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The Scotsman

Unionist debate sparks off on Scottish Review website between journalists MSP and Dick Mungin

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

June 29, 2011 | 8 min read

Scottish journalist and broadcaster turned professional politician, Joan McAlpine, has embarked on a war of words with the author of a recent article on nationalism on a prominent Scottish current affairs website.

SNP MSP McAlpine yesterday had a rebuttal published on the prestigious Scottish Review website in which she takes Dick Mungin to task for his comments on that site last week.

Mungin is the former chief executive officer of Scotland Funds of which he was a co-founder, in 2005, with former SNP MSP and Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism, Jim Mather, and Derek Reid. Scottish Funds collapsed three years later amid bitter claims of a lack of Government support and allegations of incompetent management.

McAlpine, a former editor of the Sunday Times Scotland and deputy editor of The Herald, was elected to the Scottish Parliament last month for the South of Scotland via the regional list system. She currently writes a weekly column for The Scotsman.

In his article on the Scottish Review website, Mungin wrote: “On the night in 1997 when New Labour swept to power, the party workers and attendant glitterati danced the small hours away to their campaign song 'Things Can only Get Better' by D:Ream. As it transpired very few things did, but that's quite another story.

“Having adopted the 1960's Canned Heat hit 'Let's Work Together' as their campaign song, the SNP faithful no doubt boogied the night away when celebrating the Salmond landslide just seven weeks ago.

“It seems that these few weeks are indeed a long time in Scottish politics for little 'working together' seems to be in evidence from the Scottish government.

“Concluding his tour de force (2 June) through the political battlefield of the Nat Fraser case, the Supreme Court and the public skewering of Lord Hope, Kenneth Roy [editor of the Scottish Review]tendered two questions:

'What is to be the nature of public discourse in Scotland?' and 'What is our language to be?'

“From the events of the last two weeks the answer to both questions – at least from those of a nationalist persuasion – must be: largely abusive and very depressing in tone and content.

“There's little point in repeating here the recent verbal excesses of our first minister. Every newspaper and media outlet in the land has reported and commented on them. There's been very little said, however, on the language of politics emanating on the web from Salmond's followers.

“Right across the nationalist spectrum the daily language of political discourse has dramatically declined. Following the example of Salmond in abusive rhetoric, even the newly-elected Joan McAlpine felt able to say in her blog that Scottish unionists were 'anti-Scottish'. One assumes that this experienced journalist knows exactly what she means in using such a phrase.

“Everyone in Scotland who is active in political and public life but who is not in the nationalist camp is against Scotland? The danger of this insulting rhetoric is not that any intelligent observer will believe it but that it gives cover to those who use even

“It is difficult to believe that senior SNP figures do not understand that the belligerent nature of their language encourages the rank and file of their party to emulate and indeed go far beyond their example.

“With power comes responsibility, but it seems clear now that apart from using the phrase as a sound bite in his speeches, our first minister does not believe a word of it.

“As the campaign on the referendum hots up in the coming period, the language of populist politics from the nationalist camp will become the norm. Things can only get worse.

“I recently came across a book, 'Twenty First Century Populism', which describes populism as an ideology which 'pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous "others" who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity and voice'.

“Remind you of anyone in particular?”

McAlpine fired back yesterday: “Dick Mungin, in his recent opinion piece (22 June) is guilty of the same extremism and misrepresentation he accuses others of.

“He refers to my own work and says I accused unionists of being anti-Scottish. This is a crude misrepresentation of what I said, and indeed my political position generally.

“I think he is referring to my recent column in The Scotsman, in which I analysed the trend towards ultra-unionism as identified by James Mitchell, the professor of government at Strathclyde University.

“The piece argues that while in the past there were staunch unionists who were nevertheless passionate about Scotland and its culture, today's unionist parties are so driven by opposition to the SNP, they adopt anti-Scottish positions.

“Often, particularly in the case of the Liberal Democrats, they turn their backs on their own party's home rule policies. I would urge Scottish Review readers to make up their own minds by reading the piece themselves rather than Mr Mungin's misleading reference.

“I have often praised unionists like Donald Dewar [former Labour First Minister], for example, and most recently Brian Wilson [former Scottish MP and Labour Government Minister] for his stance against the behaviour of the Crown Estate. I would refer readers to my maiden speech on the latter subject which praised the land reforming efforts of previous Labour/Lib Dem administrations in Holyrood.

“A characteristic of the SNP government has been reaching out to others – for example when choosing areas of improvement in the Scotland Bill, we focused on those where there was an element of cross-party agreement: corporation tax, Crown Estate, digital network, borrowing powers, excise, and more influence in European policy.

“Recent attempts by unionist commentators like Mr Mungin to paint the SNP government as intolerant because of its majority are part of a calculated strategy which has little influence on voters. It will fail because, as recent academic research showed, the SNP succeeded in reaching out to all sections of society, the first political party to do so. We intend to build on that consensus during our time in government.

“Finally, for Mr Mungin to take anonymous comments from the internet and ascribe these opinions to mainstream politicians is absurd – it is also a game that everyone can play.

“As a pro-independence writer I have been subject to all sorts of bile and personal abuse from the very aggressive online unionist community. I wouldn't dream of suggesting that these comments somehow reflect the approach of my parliamentary colleagues on the Labour, Liberal or Conservative benches.”

Gourock-born McAlpine had been tipped to be given a role by First Minister, Alex Salmond, in the new Scottish Government but this has not happened to date.

McAlpine began her career on the Greenock Telegraph and went on to work for The Scotsman and The Sunday Times Scotland where she won the Scottish Journalist of the Year award in 1999.

In 2000, she was appointed editor of the Sunday Times Scotland and the following year became deputy editor of The Herald - the first woman to hold that post on the paper.

After quitting The Herald and rejoining the Sunday Times Scotland as editor of the Ecosse section, she was one of the journalists made redundant when the paper scaled down its Scottish edition to save costs.

The collapse of The Scotland Funds scheme was reported by Eddie Barnes, the political editor of Scotland on Sunday newspaper at the time as ….”A scheme to raise millions of pounds for good causes from wealthy members of the Scottish Diaspora had collapsed amid bitter claims of a lack of Government support and allegations of incompetent management.”

At the time, Mungin defended his record and said attacks were “facile” with his fellow directors insisting the project had been forced to close because of a lack of public funds.

Board member Derek Reid was quoted as saying: “The problem was one of inadequate funding. The private sector had not supported us to levels we thought were necessary and the Scottish Government for their own reasons have decided also not to take this forward.”

This is a debate which looks set to run and run…

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