The British nationalist media is really scraping the bottom of the SNPbad scare story barrel now that it’s looking as though Anas Sarwar’s tenure as Saviour of the Union has been more short lived than most, with the implosion of support for Labour in Scotland. Labour’s chances of forming the next Scottish Government, so widely touted just a few months ago, now seem as remote as the chances of Michael Shanks admitting that he’s just a careerist who’ll do anything Keir Starmer tells him.
This week’s example of British nationalist hysteria is the supposed threat reported in the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and the Express – the favourite newspapers of the Nigel Farage frothing fan club – as well as the Daily Record, that the evil SNP is considering banning you from keeping a cat. They’ll probably send transgender Muslim asylum seekers round to take kitty away too, the monsters. For added outrage the Telegraph illustrated the story with a photo of Nicola Sturgeon,because apparently all this is her fault somehow. Never mind Freddie Starr ate my hamster, the British nationalist media gives you, John Swinney ate my cat. It’s a mad story, everybody knows cats and dugs are all pro-independence. I’m a case in point.
Back in the real world, what has happened is that the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission has said domestic cats present a threat to wild birds and animals and has set out proposals to protect wildlife in a report which it has submitted to the Scottish Government. One of the proposals contained in the report is a suggestion to restrict the ownership of cats or to restrict their free roaming outdoors in certain ecologically sensitive areas. There is no suggestion of a blanket ban on cat ownership or to remove cats from households which already have one. The word ban does not even appear in the report, which instead suggests that the Scottish Government should look to “introduce a coordinated campaign for responsible cat ownership and care.”
The report also suggests that “new housing developments in rural areas could have a stipulation that cats may not be kept in conservation-sensitive areas/other areas that have not had high levels of predation, especially with red-listed or amber-listed birds/other species”.
You can read the full report here
The Scottish Government is looking at the report, as any responsible government would when it receives a report from a respected animal welfare organisation, but even though no decisions have been taken, the mendacious British nationalist media has spun the story into – the SNP considers banning your pet cat, creating the entirely false impression that vile Scottish nationalists are about to descend on your granny’s house in order to confiscate Tigger. This is how trust is lost in the media.
And these are the newspapers which say The National carries propaganda.
This is all very reminiscent of the scare story that was plastered all over BBC Scotland back in November 2022 that NHS Scotland was considering introducing charges for some aspects of health care. This alarming tale was given huge prominence by the BBC and was even reported on the BBC’s main UK-wide news. The story was based upon minutes of a health board meeting leaked to the BBC in which managers during a brain storming exercise had discussed the idea of asking wealthier patients in Scotland to pay for some health services in order to tackle a funding crisis due fundamentally to Conservative austerity squeezes on the Scottish budget.
Someone who is not a Scottish Government minister and who has no authority to make the decision says, maybe this is an idea which should be looked at, and all of a sudden it’s – The SNP Scottish Government is going to make you pay to see your GP, or the SNP is going to confiscate your pet cat. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so pernicious.
There was never any prospect of an SNP led Scottish Government introducing charges for access to NHS Scotland services, and there’s no prospect of the Scottish Government banning your pet cat either, but the anti-independence media needs to find something else to be outraged about now that the Glen Sannox ferry is in service.
First Minister John Swinney has categorically ruled out any idea that the Scottish Government has any plans to restrict cat ownership.
He was forced to take time out of his busy day to say: “There’s a report being produced by an external organisation, which has come into the Government for consideration.
“Let me just clear this up today. The Government’s not going to be banning cats or restricting cats.
“We have no intention of doing so and we’ll not be doing it.”
But this nonsensical crap still will have provided the gutter press, which is most of it, the chance to say – John Swinney was forced to deny that the Scottish Government is going to ban cats – as though there was credibility to the deceitful nonsense spouted by the same outlets. And right on cue, exactly as I was typing this BBC Scotland announced: First Minister says the Scottish Government will not ban cats, despite some expert suggestions – suggestions which never included the word “ban”.
Meanwhile the Guardian reports: “Exasperated Swinney forced to deny he plans to ban cat ownership in Scotland, Keir Starmer’s spokesperson also rejects idea of UK ban after online misinformation prompted outrage.” But the misinformation did not originate online, it originated in the supposedly responsible traditional media.
They should be ashamed of themselves. Journalists have an important role in maintaining a functioning democracy but in the UK journalists have simply capitulated to British nationalism when it comes to Scotland. The upshot is garbage like this “The SNP want to ban cats” garbage being reported as fact. They can’t blame Facebook or Twitter for this one, the blame for this lying trash lies squarely at the door of the so-called respectable legacy media.
But none of this will stop the usual suspects from indulging themselves in an orgy of self-righteous anger against their favourite whipping boys and girls of the SNP.
Next week in the Herald, Kevin McKenna – who self-identifies as the sole working class newspaper columnist in Scotland – will pen an angry column railing against the middle class SNP for banning cats, but not banning children self-identifying as cats. (Thank you @carriem.co.uk on BlueSky for that gag.) Meanwhile the Telegraph will inform us in sombre tones that the vile SNP is going to start serving burgers made from cats and dogs for school lunches. They’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dugs. Only the Union can save the pets!
Not to be outdone, Kaye Adams will host a call-in about the SNP’s secret plans to use cats to power the Arran ferry. Billy from Larkhall will phone in during a break from flute band practice to rail against the woke SNP which refuses to allow him to take his face-eating leopard to Aldi. This is really part of a secret SNP plot to stop patriotic King-loving Scots from defending themselves from the separatists with muckle great dugs. Kaye will sympathise. It’s political correctness gone mad.
There is a serious issue here. While the Scottish media is filled with this anti-SNP bollocks, it is of course ignoring real and serious stories which are not necessarily helpful to the British nationalists’ preferred narrative. That would be stories like today’s admission by Jürgen Maier, the CEO of GB Energy, that it will be at least twenty years before the company creates 1000 jobs in Aberdeen. The Labour supporting Daily Record must be particularly keen to avoid drawing attention to that particular slap in the teeth, What with Anas Sarwar’s jaiket already being on a shoogly peg as it is.
The wide publicity given to this non story – which even the most cursory of fact checking would have debunked- merely proves what many of us have realised for quite some time. The bulk of the Scottish media sees its primary job as squashing support for Scottish independence and the parties which back it by any means possible. Truth be damned. No wonder its credibility is as mythical as the SNP’s ban on cats.
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