Scotland – choose your narrative.

Gerry Hassan just gets better:
Rupert Murdoch, the Referendum and Rangers FC:

Self-government has to be a democratising process and project, or it will produce a change in name only which won’t affect the lives and experiences of Scottish people. That entails nourishing a culture which is both honest and humble, respecting different viewpoints and challenging vested interests. This is an intricate balancing act, one which involves changing the public culture of Scotland, and aiding an ecology of self-government and self-determination which allows for this sort of thinking, discussion and debate to take place. For this to happen we have to acknowledge the long revolution that Scotland has been on, and the powerful hold of ‘undemocracy’ and ‘unspace’. We have to stand up to power, while digging deep into our capacity to be generous, hopeful, imaginative, and playful and create the Scotland of the future today.
As the old order of the last 30 years of British politics collapses even large parts of the British political class attempt to flee the wreckage of criminality, deceit and blackmail that was the modus operandi of the Murdoch empire. Scotland cannot allow itself to be the last place on earth run as some Murdoch fiefdom, our politicians happy to do his bidding and our football unable to have any moral backbone for fear of losing Sky TV money. Instead, it is an age for being bold and throwing off the legacy of cautious Scotland, while standing up to the bullyboys of crony capitalism. And at the minimum we have to start talking about this.

Read the lot, and his back catalogue.
Meanwhile the Imperial Broadcasting Corporation is up to its usual dirty tricks:
BBC Scotland’s Election Claims…. from newsnet:

The BBC is today facing questions over their reporting of Scotland’s local authority election results after figures reported by the broadcaster gave the impression that Labour had outgunned the SNP in terms of councillors gained.
According to BBC Scotland, Labour gained an extra 58 councillors to the SNP’s 57 after Friday’s count. However it has emerged that the more accurate figures indicate the SNP gained 61 councillors to Labour’s 48.
The anomaly is thought to be down to BBC Scotland ignoring the widely accepted method of comparing election results with those of the previous election when calculating gains. The broadcaster has instead chosen to calculate changes based on council standings the day before last Thursday’s election.
The method adopted by BBC Scotland means that a party who won a ward in 2007 would be shown as having gained the ward in 2012 if the 2007 councillor subsequently left the party and the voters opted for the same party again.

Must be the time to launch the referendum campaign…(from the Scotsman):

…Salmond, who visited Dundee yesterday, where the SNP captured majority control, said: “On every indicator, the SNP has had its best ever council result. We have more councillors and more gains than any other party – doubling our seats advantage over Labour. We have become the largest party in more councils across Scotland – including our first ever overall majorities. And we also look set to have won the overall share of the vote in a local government election for the first time in our history.”
He added: “While the Westminster coalition parties were given a mauling north and south of the Border, the SNP as the incumbent party of government in Scotland since 2007 have just won another election – an extraordinary achievement.
“Any way you look at our result, it is a landmark achievement for the SNP, which is the only party which can claim to be the party of all of Scotland – north and south, east and west, rural and urban.

This should be fun!