Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Mission Impossible

It seemed like Mission Impossible, but I think I may have found a blogger who's views on the SNP make those of Cllr. Terry Kelly look nuanced and insightful. Take a bow, then, Lib Dem blogger James Graham, for your attempted defence of Jamie Stone's ridiculous 'xenophobe' comments.

Quoth the bold Graham:

"The bottom line is, nationalism is an extremely ugly thing, whether it is Cornish Nationalists “confiscating” English Heritage signs or Scottish Nationalists chucking faeces through English people’s letterboxes. Alex Salmond may like to pretend that nationalism has an “acceptable” face, but it’s fundamental features are a belief that your ‘people’ are both superior to another group and permanent victims at the same time".

I should warn you that it deteriorates considerably from here, with circular arguments and sweeping generalisations that seeking independence = nationalism = xenophobia = anti-Englishness. And the 'when did you stop beating your wife' approach to my growing incredulity towards the end of our exchange, as well as the advice to politicians to never apologise, has to be seen to be believed.

The silence from other Lib Dem bloggers suggests that anyone taking an interest has probably decided that discretion is the better part of valour. This tallies with George Lyon MSP on Newsnight Scotland last night, who while not apologising, at least had the decency to distance himself clearly from Stone on the issue. Anyway, strap yourself in, point your browser here, and admire the cynicism and simplicity, if not the quality, of this man's thought.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

In his "apology" Jamie tells us that nationalist politics sometimes overlap with xenophobia.

Would this be the case with the Basque and Catalan nationalists who sit in the ALDE grop in the European Parliament alongside the Liberal Democrats? Could Jamie enlighten us?

Richard Thomson said...

That's an excellent point. Perhaps you should email and ask him!

jamie.stone.msp@scottish.parliament.uk

Artful said...

Yeah, well said Richy boy!

All the accusations and slander only emphasise the depths to which Labour and the Lib Dems have sunk!

Talk about running scared eh?!

If you work in the Parliament as a researcher, then i might bump into you soon.. All the best!