Disgusting xenophobic front page from the National

[GargoylesofBeelzebub]

This is shameful. It's tipped from football banter into xenophobia.

x.com/scotnational/status/1811857044523131384?s=46&t=AjtjSItRj-kgZwRzL-pdyQ

This seems like a reasonable and measured apology. Thanks for sharing.

Yes but they’ve shown what they really think.

I suppose the unfairness about xenophobia against the English is really its anger at Westminster, taken out on ordinary people who are just as badly done by by the politicians as the rest of the UK. Yet we get the worst of both worlds - neglected by the politicians while also being abused by the other countries who seem to actively delight in anything going wrong for us.

It’s also not lost on me that the English football team is a great example of our multiculturalism. A high % of the team have mixed heritage, it’s representative (to me) of England as a global country which recognises the strengths of diversity. Wishing for them to lose because of events very few of the players have direct links to is utterly churlish.

And it’s ridiculous to make out Scotland/Ireland/Wales have no issues with racism, nationalism, thuggery or shameful history, literally laughable.

I find a lot of the ‘anyone but England’ mentality is actually them desperately trying to disassociate themselves from issues they know full well their home country also experience. But it’s easier to paint themselves as perfect and pin the blame on us, rather than face up to the fact our histories are very intertwined and shady across the board.

I think this is being analysed far too much.

Do we really expect football fans to support their closest rivals, whether that rivalry is always reciprocated or not?

I’d be confident that in the overwhelming majority of cases there’s no xenophobia behind it.

You wouldn’t expect Liverpool Fans to cheer on Man United in a Champions League final so I really don’t see how this is any different.

Personally I wouldn’t cheer for England despite having lived there for quite a while and strictly speaking having an English Child.

Not through hatred, I just find the whole Eng-er-land/Comin Home chat quite annoying and still remember all the media going on about ‘Ze Germans’ and ‘The Sweaty Socks’ when I was growing up.

Strangely though I did cheer for the Lionesses when they won the tournament, as I imagine many other people did.

This has really upset me. I'm a British Londoner through and through with a Scottish husband.
I would expect to see language like this in the BNP manifesto... they don't learn your language...they scrounge off your public services... horrible.

Ok, but I was just making the point that not every English person is offended by the page.

It did make me smile when I first saw it - I think it was the beer-bellied-man-football.

But even if it hadn’t, I don’t think I’d have been very upset. A fringe, swivel-eyed publication like The National is unlikely to produce more than a shrug in most people of any nationality. In significance, it’s up there with a front page of the Eastbourne UFO Spotters Journal.

The Spectator has printed similar on Scotland. (including one created by a previous Prime Minister).

Though, unlike the National’s offering, it wouldn’t have broken hate crime legislation.

Do we really expect football fans to support their closest rivals, whether that rivalry is always reciprocated or not?

No, and that isn't what this thread is about. The stereotyping used on that cover had nothing to do with football, except that it was using football as an excuse to be openly anti-English. It wasn't even football-related banter.

I do wonder whether people haven't actually read the front cover, but just seen the picture and read the main headline. Initially, it doesn't seem as problematic.

The Scotch – what a verminous race! (Written by a previous Prime Minister ) Notes regarding the text being a likely hate crime below.

Canny, pushy, chippy, they’re all over the place,

Battening off us with false bonhomie,

Polluting our stock, undermining our economy.

Down with sandy hair and knobbly knees!

Suppress the tartan dwarves and the Wee Frees!

Ban the kilt, the skean-dhu and the sporran

As provocatively, offensively foreign!

It’s time Hadrian’s Wall was refortified

To pen them in a ghetto on the other side.

I would go further. The nation

Deserves not merely isolation

But comprehensive extermination.

We must not flinch from a solution.

(I await legal prosecution.)

When originally published in 2004, the Director of the Commission for Racial Equality in Scotland, Maureen Fraser, said:
”We find this poem very offensive and the language is deeply inflammatory. It does nothing to promote race relations and undermines relations between Scotland and the rest of Britain, and our relationship with other countries.”. Ms Fraser continued, ”Some of the language, such as ‘comprehensive extermination’ and ‘polluting our stock’, is completely and utterly unacceptable. It cannot be tolerated.”

In my view, the final line "I await legal prosecution" makes it clear that Michie knew that his words could result in criminal prosecution. Had the target of his venom been the Jews or Muslims rather than the Scots, they most certainly would. But Johnson as publisher, and still living, is also criminally liable.

The National is in deep financial trouble, readership of a few thousand. I suppose this was its way of "rallying the troops" for the last stand.

It’s a satirical work by a man whose father came from Fife. You could probably tell that by its author’s Scottish surname, Michie.

When it was published and a few people got all shouty about it, plenty pointed out that they’re the heirs of the halfwits who objected to Noel Coward’s Let’s Not be Beastly to the Germans during WWII. It’s satire. It’s to make you think.

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

So the above is acceptable because the author has a family member from Fife. I've heard it all now.

Where's the lie though? 😆

It's only a joke, doesn't bother me.

The fact that they’ve apologised means even they know it was wrong.

It was hate, not humour.

I am glad they apologised

You still haven’t got what satire is, have you? The poem does not mean what you have been told and have blindly agreed with.

BTW, as I’ve said three times on this thread, I find The National’s page funny. It’s not satire, but it is well done, and raw humour is as good as any other.

Even they’ve acknowledged it’s not funny

The National has never turned a profit. It’s just an out and out propaganda magazine. It would be interesting to know who funds the media company to produce it.

After Scotland's appalling efforts in the competition I think I'd be keeping my head down. England got to the semi finals!!!! after all.
It's the national game in Scotland and we were crap. And so many Scots are mad football fans. If they removed the sectarianism and we produced a team to compete in the ?Premier league instead of just a scottish league we'd do better. But unfortunately too many hate the english to allow that.

The National is the sister paper of The Herald..

I should make it clear that the comments at the bottom of the poem re it being a hate crime weren't mine.

Glad you feel the same about both articles.

I'm not a fan of either but each to their own.

I think Scottish people have embarrassed themselves over the last few weeks. They’re not our rivals, they’re not on the same level as England. I hope they have another referendum soon and leave the union for good.

I'm English but I can't disagree with most of it really, particularly in some of the infamous resorts in Spain. Do we fill up their beaches - yep, do a lot of English men drink a lot of beer on holiday - yep, do they then sometimes throw up everywhere and make a mess of the place - yep, are British people known to eat fry ups after a night on the town and be very unadventurous with their eating abroad -yep, did a lot of English people retire to Spain before Brexit - yep. Not sure about sponging off their services, if you live and work out there then you pay tax that covers basic health care and school. If you're a pensioner then the UK pays for your healthcare.

Definitely can't disagree that if we won we'd talk about it forever. We still talk about 1966 and that was nearly 60 years ago.

It's ironic of course that the rest of the UK are just the same as the English in most respects but I'm assuming this paper is aimed at the same demographic as the likes of of the Star, News of the World, Sun - those with a reading age of around 8 years old.

That "newspaper" has always been a xenophobic hate rag.

You know you are posting on Scotsnet right?

The majority of Scots don't want a referendum or independence and you've just stereotyped a nation in exactly the way this newspaper did. An article that people on this thread are complaining about...