By Professor John Robertson OBA
I know let’s do a TV drama series about a family moving from a low crime area moving back to a high crime area and see how that traumatises a family. Then get a gun-toting grandad to fix things for them. Been done before, no doubt.
Amazon Prime‘s new Fear, imaginatively, no, stupidly, Anglocentrically, does the opposite.
So, twice as many murders in London than in Scotland and as trend, at best, flat.
The trend in Scotland?
How many in Glasgow? Down to 10 last year and:
Over the latest five year period from 2019-20 to 2023-24, there have been 47 homicides in Glasgow, a 71% reduction compared to 162 for the five year period from 2004-05 to 2008-09. This compares to a 49% reduction in Scotland as a whole between these periods.
https://www.gov.scot/publications/homicide-scotland-2023-24/pages/main-findings/
So, homicides plummeting in Glasgow to less than an eleventh of the number in Glasgow.
I know, these are not the homicide rates but do you think you’d consult those, rather than the total, before deciding to moving your bairn?
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Guardian readers and Norf Lahndon media types are dished up a regular diet of Glasgow as ‘No Mean City’, by the Guardian, Channel 4 News dished up by the appalling Severin Carrel, Baleful Brooks, the oafish Katharine Sampson and the like
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Your article chimes with my own response to this latest Martin Compton production – he has made a career out of poor stereotyping of Scotland- in particular Greenock and Glasgow.
Do we wonder who funded it?
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Yet he supports independence?
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So a fictional made up film, or series? About how scary and dangerous it is to live in Glasgow…I see. Well it did have the reputation as scariest most violent drugs city of the world at one time, let me see now, ah that happened to be when Scotland, was 100% ruled by and from London and also when Glasgow city councill was run by, hmm, LabourCons who as it turned out were a load of corrupt grifters for many decades.
‘Fear’, is that the actual title? How demeaning, but not surprising. Which company is behind it? Who is funding it?
When I was growing up in NE England it was NOT safe for a lone girl/woman to be out at night alone, quite simple, it was VERY dangerous. It is a very violent place now as there is so much poverty there etc.
When I worked in Glasgow having arrived in Scotland over 35 years ago I was shocked at the council housing, the ‘schemes’, compared even to what we lived in NE England. It was more ghetto than housing. I found the people very friendly, once when looking at a map, a nice man told me which direction I should go for my bus and I could not understand a word he said it may as well have been Norwegian not weegie, 🙂 but it was very nice of him and I said thank you! If only Scotland could be like Norway!
Scotland has always been portrayed as sh*te, and that’s going to get much worse in the run up to the election next year, expect false flag stuff to be deployed as well.
I recently had a YTube channel pop up, called ‘Holyrood Sources’, platformed by ex ‘specia; advisers’ apparently, one who was SA to Alex Salmond though they seem to have recently delted that fact form their info. I can’t bear to watch the Scotland is sh*te for more than aa few seconds, it seems to lean towards touting Labour UK little jobsworth Sarwar, (FM in waiting he hopes) as a positive for Scotland, with the SNP being very very bad. The comments section, just wow the hate towards the SNP, and Scotland in general is just dreadful, quite scary really.
We did though watch a fab video about Glasgow last week by a Canadian guy, been watching his channel for years. It’s a great look at how great a city Galsgow is, though no doubt comments will be very negative when the BritNats see it.
I hope it’s OK to share…worth a watch. Look up ‘Holyrood Sources’ if you can bear to do so…as I say just the comments are horrendous, but again indicative of the hate from England, it’s worse than people think.
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Sorry the typos, sigh…and the YT film only available to watch at YT, worth a reckie though.
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Yet to watch ‘Fear’ – but I will do so. So can’t offer any direct comment on the blog post.
I do have more general comments to offer. I do acknowledge tendencies to deploy stereotypes of Glaswegians – and of Scots more generally – amongst some with an Anglo-centric world view.
I confess to being a keen follower of Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish crime fiction. Having a deeper knowledge of some of these countries, I separate out their endless diet of crime dramas – (and their emerging stereotypes?)- from the realities. These places have certain historical and present day cultural advantages of course as independent, confident nation-states!
On February 28, the BBC News website had a profile of Mr Compston and his latest works under the headline: ‘Martin Compston: ‘Vegas is lovely but so is Greenock’.
We’re told: ‘he divides his time between Greenock and Las Vegas.’ And ‘Fear is just the latest show which has allowed Martin to work on his home turf. He’s also filmed two seasons of The Rig at FirstStage Studios in Edinburgh, as well as the drama Mayflies and his light-hearted travel series Scottish Fling.’
“I’ve been really luck to be able to film all these roles in Scotland, meaning I can get home to Greenock at the weekend,” he says. “A warm Vegas night under the stars is lovely but the view we have from the couch in Greenock where you see these huge cruise ships coming in from all over the world is also amazing.”
The National profiled Mr Compston’s views on Scottish politics in February 2023. He was quoted: “I’ve supported independence from a very young age”.
(https://www.thenational.scot/news/23297951.martin-compstons-views-scottish-independence/ )
As I noted at the outset, I’ve yet to view this latest series. And sharing my views on Scotland’s future is no guarantee of this actor creating great drama!
However, you may (rightly) have gained the impression that I’m inclined to give Mr Compston the benefit of the doubt when it comes to discerning/ judging his views on Glasgow, Greenock and Scotland – and hopefully, for obvious reasons.
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Line of Duty. Amazing. Crime in London?
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I’m absolutely certain Glasgow is a lot safer than midsummer..
It would be hard to find any major city that isn’t portrayed by ‘ crime dramas ‘ as being drug and murder capitals of wherever they happen to be located. I watch a lot of dark Scandi and European telly, beats American stuff hands down, except ‘ Lincoln lawyer ‘ which is brill. Martin Compton did one Aberdeen which was brill and who didn’t like ‘ Shetland ‘.
Golfnut
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