The great difficulty with politics is, that there are no established principles

There have been many exits in politics; many dignified, many reluctantly, some explosively, others indignantly, even petulantly. Few however, have been as undignified as the spectacle witnessed by members of the Labour party in Scotland at the weekend by Iain Gray, the man whom history will probably judge as being unique amongst Holyrood Labour leaders, for not having had one positive thing to say about his party, political philosophy or opponents during his three year tenure.

In his outpouring of bile at the weekend he devoted an exceptional paragraph shifting the blame of his and his parties failures to a few nameless individuals.

This afternoon we begin the process proper of electing a new Scottish leader for a new devolved Scottish Labour party.

I say to the candidates.  Don’t kid yourself.

You will be attacked.  You will be smeared.  You will be lied about.  You will be threatened. 

The cybernats and the bedsit bloggers will call you traitor, quisling, lapdog and worse.  They will question your appearance, your integrity and your sexuality.  They will drag your family and your faith into the lies and the vitriol.  If you are a woman it will be worse. 

It is no consolation to know that any journalist or commentator who gives you a fair hearing will suffer the same. 

This is the poison some have brought into our politics and it is vile. 

It is time we started talking openly about it and it is time the SNP did something about it. 

They know who some of these people are.

This is not how you build a better Scotland and Scotland deserves better.

But those who bring light suffer burning.  You will stand up to it and you should be proud to do so.    

As only one of a handful of bloggers to be pursued by the Scottish press and as far as I'm aware the only one to be hounded out of a job, I took fair exception to the utterly shambolic and pathetic attempt Iain Gray made to have one final kick at those he perceived to have brought about his downfall. Particularly his defence of 'any journalist or commentator who gives you a fair hearing.' Boo-fucking-hoohoo. 

For the record, I have never written or said anything "deeply unpleasant" about any Labour politician...or any other sort. I have never called a Unionist a traitor, quisling or lapdog...although I can't see why a fluffy lapdog would be considered offensive. I've never threatened Ian Gray, questioned his sexuality or dragged his family into lies and vitriol, although I confess to putting an SNP rosette on his wife's jacket as she and Mr Gray strolled along a beach on a winters day for the cameras... As to his integrity and appearance, these are the standards which politicians put upon themselves for election. I've found, as have the Scottish electorate, that Iain Gray is lacking in both.

The main reason the Labour Party has lost control of it's personal fiefdom, is not entirely down to the Tartan Overlords large shiny, smiley face. Rather, it is down to thousands of people in Scotland taking exception to the one sided, biased, blatant propaganda that has passed and still passes for impartial news in our newspapers and the state broadcaster. These people fed up with the lies and one sided nature of the Scottish media have discovered the internet, which has opened up the opportunity to search, research and respond.

 

As our newspapers shrink in actual paper sales, they have looked to an internet presence as the means to keep their shareholders happy and have created on-line forums to drive advertising revenue. Unfortunately, they have discovered that you can't have open access without the punters actually availing themselves of it. So, the past ten years have seen a Labour press release, with the obligatory kick at the SNP end up in the Scotsman straight from London Labour HQ, verbatim. Within moments of it appearing on-line, those of us with opinions on how Scotland will run better as an Independent country are ready to opine, and use actual facts to combat the press release. This is frowned upon in unionist Scotland. So what we mostly see are stories in the Scotsman coming on-line at obscure times of the night, always with sickening comments from Union supporters, invariably hours before Joe McPublic has had an opportunity to comment. These first posters do not engage in debate, instead they have brought, to paraphrase Iain Gray, 'vile poison into our politics'. Naturally, comments arise that these are people deep within Johnson press fighting to preserve the union at all costs. Much like Kevin McKenna confessed in his Independence 'epiphany' piece in last weeks Observer, that he and the Guardian man are both Unionists, so one must surmise are the majority of those scrivening behind the scenes at Johnson Towers. So for Gray to cry foul that those with the most power are victims, fair sticks in the craw. 

Gray will go down in Scottish political history as the man who lived up to his name, a cheap and obvious dig, but really what is our collective memory of him? Scuttling into a sandwich shop to escape natural Labour supporters concerned about the closure of a respite centre for the disabled, fag cupped in hand like a dodgy security guard gathering courage outside Holyrood on Thursday mornings before FMQ's or standing up in the chamber gesturing to Salmond to 'come ahead'.

He who fears being conquered is certain of defeat

Where Mr Gray's logic falls down, is in his belief that there is some secret cybernat army being marshalled by the upper echelons of the SNP, directing teams of Internet savvy operators to attack Labour at all costs. The cybernat is a Labour construct, there is no such thing. Instead there is a large, and growing number of people who are pissed off at the continual propaganda coming from the Unionist media which controls Scotland. That some professional members of the SNP buy into this construct is rather concerning. Perhaps it's easier for them to go down the knee jerk response road for fear of upsetting the horses and actually challenging those who control our daily news.