Mark Smith in the Herald today:
Take a good look at the picture. What do you see? Is it Nicola Sturgeon celebrating a win by Scotland’s football team? Or is it Nicola Sturgeon celebrating Jo Swinson losing her seat? Or is it both those things? Is it graceless and tacky? Or celebratory and inclusive? It matters because people react in radically different ways. It also matters because the image reveals the troubling, Trumpian way in which some independence supporters think. You may remember when you saw the image for the first time. It was in December 2019 and the results of the General Election were coming in. Nicola Sturgeon was watching them on a monitor and when she realised the Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson had lost her seat, she laughed and cheered and clenched her fists. The First Minister of Scotland then realised she was being filmed and attempted to be a bit more dignified. But it was too late. It had been caught on camera.
There are key comments in this, under a lazily clichéd choice of image now trending everywhere in the social media and which ‘professional journalists’ like Smith condemn:
Or is it Nicola Sturgeon celebrating Jo Swinson losing her seat?
Nicola Sturgeon was watching them on a monitor and when she realised the Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson had lost her seat, she laughed and cheered and clenched her fists.
Smith has no right to draw such conclusions. Kevin McKenna in the Guardian on the day after the win, had a more plausible view:
In fairness to Scotland’s first minister, her untypical explosion of joy was probably more to do with the triumph of a young, first-time candidate who had overcome a cancer diagnosis as a teenager and has since sworn allegiance to the NHS.
Though sorely tempted to rejoice in the utterly ego-centric, Trumpian, figure of Swinson, don’t we all know that the FM doesn’t do that kind of thing?
Also, crucially, the FM had a previous personal identification with the candidate, Amy Callaghan.
Callaghan had surgery for face cancer at the age of 19, again at 21 and then collapsed with a brain haemorrhage in June 2020.
Here they are before the election night:
Here is the FM’s response to the news in June 2020:
Smith sees and feel things that surprise.
In June 2020:
And in July, astonishingly:
A new opinion poll [YouGov] has shown that half of Conservative voters in England support English independence, but tell us something we don’t know. English Tories supporting English independence is about as surprising as Scottish nationalists supporting Scottish independence – in many ways, they come from the same source and feel the same feelings. The only problem, in both England and Scotland, is what on earth anti-nationalists can do about it.
Which planet?
Talking-up Scotland / Scottish media fact checking is like shooting fish in a barrel 
Smith seeing things through Britnat eyes , as expected!
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BOTH OF THESE HERALD WALLEE ONLY REACTS THIS WAY ON RUGBY AND MONEY GAINS
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Click bait. It does not even work. Just gets ignored. No wonder. An inflated salary not to face reality. No fair but totally biased. Why bother.
‘Journalists’ and statistics. So many blunders. It is impossible. Even to believe. Beyond belief. The reality and experience of so many people’s lives are so different.
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Why are these “People” Being allowed to send out via corrupt papers Inaccurate Stories This is a Police matter And all activists should be charged We are asking Social media Giants to take down bad messages on COVID-19 WHY NOT SAME IN MISLEADING PAPER STORIES
THEY ARE CAUSING TROUBLES AND GETTING PEOPLE TO DISOBEY GOV RULES
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“That deaf, dumb and blind kid, sure plays a mean Brit Nat LOL”!
Remember the GLEE when Ed Balls lost his seat?
Remember the Guardian headline– “Nation rejoices, Portillo loses seat”!
Remember “I will be next Prime Minister”.
Hubristic Jo Swinson catches the train home to the south of England—how funny was that? C’mon!
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Smith obviously sits at the shitty end of British “nationalist” journalism. At least he would be if there was indeed some sort of measure against which he could be judged, but Leask likes him, so def the shitty end.
No mention I suppose of the vicious campaign waged by the libs to get Swinson the seat last time round and who could blame Nicola for jumping for joy for ousting one of the lib enablers of the Tory govs removal of £30 pounds a week from the disabled. I seem to remember seeing Ian Duncan Smith clapping and cheering when that was passed with the help of Swinson.
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Yes indeed the Tories have form in jumping for joy when they remove vital services and funding from poor people, or even FOM for everyone but themselves. Clap clap clap ha ha ha! Mr. Smith’s attack on Nicola Sturgeon is a disgrace. It is obvious she is celebrating great news, that Amy Callaghan had taken the seat from from Swinson, who was a nasty piece of work to say the very least, her voting record was enough to make any self serving Tory proud! Her fake accents exposed her duplicity.
That M. Smith equates independence minded folk with the ‘Trumpian way’, well, I do hope karma is real.
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Is it just me, being old and out of touch with today, but I can’t for the life of me see anything wrong with expressing joy when the occasion arises?
A ‘stiff upper lip’ approach to life is something I rather associate with the Anglo-Norman ruling elite down south – not normal human beings.
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For Mark Smith only one thought
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What sort of person would ”cringe” at the sight of their national flag ?
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