6 December 2001 - 22 January 2002
Coiffured Scottish Daily Mail columnist, Colette Douglas Home was not best pleased to receive an invitation to read the Scottish Media Monitor every month. There was a flurry of email exchanges ending abruptly when I asked why - after recently claiming in her column she supported the repeal of 'Clause 28' in Scotland - had she not spoken up while the newspaper she worked for conducted a nasty, vicious and sometimes dishonest campaign for its retention? She shared a wee story with us in her column: "What do lesbians do?" asked a nine-year-old boy to a woman in the middle of Edinburgh's Café St Honore's. "We cuddle, because we love each other", responded the "sensible" woman. Throwing herself into the scrum of the Scottish Daily Mail's latest moral campaign inhibiting full and proper sex education in schools, Douglas Home declared herself satisfied the lad's innocence had been protected. A sigh of relief all round! I think she's been reading too many Silhouette paperbacks! "Imagine the consternation of listeners in that restaurant if the woman had answered the question in graphic, physical detail", she trembled. Douglas Home thought; "lessons in lust lose all sight of love". Well, you can sleep at night, dear, because kids have never lost sight of love. It is in their books, their magazines, their songs and shaped like hearts by Swizzles for them to pop in their mouths and suck. But while wistfully floating on that fluffy, pink cloud of a penny romance her dreams were brought down to Earth with a bump by common sense and reality, remarking testily: "An approved teaching pack for schools in Lothian suggests 13-year-olds create a 'fun' storyboard for a film involving gay and oral sex... It is coarse, crass and probably damaging". What sex education teachers need to find out is how much kids know, vital in tackling classroom prejudice or educating gay kids. Teachers need positive, cohesive and truthful material, not pigeons cooing or passages from the gospel according to St Paul. Colette Douglas Home was another columnist apparently worried such fears will be dismissed "as just another crusade from the moral right". (Which, aided and abetted by the Christian Institute, is exactly what it is)! She thought if more MSPs saw the education material "they will discover things about sex they didn't know, didn't need or want to know and certainly don't want to teach children". Lift the carpet and brush it under, girl, why don't you? MSPs are not qualified teachers of sex education. Behind all the harping about 'childhood innocence' lies the real agenda of militant religionists and moral conservatives: the sanctity of marriage, sexual abstinence and the denial of gay kids the right to a sex education. Wake up! It's not working.
Reporter Eddie Barnes, working for that voice of muscular Christianity, the Scottish Daily Mail, pursued the religionists' tired message in another story over the "sordid sex education booklets". Even moral campaigners admit they've not found one instance where the packs, Primary Schools Sex and Relationships Education and Taking Sex Seriously have been used in Scottish schools. These were Eddie Barnes's worst nightmare. "Among other suggestions, the booklets tell teachers to give five-year-olds lessons on the names of sex organs and get 11-year-olds to role-play being homosexuals". (What a damn good idea! Children decorating Raploch with flower-baskets; chilled cabinets of Chardonnay in Haddows; tables and chairs outside Greggs; an Ikea in Castlemilk; Executive-funded cat refuges... Where do I sign)? The subsequent debate over the sex-education material, carried out by the Executive's education committee in January, was branded a "breakthrough" by "campaigners" who believed they had forced Holyrood to look again at the "controversial packs". The 11,500 signatures of outrage from churchgoers in the Motherwell and Wishaw area were quickly watered-down by the Mail to "a petition signed by 11,500 parents". Education minister, Cathy Jamieson - "Miss Jamieson" to the Scottish Daily Mail - was chastised for accusing the religionists of "deliberately sensationalising the material". But sensationalising the material was exactly what the Christian Institute intended by staging a special exhibition at the Scottish Executive. Dorothy Grace-Elder MSP jumped on the bandwagon suggesting "every one of her parliamentary colleagues should be given copies of the offending material..." Don't worry, dear, the Christian Institute's resources stretch well beyond a few sheets off a second-hand Xerox and judging by your comments in the Scottish Daily Mail, I can see you got yours!
The hysteria was given further impetus by Isabel Oakshott. Probably fancying herself as something of a hotshot in the reporter's department, she found "5,000 youngsters have now been withdrawn from schools in Scotland..." in the Scottish Daily Mail. The suggestion was made that Scottish parents were appalled by the prospect of their kids receiving sex education and were lining up to pull their kids out of classes. "Many also claim that classroom bullying and the use of lurid sex and drugs materials have left them with little choice". While there has indeed been wild speculation of around four to five thousand kids being taught at home, the official figure in Scotland is actually only 350. The Scottish Daily Mail made a "case study" of Cameron Turner in south Ayrshire. His ma, Jackie dutifully explained to the Mail that Cameron "changed from being a normal cheery, inquisitive little boy into a totally different person..." After hinting how destructive sex education had been in a school Cameron had only attended for a period of months, his parents removed him and "within six months his old personality returned". Hallelujah! And praise the Lord!
By Friday 4 January the Scottish Daily Mail startled its frail readers when it squealed with delight from its front page: "SEX PACKS FOR YOUNG PUPILS TO BE DUMPED". Eddie Barnes's "exclusive" was just a bit of gossip from "a well-placed Labour MSP" and "another source" which allowed the Mail to gloat: "Ministers are to cave in to parents' demands to prevent sordid sex education material reaching the classroom". The packs that the Christian Institute had campaigned so hard to prohibit were to be "quietly" dropped from a list of teaching aids. Ministers were apparently "looking for a way out of the row", and needed "to keep face". First Minister Jack McConnell was apparently furious with the religionists but appeared too weak to challenge them.
The Scottish Executive guidelines clearly state that schools should use materials that are "appropriate, having regard to each child's age, understanding and stage of development". With infections of chlamydia recently found to be twice as bad as previously thought, infecting one in seven of teenage girls of 16 and under, and 40% of under-16s claiming they don't even know what HIV and AIDS is; I have to ask what sort of sex education are school-kids actually receiving? The Catholic Church's sinister-looking spokesman for the Archdiocese in Glasgow, Ronnie Convery remarked to Scotland on Sunday: "They suggest that the safe sex message is simply not getting through to young people. Every option seems to have been tried except the a-word - abstinence". Poor Ronnie. The Catholic Church has been flogging the 'a' word for a very long time now, a path from which even some of its own priests have strayed, falling into the pants of their own choristers. It is not abstinence, but a progressive sex education that must be tried. If it works in Europe, why should it not work in Scotland? John Macleod - another religionist with his own column - sang from the same hymn sheet in The Herald. This paper has always had its fair share of religionists; few harbour much of a liberal take on sex. You would have thought they'd already had their full quota. But no. Stocking up on religionists before Christmas, Rosemary Goring, the editor of Life & Work, the magazine for the Church of Scotland has now joined The Herald as its literary editor. Considering John Macleod's record on all things sexual it says something about The Herald that they should let him write about sex education. Would you let Fanny Craddock tile your bathroom? "We have had decades of ever more candid sex education in our schools..." he sighed. Have we? Didn't do him much good then, did it? "No group of single-issue fanatics must ever dictate public policy; but all have the right to be heard". Who could he be referring to when he writes about "single-issue fanatics", I wonder? And what "right to be heard" have sexual liberals ever enjoyed in the Scottish media? Macleod described John Oates of the Catholic Education Commission as "characteristically thoughtful" and a man who made his "unhappiness clear, in measured terms". Macleod insisted: "Much of the emotional fever behind the Clause 2A row exploded because Wendy Alexander chose gloatingly to proclaim its imminent repeal at an international gay conference on Glasgow; the first real evidence that she isn't much of a politician". Well Mr Macleod isn't much of a columnist and should get his facts right. Wendy Alexander promised to repeal Section 2a to a small group at Glasgow University on Friday, 29 October 1999. She had spoke to gays the week before at an Interpride conference but made no mention of the repeal of Section 2a then. The 'explosion of emotional fever' was courtesy of - yes, you have it - a £2million campaign supported by religionists and spearheaded by major Scottish newspapers.
Kids can begin having sexual fantasies from a very early age indeed. We know this. We 'protect' them with an age of consent for sexual liaisons of 16 years. How has this message of abstinence served them? We know that the repression of sexual expression can be dangerous and unhealthy. How open was the subject of sexuality in the family of the man who gunned down a classroom of children and their teacher in Dunblane? Born illegitimate; he was told his own mother was his sister and was brought up by his grandmother. Was not the man who murdered young men and disposed of the body parts of Barry Wallace in Loch Lomond from a strictly religious and morally conservative family? Has it not been some Catholic priests whom, whilst trying to suppress their sexual appetite, been responsible for a catalogue of shameful abuses of children in their care? Don't we have a duty, an opportunity even, at a formative stage, to educate children properly about sex? Why should erotica - balanced, sharing, caring and loving erotica - not be placed in reach of children in the school library to satisfy their curiosity? Unless of course, erotic images circulating the playground, which no one has any control over, is preferable? The material in these sex education teachers' guidance booklets is not erotica, but information. The badly drawn line drawings of lesbians are so far from the planet Erotica that the light from Erotica would take a billion years to reach Earth! Nonetheless, a shopping list of what was "all too graphic detail" for the sexually dysfunctional Scottish Daily Mail, which included gay sex of course, tripped off the reporters pen and into his notebook: How a condom works, defining the words, 'bisexual', 'lesbian' and 'affair', "taking the contraception pill to avoid unwanted pregnancies", putting condoms on dummies, "illustrations of a naked man and woman" and explaining masturbation to children at upper junior level. But the exploitation in "all too graphic detail" of sex crime is what the paper has thrived on for years. When the Scottish media distorts, silences or misrepresents liberal views on sex, it does not protect children; it only helps expose them to greater dangers.
Making erotica available to children? The Daily Record's agony aunt, Old Mother 'Joan' Burnie would rather hand out a poisoned Cox from her basket. Refuting a charge of just being "an old-fashioned prude" over her condemnation of 'porn', she stormed: "What couples do when they are alone together is no-one's business but their own - as long as it is mutually enjoyable, neither is coerced into it and it doesn't frighten the horses. I'm not the morality police and if that's what you both like, then it's got nothing to do with me. There's also porn and porn. But, hard or soft, it's got sweet FA to do with me". On a youngster's access to 'porn' she issued some stern advice. "...Where we part company is over your sons' sex education. I don't think showing them adult videos is the best way for them to learn about a loving relationship - especially when they are both boys. Your wife may be able to tell the fantasy from the reality, but I doubt they can, so I should find another way to give them the facts of life". But why? When exactly does the ability to tell fantasy from reality - when 'pornography' suddenly becomes acceptable for everyone except horses - kick in? If love and respect for women is erotica's missing ingredient, I think Old Mother Burnie should switch on the video and take another look. In far the majority of erotica I've seen, far from being the aggressor, men frequently adopt submissive roles. Women are often portrayed taking the lead or acting out the role of a dominatrix. If only Scottish children could be more quickly associated with such fine examples of non-sexist behaviour than the gratuitously violent and aggressive films that are consumed by under 16s in cinemas and living rooms up and down the country today!
The Scotsman's Linda Watson-Brown never misses an opportunity to wage her personal vendetta against "porn" in the pages of The Scotsman. The News of the World's plea for a so-called 'Sarah's Law', after the child's rape and murder at the hands of Robert Whiting, was just another opening. (If you want to see some real writing on this, Muriel Grey wipes the floor with Watson-Brown. Unlike Watson-Brown, Grey doesn't bang her drum every day, or have the ear of two newspapers but still had the News of the World's London editor, Rebekah Wade strained, pickled and bottled in just one of her brilliant weekly columns in the Sunday Herald). Watson-Brown only muddied the waters with her own prejudices. In her view, none of us are capable telling the difference between fantasy and reality. "It is normal to see the magazine I saw last week on the day of Roy Whiting's conviction, and which I am happy to pass on to the police, which is sold on the basis of its 'barely legal' models. The cover screams the promise of 'tiny little girls'. On the back, a headline proclaiming that 'virgins and brats' are inside. Open those pages and you will be faced with models whose main 'selling-point' is that they are barely formed. They lie on children's bedcovers, they wear children's clothes - and we sell this under the heading of 'men's lifestyle choice'." Has this woman ever heard of adult role-playing or sexual regression? Her views are clearly the sort that would interest the Scottish Daily Mail. (It was only a matter of time, really). Reminding readers she was a libertarian at heart in a piece titled: "HUMAN RIGHTS VERSUS CHILD'S RIGHTS", Watson-Brown tried to make a case for the Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf's suggestion that paedophiles ought to be jailed even before they have committed a crime and earned herself the dubious accolade of becoming another columnist to write for both Associated Newspapers and Scotsman Publications.
'Protecting children' is a convenient mask to hide insecurities over sexual issues. Take that paragon of Sunday teatime morality broadcasting, Joan Bakewell, who undertook the task of talking us through the changing role of sexuality in a fascinating programme called Taboo. Columnist Selina Scott didn't like it. Fidgeting uncomfortably in her stays, she wrote in the Sunday Mail: "What it's actually about is showing clips of nudism, sex and violence from TV and movies. Okay, each programme is dressed up with a lot of pseudo-intellectual nonsense about how repressed Brits had to be dragged into mainline European thinking on such things as reading dirty books, doffing their duds and having it off on the office desk". Pseudo-intellectual? I don't think so, love! The programme was perfectly clear. But along with most Scottish newspapers, the sexually repressed Sunday Mail has to have a morally conservative, sexually illiberal columnist spouting nonsense and in this case it's Selina Scott. Banging the tambourine of Scotland's religious militants, she cried: "Scottish 11-year-olds are being provided with educational material that asks them to name types of sexual activity performed by homosexuals and lesbians...," (better from a sex education teacher than their classmates in the playground wouldn't you say, Selina?) "...it comes as no surprise to learn about a new sex education board game for 13-year-olds, in which they practice putting on condoms". In the playground they blow them up like balloons and burst them. Sex education will do a lot to challenge Scotland's abysmal record of sexual ignorance. We have the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in Europe. Ms Scott was having none of it. On the teaching packs she indicated where she was coming from: "Along with the Kirk and Catholic Church in Scotland, I take the view that they will do exactly the opposite". Well it doesn't. So you choose... a tired has-been of a newsreader versus conclusions reached by the World Health Organisation after countless studies? Oooh, let me think about that for a moment...!
Leafing through the same paper Selina Scott writes for shows just how screwed up some Scots are about sex. The Sunday Mail found a Scots firm who manufactures an "anti-sleaze superloo". No, I couldn't quite believe my eyes, either! The Ayrshire company, Healthmatic have been frighteningly vigilant. There are weight sensors on the floor, ready to detect if two people use it at the same time. If parents take in their kiddie, a "weight distribution sensor" compensates. Disabled users are issued with a special key that overrides the weight restriction of 24 stone. The prude-loo has already been installed along the seafront at Ayr. Joe Orton would turn in his grave! But who would have sex in these superloos anyway? There are a plenty of deserted car parks and beaches in the locality already - two of them gay. But please don't tell the local paper, the Irvine Herald. They have also recently asked to be removed from the Scottish Media Monitor subscribers list. Removed or not, they are still monitored for their treatment of sexuality. The newspaper informed me: "GAY is an old Anglo-Saxon word for joyous or happy. We have seen very few homosexuals who are joyous or happy, most appear to be very sad and disturbed people. However, you can monitor us if you wish, it is of no consequence". Useful tip: We have a living language whereby changes to word meanings are commonplace. 'Gay' has been through a variety of primary meanings. In the nineteenth century it was often used to refer to female sex workers after a period when it simply implied that a woman was sexually available. In the seventeenth century it commonly referred to 'straight' male philanderers. A man who had just had sex - any sex - is a man who is usually happy and joyous, wouldn't you say? Answers in plain text please, to irvineherald@s-un.co.uk.
Smell his breath! Had columnist Simon Houston just had a quick swally with his pals before he wrote his column in the Daily Record? It's so important to stay sober when you have sex. Or in this case, write about it. His comments on 16-year-old transsexual Jamie Cooper's desire to freeze his sperm should he want to parent in the future - "DEAR SANTA, CAN I BE A GIRLIE? Mixed-up Jamie to be pitied" - was filled with infantile derision and naked prejudice against the transgendered. Let's not dignify this piece by saying it was penned by a columnist, it was the work of a schoolboy. Adopting the voice of transgendered Jamie, Houston sniggered over his sherbet: "Dear Santa, any chance of some nail polish... to go with the sex change I got for my birthday?" Houston subjected the "messed-up young lad" to nothing short of a verbal beating out the back. "If it wasn't so sad, it would be laughable", he jeered."If ever there was an argument against lowering the ages of consent, then surely this is it". And if there was ever an argument against allowing a tabloid journalist to discuss sexual politics, then Simon Houston is it. Age of consent? What is he talking about? Jamie is treating a medical condition for goodness sake! "...Nobody's saying the Birmingham teenager is too young to come out and declare himself gay. That's a different matter. But for his body to be changed in this way before it has a chance to develop fully - and naturally - is beyond belief... Surely the reasonable solution would be to let the child develop fully into adulthood and if he still felt the same way, then fine". Firstly, Jamie is not gay. Secondly, isn't it important to treat this medical condition as early as possible, as they do, quite successfully in the Netherlands? Even otherwise gay-friendly Lorraine Kelly jumped on the bandwagon in the Sunday Post. "I firmly believe that at 16 Jamie Cooper is far too young to make such an important decision". Ignoring the painful path a transsexual must tread before qualifying for an operation at the age of 21, Simon Houston scoffed in the Daily Record: "Perhaps, once he's had all the attention he seems to be craving - you only have to look at how he poses for the camera to see the immaturity at work - he'll become bored of the whole idea. But by then it might be too late. Somebody should act now before the changes start to take effect, or the lad could end up regretting it for the rest of his life". But Houston's 'concern' for Jamie rang hollow. "Then there's a small matter of the treatment being carried out on the NHS when waiting lists for vital operations are longer than ever". And there's me thinking he had just written this out of ignorance and not prejudice.
When it is not cashing-in on the diversity of Scotland's sexuality in one of its exposés of sex in Scotland, the Scottish Sun ridicules it, like this story, which exploited the issue of gender-variance and attacked the transsexual status of Donald Campbell who lives in Forfar, Angus. Scott Rattray had moved out of his "family home - when his wife moved in with a cross-dressing DAD". Much was made of the "hubby's fury at 'weirdo'." Husband Scott was variously described as "stunned... fuming... angry" and "furious", even though it appears Scott Rattray had already moved out when his marriage hit the rocks after 13 years. Not only that, he was already in a relationship with another woman. That wasn't going to get in the way of the Scottish Sun's "exclusive" by Scott Rhodie, catching Donald Campbell "DRESSED UP" and "caked with lipstick..." Campbell "came to the door dressed in a blue blouse, black skirt and long pearl necklace", just in time for the photographer to snap him framed in the doorway, and the reporter to describe him as a "lipstick-caked cross-dresser" and "wig-wearing granddad". Campbell's 12 x 4 picture was splashed across a page of the Scottish Sun. Scott Rattray reinforced the tabloid's problem: Donald Campbell was a "freak"; her victimisation fuelled by petty gossip: "Everyone in Forfar is talking about my wife and Donald... One of the neighbours said that she saw them kissing in the front room". Scott Rattray was portrayed a victim of the "kooky couple" by the Scottish Sun. He cried: "It's embarrassing... I've taken quite a bit of abuse because of it". His daughter added: "I saw that so-called man out walking my dog the other night and I could swear he was wearing my lipstick and eye-shadow... I don't like him. I think he's a weirdo". I can only hope, having successfully reinforced its reader's darkest prejudices about people with a gender variance, the editor is thoroughly ashamed of himself.
For the Scottish Sun, sex is a useful and powerful tool to sell newspapers. Former American president, Bill Clinton's famous sexual episode with Monica Lewinksky, not only helped bring down a government, it even set the prudish Scottish Sun in a twirl. "BILL AND MONICA SHARE A GLASGOW HOTEL SUITE", they cried, quickly adding: "(But not at the same time)". Yes, Bill would spend the night "in the SAME room that Monica Lewinsky had during a visit to Scotland". It's all too much for them, isn't it?
Nothing to do with sexual politics, this is just a little something to make you even more uncomfortable with the Scottish media. You might remember after the Scottish Daily Mail's wicked campaign to 'Keep the Clause' in Scotland, its editor Ramsay Smith went to work with The Scotsman before joining Jack 'Keep The Clause' Irvine's Media House PR outfit. (Run by the ex-Sun editor who attracted the attention of Stagecoach boss Brian Souter when he wrote about "slobbering queers" in his Scottish Mirror column). After all his homophobic reporting, Hamish Macdonell soon followed from the Scottish Daily Mail to become The Scotsman's Scottish political editor. With all the problems facing the countryside you might've wondered what this obsession with foxhunting was all about. Horrible Hamish penned not one, not two, not three, but four separate stories in support of foxhunting in The Scotsman on just one day! More followed. With the Scottish Daily Mail chipping in with their "SAVE RURAL SCOTLAND" campaign with its cute wee lassie-dog motive - ah, bless! - it couldn't have been more clear which PR company was orchestrating this vile campaign behind the humble moniker, the Countryside Alliance. Robert McNeil wrote in The Scotsman: "I felt sick when I got home, after covering a march by the sinister Countryside Alliance. I couldn't remember feeling so upset physically... Outvoted, outpolled, and outnumbered, they threaten Scotland's fledgling parliament, backed in their campaign by crony-based press coverage co-ordinated by Media House (motto: 'No cause too nasty)'." Simon Pia was also brave enough to mention Media House's involvement in his Diary in The Scotsman, crushed beneath the weight of foxhunt supporter and former Conservative Party activist, Katie Grant, whose column sat on top of his. Conveniently dismissing her previous disgust for the "vociferous and militant homosexual lobby" and gays desire to exert "political muscle", the pro-hunting lobby's efforts to exert political muscle were dismissed by Mrs Grant as a "a jolly affair". (Now if there ever was a woman needing bitch-slapping...)! With some of the more militant amongst the pro-hunt lobby dumping manure on the First Minister's doorstep and causing huge tailbacks, blocking major arterial routes into Scotland and the Forth Road Bridge, I would hope readers take Katie Grant with a pinch of coke. The march on Edinburgh got nothing like the 200,000 Jack Irvine hoped for. An independent poll counted 10,800 demonstrators in Edinburgh. 30% of demonstrators were boarding hired aircraft and coaches from England. According to a MORI poll, 83%, including Katie Grant, were Conservative voters. How representative of Scotland was that? In her column, Katie Grant managed to find amongst the protesters, Labour supporters begging to vote Conservative and "three teenage boys, unlikely-looking supporters of anything but football...". They told her what they thought of country sports: "'Don't care about country sports', said one. 'But if these marchers can give politicians a bloody nose, good luck to them'." With a sudden lapse in memory of her previous faith in the views of the majority over the repeal of Clause 28, Mrs Grant now declared, in the Scottish Daily Mail: "I marched to protest that in Scotland, the tyranny of the majority, so repugnant to all, true democracy, now reigns supreme... I marched for the hounds that will necessarily be shot, killed by Lord Watson as surely as if he pulled the trigger himself..." Don't, girl, you'll have me snivelling all over my keyboard! If I can be perfectly frank with you, this militant Catholic, and all who hire her, seriously piss me off! Not only does she regularly appear in two Scottish newspapers, but regularly appears on BBC Radio Scotland. Twice in one day in January she appeared reviewing the papers in the morning and trumpeting the successes of the Tory Party in Scotland in the afternoon. Give me a break! A few days after the demo, Andrew Neil called Scotsman editor, Rebecca Hardy into his office and, after plummeting circulation figures - quelle surprise - sacked her! Iain Martin takes Hardy's place as editor. He is from The Scotsman's sister paper, Scotland on Sunday, which is certainly no liberal organ. As for any change of direction at Scotsman Publications, don't hold your breath. On another level, editorial director of Scotsman Publications, John McGurk - who orchestrated a particularly homophobic stance when he was editor of Scotland on Sunday during the repeal of Section 2a - has almost finished his two-year role as commissioner at the Press Complaints Commission.
The Bank of Scotland and property consultants Montagu Evans have linked up with Brian Souter and Ann Gloag in a £54million deal to acquire the pension fund manager Hermes' retail portfolio. Highfield Properties (Holdings) will hold a portfolio of high street retail properties across the country. David Robb joins them from Morley Fund Managers to look after the asset management of Fusion Securities, UK Retail Portfolio One and the new company that Montagu Evans has formed to acquire further retail property with HBOS and Ann Gloag. Scottish entrepreneur Tom Hunter who supported Souter's so-called 'referendum' over the retention of Section 2a (Clause 28 in Scotland) and John Boyle are investors in Fusion Securities and UK Retail Portfolio One.
The Scottish Media Monitor's 2001 prize for worst columnist and newspaper have been announced on the Media Channel website by MediaChannel.org's executive editor, Danny Schechter (http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/2001.shtml). For its consistent and uncritical promotion of religious propaganda, the Scottish Daily Mail easily scooped the prize for worst newspaper. The worst columnist prize went to Scotland on Sunday's Gerald Warner for the most repeated negative references to homosexuality. (Bit obsessed with the issue, Gerald, old boy? Anything you might want to talk to Uncle Garry about)? He has written that condoms are as much use in defending against HIV as a football net, which is, of course, completely untrue. The best newspaper prize goes to the SMG's Sunday Herald and the best columnist prize to Muriel Grey who also writes for the paper. Good on yer!
CUT IT OUT!
Respected commentator Iain Macwhirter in the Sunday Herald: "Jack McConnell is turning out to be a very conservative First Minister indeed, considerably to the right of Gordon Brown and even David Blunkett..."
An easily excitable Gerald Warner in Scotland on Sunday on Mike Watson's Protection of Wild Animal's Bill, outlawing fox-hunting in Scotland: "MSPs, who claim public support for a hunting ban, trampled down public opinion on Section 28... In time to come, many of us may remember this bill with surprising affection - as the catalyst that ended the totalitarian excesses of our squalid pseudo-parliament". Which of course was exactly what he said about the repeal of Section 28.
Old Mother 'Joan' Burnie's advice in the Daily Record to a woman writing in to report a couple having sex on a bus: "I think I'd have thrown a bucket of cold water over the pair of them". And the other passengers who ignored it: "...If any of them are reading this, maybe they'd care to take the opportunity to explain themselves".
Old Mother Burnie on rubber fetishes: "I think a thing about rubber is more fetish rather than all-out perversion - although the gloves sound a trifle creepy".
Old Mother Burnie's view of the sort of sex had by a guy who was getting married and coming to terms with being gay at the same time: "...You're nasty wee one night stand".
A woman's response to Old Mother Burnie, printed in the Daily Record: "You're nothing but a dried up old cow, who should keep her nasty opinions to herself and stop talking rubbish".
The Scotsman columnist, Kirk Elder: "Not that I am, in the modern parlance, 'sexist'. Some of my best friends were women. I have even endured female GPs before... The older generation, of which I am now a card-carrying member, see the young and the middle-aged for the idiots they are... I was out for the Peebles Showboaters' Christmas meal the other day, and our party had the misfortune to be seated next to a group of 13 women who were, to put it politely, excitable".
Conservative. Catholic. Family values crusader, Katie Grant in Scotland on Sunday: "Asked at school how many children believe that Christ was born at Christmas, my daughter was the only one to put up her hand". Put up your hands if you want to read more of Katie Grant? Come on, somebody?
Katie Grant in Scotland on Sunday: "The Tory leader was, I know, only trying to swing with the times. But by announcing that, until they admit women as full members he will not become a member of the Carlton Club, Duncan Smith has opened a can of weird and probably rather vociferous worms. And for what? Criticising the Carlton Club will endear him to no one. Members of the club itself will think him a wet who is pandering to political correctness. Women will think him patronising... The Carlton Club is a perfectly harmless institution with important links to Tory history. If it does not wish for women members, who cares?" Progressive isn't she? No wonder she's such a Scottish media favourite!
Katie Grant was not writing about something a bit interesting on the sexual front when she advised of "a day of self-policed self-discipline before Christmas..." The Pope had called for a day of fasting. "Why don't you all join in?" she asked in The Scotsman.
What terrible crime excited the Sunday Mail enough to report the comments of police in Inverness and run a story on it? "We can confirm a 29-year-old man is being reported to the procurator fiscal in connection with an incident at 2.15am on December 9 in Inverness High Street". Yes. Tony Bullock dropped his trousers in Inverness High Street after a club night out!
Stephen Fraser in Scotland on Sunday with a piece of Catholic propaganda exploring the likelihood of Cardinal Winning's canonisation: "Winning forged a reputation for fortitude through moral crusades such as his campaign against the Scottish Executive's abolition of Section 28, which banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools". You may have noticed that most criticism of Winning has been printed in England.
Stephen Fraser in Scotland on Sunday: "Under Cardinal Winning, the Church became the most effective religious lobbying organisation in the United Kingdom. During his hectic seven-year tenure the combative cleric outshone the more pliant leadership of the Church of Scotland, shouted louder than the bishops of England and made more newspaper headlines than a brawling Celtic footballer".
