- The kilted Daily Mail is the 3rd most read newspaper in Scotland. Its circulation is 60k (1 in 100 Scots)
- It is owned by the English Billionaire, and non-dom tax-avoider, Jonathan Harold Esmond Vere Harmsworth, 4th Viscount Rothermere
- The Mail used to be openly pro fascist. Now it is just very right wing and ultra, hardcore-extremist, pro Union and Brexit
- A proponent of state sanctioned torture, Stephen Daisley is one of their most on-message Nat-hating writers
- He’s written another piece about how the SNP, and people who support independence in general, have DESTROYED SCOTLAND!
- It’s called ‘The Scotland we’ve lost’
- His logic is a bit bumpy
- Let’s off road
As you’d expect from a writer for such a staunchly Tory publication, Daisley starts off with a bit of, much needed, praise for Scots Tory leader Douglas Ross – even if it is noticeably half arsed. Especially compared to what he used to say about Ruth Davidson. He used to call her ‘mummy’ a lot.
So we’re told about his lovely sounding family and a quality Stephen has ‘always liked in him’:
he is an ordinary bloke who somehow stumbled into politics, with all the rough edges and missteps that brings – Stephen Daisley
It’s probably been pretty unfun for Ross, his ‘Boris should resign’ demand met with a swift, cruel, derisory, London put-down followed, eventually, by an embarrassing, pubic, climb-down. Stephen thinks it was a misstep but decides against elaborating. What good would that do for his favourite party.
Talkin’ ‘Bout A Tory Generation
With the praise quickly out of the way, Daisley gets on with his, anticipated, take of Douglas Ross’ 2022 Scots Tory Party conference speech. Where the Mail writer tries to improve and amplify the big Tory message. It amounts to one concept. By chance, the same one that Daisley is always writing about… ending division… caused by Nats.
The words struck me too, like an extra-strong sleeping pill. It’s always depressing to have to read that vague, soporific, crap. We wanted a referendum, we had one and, tell your face, you won. Deal with it and deal with the fact things have got so much worse since you voted no. Blame Bettertogether, Brexit, Boris and the Bubonic plague, not the ‘bloody SNP’.
Unionists have found their emotional case for the Union and surprise, surprise, that emotion is fear. Fear the country is going to the dogs under the SNP. It’s what I would want to believe if I was a no-voter. But, if that really was the case, we’d be shown comparisons of the Scottish, UK and Welsh governments’ records.
All the time. So we could see the SNP’s poor record. Unionists always tell us it’s a ‘poor record’. They never show us.
You never see it because the situation is worse in England under the Tories and in Wales under Labour. The ‘situation,’ of course, caused, mainly, by Tory Brexit.
As for Stephen’s melancholy about falling out with friends and family.
Why are you falling out with friends and family?
There should be ample chances to avoid anything as unnecessary as that. We can blame a political party we don’t like for a breakdown of a relationship, like Stephen. We’ll only look just as feeble doing it too though.
So Stephen and Douglas both share the view that Scotland was more confident in the 80s/90s. I think they’re still at the stage of needing to think this argument through more. But, ok, on one hand, you have this familiar Unionist, vague, gloominess and, on the other, you have how the Nats see it and the social attitude surveys that… confirm people tell pollsters what they tell everyone else. Though sometimes not directly.
Douglas is speaking to his older Tory base. And, about them, he’s right, they are less confident and unlikely to be described as outward-looking. A whopping 4/10 Unionists think Scotland was better in the past (when they were in their randy prime). Only 2/10 think its future will be brighter. For, the clearly more optimistic, Yes voters it’s 17% and 56% better past/future. John Curtice’s analysis
Professor John Curtice detected
‘Bitter and inward facing‘? Well, again, speak for your Rule Britannia singing selves. The Brexit Scotland voted against – hard – with every single local area voting Remain, 62%, has nevertheless been forced on us all by Douglas’ party. Backed up vociferously by Stephen’s employer, of course.
That’s pretty brutal. Considering we’re supposed to be aggressive and chippy we’ve actually been very mellow about Brexit. I expected more of a reaction but I left it up to others while I did other things. What could we do anyway? London ignored the pleas for a bespoke arrangement and Scotland became the only part of the UK to not get what it voted for. Divisive?
We can see the negatives really coming through now though. Worst fall in living standards on record? Thanks, Tories. Thanks, Daily Mail.
According to a BBC survey of national identity, Yes voters are significantly more open and appreciative of ‘diverse cultural life‘ than No voters. The same poll shows they’re friendlier towards Europe and less strict about what it takes to be considered Scottish too. Hardly surprising if you follow what’s said, between the lines, on Twitter.
So, who, exactly, is @JournoStephen calling ‘Bitter and inward facing’?
Self owns
Undeterred by the fact his accusations apply much more strongly to his own side, Stephen presses on, into the evidence segment of his argument in which he hopes to make it clear exactly who the baddies are.
There follows a litany of the best examples of Nats being vile Stephen could think of. Writers saying things about the lack of Scots in the people. A tiny group of demonstrators with a banner at the border during lockdown (you know the ones). A guy doing a dodgy impression to some Labour MPs in the street. People tweeting Sarah Smith. People shouting.
A mad guy, with a chainsaw, chasing a Labour canvasser away from his house that Stephen has decided to tie to independence, somehow (despite it not being mentioned in reports or by the people involved). Margaret Curran being filmed by someone with a phone in the street.
Presenting My Whataboutery Masterclass
The problem for Stephen is his list can be bettered by many more examples of Unionists being much worse. People always complain about whataboutery but it works in a case, like this, where someone is trying to besmirch a massive, diverse, body of people from a position of such, hypocritical, weakness.
If Stephen’s chosen set of examples prove his point about Nats being bad people, what does it mean when his examples are all easily trumped by Unionist behaviour?
Stephen might be genuinely offended by the theatre talk but it feels a bit forced when you know the details, as Stephen must, and when scarcely a month goes past without some well-paid, high profile, columnist sticking a self-righteous boot into the chippy, greedy, ‘anti-English’ Jocks. With new tv station GBNEWS it’s virtually weekly.
Death threats
SNP politicians have been filmed and shouted at. But then, as you can see on the video, a fair few of them have had death threats and suspicious packages delivered to their offices too. You’d never hear it from Stephen but, Unionists have gone to prison for taking their politics way too far. Way too dark. I don’t think you can say the same of any Nats. Which is kind of civic and joyous, you sarky scamps.
Daisley also, naturally, totally ignores the embarrassing, and potentially terroristic, sectarian Orange Order, a slightly Unionist-inclined organisation, on balance.
And the infamous Holocaust denier, in the Union Jack shirt, who likes to shout at Yes or climate change marchers – another Unionist apparently. If, for Stephen, a single twat represents Nats, do multiple, worse, twats represent Unionists? Represent Stephen. I’m looking for the logic here. If it’s now ‘well, both sides’ he should start saying so. That, alone, would represent some progress on the myopia.
But even more questionable than all of that nonsense is Daisley’s – looking to score points – use of the death of Charles Kennedy. It’s really odious, depressingly typical of Daily Mail staff and it’s worthy of absolute contempt. Here’s why.
Why Unionists really talk about ‘division’ so much
If someone only ever talks about one side, when complaining about a binary division, they’re not genuinely concerned with addressing it. That’s obvious, despite the rhetoric. So, what are the real motives?
Even so, something has clearly changed. Scottish politics has ceased to be about right and left or even right and wrong and has become about who has a right to speak and who doesn’t and who is a true Scot and who isn’t. – Stephen Daisley.
You can’t read the Daily Mail and not notice politics is still very much about right and left, but let’s put that to one side for the question of having the ‘right to speak’.
The Scottish Tory Party’s favourite trope – division – has a special relationship with existence. The Tories keep it in a fridge where they don’t know if it’s still alive. They worry about it. Then, when a Nat politician says something about independence the Tories know it’s still alive, no need to even open the fridge.
Unionist politicians and writers are allowed to bash independence as much as they want and Tories, especially, love to do nothing more. But SNP or Green politicians? On behalf of their voters? ‘Division’ (the perfect soundbite). A personal ‘obsession‘. ‘Get on with the day job‘. ‘We said no and we meant it’. But all caps and emojis.
They have nothing to gain from talking about it seriously. When division is declared, by the Duty Tory, all chat must be reduced to simple, angry, soundbites.
Any Governmental talk of holding a referendum is met by blanket grumpy coverage in the British press and negative, personalised, framing on the BBC.
This, remember, is despite that government having a bigger democratic mandate than anyone has managed to win at Westminster since the 1950s.
Blocking the democratic process
What mandate do the Scots Tories have for blocking the mechanisms in contrast? They said ‘the Union is on the ballot paper’ before the elections and then simply ignored the result afterwards. They were given another absolute pasting in the voting booths and still Boris can cheekily pop up to give Scotland his latest ‘No’ and get back down to London unmolested by questions of democracy from Scottish journalists. This issue won’t go away just because Boris says no though. Everybody knows that.
There’s another big giveaway of the true motives too. Because while apparently very upset by division – Unionists like Daisley just cannot help being incredibly divisive, with their regular, and needlessly jaundiced, characterisations of the independence movement. Neither the Mail nor the Tories really mind division if it’s for something they want.
From economic restructuring and regressive taxation to prolonged austerity, wealth transference and Brexit. The Conservative and Unionist Party (with its inky helpers) has been, easily, the most divisive force in Scottish politics for decades. In Scottish society.
Division, in general, is obviously going nowhere anytime soon. Here as elsewhere. It is still about right and left and right and wrong and football and gender and religion and race. The Daily Mail and the Tory Party and their dogwhistles. And yes the constitutional arrangement will remain a big one. Anyway, I don’t expect much of a conference bounce for Douglas Ross at all.
