The Royals
I don't normally take any interest in the royal family. In fact, I'm looking forward to the referendum after independence that will turn Scotland into a republic and see land taken into public ownership rather than hung on to by members of the royal family and their titled hangers-on.
But yesterday I started reading an article in The National by Kevin McKenna about the royals that was so over-the-top it made me laugh in places. The article was about the poor relationship between Prince Harry and his wife and the London newspapers and I could feel the resentment of this journalist oozing off the page.
McKenna thinks the royals are parasites.
In a way, you can only laugh when you read stuff like this because it's one set of parasites having a go at another set of parasites. McKenna is a journalist and don't let us forget how he earns his wages. He may not be as well paid as another parasite called Boris Johnson who was paid a quarter of a million quid a year to lie in the pages of - where was it? - the Daily Telegraph. But he will write to order any kind of nonsense on any subject for money. He was even sacked by one paper for lying.
I love it when journalists, especially the London kind, tell us they act in 'the public interest.' These people are mainly the servants of the Tory party and of their billionaire owners. You only have to see the front pages of the London newspapers day after day in the brexit era to realise they may have what they call principles but they would rat on their granny if it got them a byline.
They've mis-called the judiciary of the Supreme Court. They've repeated lie after lie about what's happening in the EU - and in Scotland. And before I forget, their journalist pals in the BBC and ITV are just as bad. Remember the phone-tapping scandal? It happened in the press but was never properly reported by TV or radio news.
The BBC Scotland news website is a good example: if the First Minister is pictured speaking, the website will carry a 'bad news' item not far from the picture of her. BBC journalists seem to have a limited number of stories to tell. Everything they write is about the NHS, education or the police. The BBC no longer does investigative journalism or analysis of the news and its Scottish journalists rarely - if ever - get out of the studio in Glasgow to find out what life is like in the rest of Scotland. There seems to be a policy to end the working week with a bad news story on a Friday - and it can sit there all weekend...
The question is: which set of parasites does most harm in the UK? The royals expect to be treated as privileged, although their only claim is that they were born into their positions. The rest of us have to make it on our own. They cost us money. Yes, they also bring money in - but nothing like as much as the public seems to think. And they perpetuate a social attitude that I can only call subservience, which some of us find deeply offensive.
And journalists? By and large, they are a poisonous crew. There may be a few good ones, but some of them work for the Irish press (Fintan O'Toole) or else are freelance (Carole Cadwalladr) to allow them to keep some kind of independence of thought.
To be fair, we wouldn't miss either group of these parasites.
But yesterday I started reading an article in The National by Kevin McKenna about the royals that was so over-the-top it made me laugh in places. The article was about the poor relationship between Prince Harry and his wife and the London newspapers and I could feel the resentment of this journalist oozing off the page.
McKenna thinks the royals are parasites.
In a way, you can only laugh when you read stuff like this because it's one set of parasites having a go at another set of parasites. McKenna is a journalist and don't let us forget how he earns his wages. He may not be as well paid as another parasite called Boris Johnson who was paid a quarter of a million quid a year to lie in the pages of - where was it? - the Daily Telegraph. But he will write to order any kind of nonsense on any subject for money. He was even sacked by one paper for lying.
I love it when journalists, especially the London kind, tell us they act in 'the public interest.' These people are mainly the servants of the Tory party and of their billionaire owners. You only have to see the front pages of the London newspapers day after day in the brexit era to realise they may have what they call principles but they would rat on their granny if it got them a byline.
They've mis-called the judiciary of the Supreme Court. They've repeated lie after lie about what's happening in the EU - and in Scotland. And before I forget, their journalist pals in the BBC and ITV are just as bad. Remember the phone-tapping scandal? It happened in the press but was never properly reported by TV or radio news.
The BBC Scotland news website is a good example: if the First Minister is pictured speaking, the website will carry a 'bad news' item not far from the picture of her. BBC journalists seem to have a limited number of stories to tell. Everything they write is about the NHS, education or the police. The BBC no longer does investigative journalism or analysis of the news and its Scottish journalists rarely - if ever - get out of the studio in Glasgow to find out what life is like in the rest of Scotland. There seems to be a policy to end the working week with a bad news story on a Friday - and it can sit there all weekend...
The question is: which set of parasites does most harm in the UK? The royals expect to be treated as privileged, although their only claim is that they were born into their positions. The rest of us have to make it on our own. They cost us money. Yes, they also bring money in - but nothing like as much as the public seems to think. And they perpetuate a social attitude that I can only call subservience, which some of us find deeply offensive.
And journalists? By and large, they are a poisonous crew. There may be a few good ones, but some of them work for the Irish press (Fintan O'Toole) or else are freelance (Carole Cadwalladr) to allow them to keep some kind of independence of thought.
To be fair, we wouldn't miss either group of these parasites.
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