From Libby Brooks in the Guardian today:
‘While it is impossible to overestimate Salmond’s impact on the Scottish independence movement, among many younger activists surveyed by the Guardian, their view of Salmond – brutal as it may be – is as a historical figure, “yesterday’s man”, and “irrelevant”.’
No surprise that we do not see again the word ‘survey’ nor any actual figures for ‘many’ but I really doubt there’s much evidence for that suggestion of Salmond being a ‘yesterday man’. At 65 he’s a bit younger than many in that hall and, in my experience on the streets, younger than most of us leafleteers last December.
Is Libby Brook’s assessment just what you might expect from someone well inside the ‘commentariat’ bubble and perhaps uber-feminist?
Talking-up Scotland / Scottish media fact checking is like shooting fish in a barrel 
“many younger activists surveyed by the Guardian” – I suspect this means the ones whom the reporter phoned because she had an idea what their views would be. “Many” in this context probably means ‘more than two’ and probably a majority of those whom she selected to phone.
On Good Morning Scotland, while interviewing Mr Alex Neill, Gary Robertson tried to imply that ‘not guilty’ meant that the claims were being judged by a very high standard …… It seemed to me he was playing a variation of the ‘no smoke without fire’ trope.
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Re: “… the claims were being judged by a very high standard …”.
As indeed any claims – criminal charges – should be at Scotland’s High Court of Justiciary. What is Robertson’s alternative standard, I wonder? And I thought that the BBC would wish to uphold rather than undermine the legal institutions of the state!
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The Guardian is just another English/British nationalist propaganda unit. Likewise the bbc.
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Long before the 2014 referendum,I had formed the opinion that of all the UK wide newspapers, the Guardian was the most anglocentric. Despite its ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’ and ‘moral superiority – all self proclaimed, I always detected a rather snooty and condescending attitude to Irish, Scots and Welsh and, indeed, despite its Manchester roots, even to the North of England. The Express, Mail, Mirror/Record,Times, Sun, Star. All had specifically Scottish editions either explicitly in the title – “Scottish Daily Mail”, for example – or as a subheading – Times (Scotland edition). The Guardian only had ‘correspondents’ in ‘the provinces’ and sport, culture, weather, local economy, etc were reported only haphazardly. I recall “Back night for BRITSH football: Ipswich lose to Aberdeen”.
During the 2014 campaign, the Guardian, with the Observer, New Statesman, Prospect all took a lofty, disdainful, dismissive – frankly colonialist – attitude towards Scotland. Ms Brooks was brought in after 2014 to give a more nuanced view of Scotland, more nuanced compared to Mr Severin Carrel’s litany of ‘Scotland baaaad’. She did seem to try to get about Scotland, but the article about Mr Salmond is Guardianista dismissiveness.
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They also backed the Iraq War in 2003 which Salmond bravely condemned.
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I have had no time for Libby Brooks since I saw her behaviour at an SNP fringe event in Aberdeen. She was chair and ignored questioners who had been at the whole event in favour of someone who walked in at the end and who delivered a diatribe against SNP about a current case. That left the SNP Politicians unable to comment on specifics.
Sami Chakrabati was there and joined in denigration.
The BBC seems to have lost the plot with this on-line piece. Trying to see how low they can stoop.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52010117 Behind the scenes of the Alex Salmond trial
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Re- the BBC article referred to: I find this paragraph especially odd. What is the author seeking to communicate, seeking to imply here?
“Ultimately it feels like there is little room for analysis or evaluation of the arguments actually made in court. In general, we accept the verdict of the jury in absolute terms; they pronounce an accused guilty because he is guilty, not because of the particular skill of the prosecution. They pronounce him innocent because his guilt has not been proved, not because his defence team have yanked him from the fire.”
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Odd
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