opened his mouth early on to let us know that there is absolutely no reason why Scotland couldn’t make a right good go of being a proud independent member of the EU I nearly cheered. Why is it though, when folk try to list important figures who represent what’s best about Scotland, and Scots who have influenced society and the world, do they seem to always include Jakey Rollin? I don’t get that one. We’ll let him off this time.

Moving on, I love the way politicians and public figures from England who experienced the 2014 referendum via the distorted looking glass of the mainstream state broadcast media and the unionist press take for granted the complete falsehood that there were “families split, toxicity on both sides, and the whole thing was very divisive.” You could see that the good Baroness, who pulled the Dimble up for a supposed slight, knew she was on a sticky wicket when Val McDermid put her straight on that score, rightly saying, having been in Scotland throughout that time, that she didn’t recognise that description of the independence referendum campaign as being at all accurate, and instead pointing the finger at the “media storm whipping up a frenzy of anger”. We all know how that ended up, on 19th September 2014 in a square in Glasgow.

When met with this convincing response I thought it was a wee bit below the belt of Ms Chakrabarti to then somehow try to loosely link behaviours in Scotland in 2014 to the Brexit Referendum, and the tragic death of Jo Cox. Not a fair comparison by any manner of means that one Baroness. A low blow, a very low blow.

I could have jumped into the telly and hugged the guy that then put the Dimble straight when he tried to say that London London London ( yes he did say it three times) was also let down in the Brexit vote as they had also voted remain, like Scotland. ( I paraphrase badly) “ Aye said the fella, with respect, Scotland is a country in a Union, London is a city, totally different dynamic ya choob.”

Does the Fluffmeister no’ get on your nerves? Man, that guy could bore for Scotland, in fact he does. He’s like a nagging broken record. He firmly sticks by this line that his government is working closely with devolved governments for the best outcomes for the whole of the UK ( Aye, for the bit of the UK that the Treasury Building is situated in). What a load of absolute nonsense, a clear and blatant falsehood, and then he goes into his usual droning “ the majority of people in Scotland don’t want a referendum (cheered loudly by the masonic tattoo brigade, and met with sidewards head movements indicating that he’s off his nut by Indy supporters in the audience). Telling John Swinney not to lecture him too. John Swinney is too nice a fella tae draw the mitt out n tug that wee ginger beard but I bet it was a close thing.

He’s desperate to protect his lords and masters at every turn. When the question was asked (him being somebody who personally voted remain but then voted with his government as the only Scottish MP to vote through the Brexit Bill) Is it not your obligation as an MP to represent the wishes of your constituents rather than the party you are a member of, the Dumble jumped in quickly to save him, going to another question. It did give me a warm and fuzzy feeling though, as I’m sure it must have for many of us who have had to listen to the endless negativity about our views on self-government for Scotland for so long, to hear the lady, just back from Paris, telling the anecdote about the big hairy border Fermers at the rugby, who in 2014 were all staunch Unionists, but now are all going to vote a resounding Yes next time.

By contrast the lady that then said that as a ‘region” of the UK we voted No in 2014 and as part of the whole county Leave in 2016 so we just have to accept that I suppose sums up much of the ‘hard’ Unionist viewpoint, whether they consciously are aware of it or not. Scotland is a region of their country, Britain. I’m afraid we’ll never convince the Proud Scot But’s otherwise. That’s their view, fair enough, there’s not enough Scots with that hard-line viewpoint to make a difference. Let’s bypass them and get on with convincing everybody else.

Following on from the jabbing of the knife into the Scottish government on education, which I think we could all have predicted was going to happen, John Swinney acknowledging that much work was still to be done, came the statement of the night for me, during a discussion about the megalomaniacs running two of the world major powers.

It came from the Scottish Tory MP, the only one in Scotland, the one who consistently votes against the other 58 Scottish MP’s (56 of them on almost all occasions) who does what his leader tells him, who believes that the country he was born in isn’t actually now a country as it was absorbed by another one 300 odd years ago, a man who doesn’t think the people of Scotland are entitled to have their views respected.

David Mundell proudly announced, in all seriousness and with much sincerity, as bold as they come ,that “ we’re lucky, we live in a thriving democracy!” I think I’ll just leave that there.