Electric Hermit

This is just to add my small voice to the growing clamour of protest following the announcement of plans to axe digital radio station, BBC 6Music. This is part of  Director-General of the BBC, Mark Thompson’s “strategy review” which also proposes the closure of the Asian Network and decimation of the BBC’s online presence.

For those who are unaware of it, BBC 6Music is to popular music broadcasting what Radio 4 is to the spoken word. It is innovative, bright and unapologetically committed to the promotion of popular music as a massively significant aspect of our culture. It is a gem. It represents exactly what the BBC should be doing and what other broadcasters should be aspiring to.

So why is Mark Thompson so eager to destroy 6Music? Eager enough to deny and contradict his own declared “core editorial principles”?

As far as one can tell, no better reason than pandering to the commercial interests which seek nothing less than the total obliteration of public service broadcasting in the UK. With one eye on the coming election, 6Music and the Asian Network are to be sacrificed on the altar of private profit at the expense of public interest.

The campaign to stop this act of gross cultural vandalism is rapidly gathering pace. The Save BBC 6Music Facebook group is already nearing 100,000 members. And BBC Complaints and the BBC Trust have been inundated with objections.

More to follow…

The Sainted Murphy

To imagine that the British Labour Party (BLP) could be more fatally blinkered and out of touch with the mood of Scotland’s electorate is to reckon without the dubious talents of their Governor General in Scotland, Jim Murphy. It seems that Mr Murphy is reliably informed (presumably by a burning bush) that the road to salvation for his benighted party lies in an appeal to primitive fear and medieval superstition. (Labour targets ‘religious’ votes)

Murphy has beheld the glory that is America’s Bible-thumping, born-again, snake-kissing, science-hating, gay-bashing, clinic-bombing, death-worshipping rabble of religionist retards and decided that these are the sort of people the BLP should be welcoming into the fold.

Worse! He seems to believe that the religionist mentality that puts blind faith before evident facts has a role to play in the governance of our country.

Perhaps we should not be too surprised by Murphy’s eagerness to abandon the rationality and pragmatism of secular politics in favour of religionist myths and fantasies. After all, the BLP has not proved itself very adept at dealing with practical realities. Religious delusion is the fate of many who find themselves unable to cope with the real world. Myths and fantasies may be a source of comfort when the painful prospect of electoral rejection looms.

Scripture is a convenient resort when you have nothing relevant to say. The mantle of religious righteousness might hopefully be deployed to cover a multitude of sins.

But while we mock “The Sainted Murphy” and his pompous preaching we must not lose sight of the fact that there is, in reality, a serious and growing threat to the secular state. Fundamentalists, aided and abetted by the likes of Tony Blair, are constantly seeking ways of insinuating their pernicious dogma into the minds of our children by infiltrating the schools system. And all the major political parties pander to the religionists’ demands for privileged access to power.

The secular state must be defended. We can all contribute to this most crucial of projects by expressing at the ballot box our complete rejection of Murphy and all his ilk.

Yet again, in their desperation to score even the pettiest of political points, the Tory/BLP alliance at Holyrood stoops to the abysmal depths where, it seems, they have now taken up permanent residence. Like scavenging curs they have returned to the now mouldering corpse of the Abdelbaset al-Megrahi issue. (Fresh calls over Lockerbie advice) Their petulant complaint? That Mr al-Megrahi has treacherously failed to pop his cancerous clogs in a sufficiently timely fashion.

The target of this particular witch-hunt (lest you are having difficulty keeping track) is our Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill. It is now six months since al-Megrahi, diagnosed with terminal metastasised prostate cancer, was released on licence for reasons of compassion to end his life close to his family. Official guidance in such cases suggest a prognosis of three months life expectancy. Mr al-Megrahi has survived twice that length of time. A circumstance which, as anyone who has witnessed the progress of prostate cancer will know, he may have cause to consider more of a curse than a blessing.

The British Labour Party leader in Scotland, Iain Gray, and his Tory partners have seized upon this unconscionable effort at survival to renew their attacks on Kenny MacAskill with all the venom and blatant dishonesty so assiduously rehearsed in previous onslaughts.

The “Grey Man” asserts that the decision to release al-Megrahi was a “completely botched process”. But he cannot point to one actual error in that process. Nobody can!

He castigates MacAskill for visiting al-Megrahi in Greenock prison. Yet he must be aware that this visit was wholly unrelated to the matter of the prisoner’s application for release on compassionate grounds. The visit was part of the process of assessing an application for prisoner transfer under an agreement with the Libyan government negotiated by Gray’s bosses in London.

Gray also repeats the lie that the release on licence was approved on the basis of a single medical opinion, when he knows full well that numerous experts, including no fewer than four consultants, gave opinions which were then summarised in a report by the director of health at the Scottish Prison Service.

As their part of an obviously coordinated campaign of disinformation and distortion, the British Labour Party’s close allies on the Conservative benches once again dishonestly attempt to peddle the notion that al-Megrahi’s reception at Tripoli airport was a hero’s welcome for “Britain’s biggest mass murderer”. In promulgating this nonsense, they are completely undeterred by the fact that such a notion is an evident fallacy – because the people welcoming him all believed al-Megrahi to be innocent. They were not celebrating the homecoming of a callous terrorist. They were celebrating what they perceived to be the triumph of justice.

MacAskill and the Scottish Government will surely brush aside this latest pathetic effort by the Tory/BLP alliance. But the press will do all it can to ensure that at least some of the mud sticks. The lies will not be challenged in the mainstream media. The blatant distortions will be allowed to stand. And that is a truly frightening situation.

Salmond backs Nicola Sturgeon over fraud plea (BBC)
Alex Salmond fails to back Nicola Sturgeon over fraudster (The Times)

The increasingly frenzied anti-Scottish Government campaign is characterised as much by confusion as it is by lies and distortions. And this non-story has produced some fine examples of a thoroughly disreputable genre.

It is hard to know which is worse, the Tory/BLP/LibDem alliance currently posing as the opposition in the Scottish Parliament, or the elements in the media which pander to this contemptible unionist cabal however low they must stoop in the process.

What is certain is that both do criminal disservice to Scotland’s politics and people.

I have been intending to dip a toe into the world of blogging for some time now, but lesser matters such as work always seemed to intervene. Now that I have the facility set up, perhaps I’ll use it.