Tag Archives: Politics

A Stateless Nation

01/11/2012 By in Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

On growing up in the nationalist heartlands of the North East of Scotland and with parents of Anglo-Irish descent, I am a first generation Scot. Always sensitive to any hint of anti-English sentiment, I remember my first impressions of nationalism and I considered it back then to be inherently nasty, bigoted and deeply parochial. Largely this was a result of a feral loathing of the English football team and the hysterical fear of the ‘auld enemy’ winning the World Cup. Laughable as this might sound to educated observers, especially anyone who knows anything about football, the populist cry was that ‘we would never hear the end of it’ and they are right. It would be absolutely unbearable but our European partners usually come to our aid whenever this is in danger of happening.

Football might seem frivolous to some but the social consequences of this nationalist hysteria led to me preferring the union. As a result and unaware of the grim economic conditions taking place outside of the affluent fields of Aberdeenshire, I felt very comfortable being simultaneously Scottish and British. While I always considered myself Scottish, I owed my existence to parents and as a son of economic migrants; I was a product of oil rather than the Mearns soil.

Although looking back my British identity crisis was an emotional form of solidarity with my parents. It co-existed with my Scottish identity, which back then was a geographical and localised phenomenon. T.C. Smout, the brilliant social historian, once stated that ‘what is unusual about Scotland is the widespread acceptance that national identity does not have to coincide with state identity’. He succinctly tapped into the political separation of powers of the 1707 Union settlement, where Scottish cultural and religious nationalism was allowed to flourish outside the sphere of the British state.

Shaped by the desire to secure a Hanoverian Protestant succession in the early eighteenth century, British identity has been formed around the crown, empire, industrialisation and the emotional solidarity of two World Wars. In the twenty-first century, the contemporary framework of British identity has shifted radically. With the British Empire now confined to the dust columns of history, the BBC, NHS, Royal Mail and celebrity television shows such as the X-Factor and Big Brother provide ‘Britons’ with a shared cultural identity.

On being entirely comfortable with being both Scottish and British, I can trace my slow conversion to independence from attending two of Scotland’s oldest universities. On first attending Kings College in Aberdeen, I took great pride in learning that until 1858 Aberdeen had two universities, the same number as the whole of England. Education always appeared to be a great Scottish virtue and with the devolved Scottish administration paying student’s tuition fees since 1999 it became clear that education in Scotland is a universal right and not something confined to the privileged few.

On transferring to Glasgow University and studying History, I slowly developed the opinion that Scotland had everything in place to be thriving independent nation but somehow shied away from taking full responsibility. A country blessed with huge natural resources, a brilliant university network, untapped green energy, a booming tourist industry and two of the greatest cities in Northern Europe only 40 minutes apart. Scotland has enormous potential to become a progressive and wealthy European state.

If Scotland were to vote for full independence in autumn 2014 then the British state will cease to exist but Britishness will not. Norwegians, Swedes, Finns and Danes are still Scandinavian despite living in politically autonomous states. The Scandinavian nations co-operate on matters of shared national interest such as security, immigration, energy and tourism. There will be no custom officials and razed wire fences in Berwick-upon-Tweed or Gretna Green if Scotland were to go their own way. And by retaining the Queen as the head of state, the SNP have offered an olive branch to unionists uncomfortable with the pace of radical constitutional change.

With his High Excellency Alex Salmond at the helm in Holyrood anything now feels possible. A truly outstanding political operator, the SNP has been blessed with the most gifted political communicator in the British Isles since Tony Blair. Commanding over an extremely disciplined and ‘on message’ party, Alex Salmond is gradually persuading the Scottish people there is nothing that cannot be achieved by ourselves. On turning full circle I now believe in independence. The wheels of progress have been slow but the destination now feels inevitable.

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Down and Out in Occupy London

11/12/2011 By in Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Dark, brooding and incongruously ugly, the Occupy London’s Tent City offers an apocalyptic vision of a post-recession Britain. A nightmarish vision of austerity, middle-class slum or a utopian commune, it really depends on your point of view. Marxist cuckoos in the Anglican’s nest, the anti-capitalist protesters have turned the public piazza outside St Paul’s Cathedral into a new found democracy. Organised by a hash tag and riddled with contradictions, the Occupy protesters are a malleable bunch. Predominately under the age of thirty, if not younger, the hardcore militants protesting at St Paul’s are invariably white educated liberals or students as they are more commonly known.

Campaigning against banker bonuses, corporate greed and the grotesque spectacle of UK business executives giving themselves a 50% increase in their salaries. Something had to be done. Identifying what is wrong with modern capitalism but thus far offering no concrete solutions, Occupy London has a lot in common with social-democratic politicians like Barack Obama and Ed Miliband. Awaiting genuine leadership, a big bang moment has yet to strike a chime with the protesters at St Paul’s.

With up to 150 tents living cheek by jowl on frozen concrete, the protesters come from different social and economic backgrounds but slumming it is a real leveller. Speaking about his experience mingling with tramps, George Orwell wrote in The Road to Wigan Pier, “Once you’re in that world and seemingly of it, it hardly matters what you have been in the past. It is a sort of world-within-world where everyone is equal, a small squalid democracy – perhaps the nearest thing to a democracy that exists in England.”

Although unlike the lowly tramps in Orwell’s essay, the anti-capitalist protesters occupying St Paul’s are bound by idealism not poverty. Coming from good homes and largely well-educated, the Occupy camp will have enjoyed wealth, comfort and opportunities for most of their young lives. It is the fear of these privileges being taken away from them that propels them to the streets. Those worst affected by capitalism, the grizzly anonymous men loitering in street corners drinking cider, are nowhere to be seen. Instead a bizarre congregation of misfits preside over a spectacle of awareness against a system that continues to feed them.

As the global economic crisis of 2008 has already shown, ordinary people have become helpless components in a computerised market system, which we are seemingly powerless to challenge or change. And nothing will change as a result of this protest camp. To pretend otherwise is to miss the point entirely. Occupy London is merely a piss stain on the carpet of the establishment. A metaphorical protest that is more likely to be dismantled by dropping temperatures than police bailiffs. However, it offers a fascinating insight into the collective values of middle-class idealism. Those whose essential needs have been satisfied and yet dream of changing the world order for the greater good of society.

With police thermal images showing 90% of tents at St Paul’s are unoccupied in the early hours, the protesters have been accused of hypocrisy and self-indulgence. Returning home to warm bedrooms, eating gourmet sandwiches from a nearby Marks and Spencers and tweeting solidarity on luxury smartphones, there are benefits to capitalism that not even the most militant-protester would want to lose. This fractious community are representative of an increasingly divided country, angry at injustice and corporate greed, but still more likely to pay homage to Steve Jobs than Karl Marx. Unnerving as it might be to suggest, the otherwise noble idealism of the protesters regularly falls short at the first touch of reality. All the while the genuinely impoverished and historical victims of the market system are nowhere to be seen.

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Nobody Expects the Spanish Revolution

06/20/2011 By in Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

As Madrid is more of a national capital than an international one like London or Paris, the British press have perhaps not given Spain’s “los indignados” the attention they deserve. Over 60, 000 Spanish youths held spontaneous protests in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia in May 2011, rebelling against the socialist government’s austerity measures. A decade of unemployment and emigration beckons for tens of thousands of Spanish graduates. Youth unemployment among 16 to 29-year-olds is estimated to be around 45 per cent. Upturned in the Puerta de Sol are stolen crates, graffiti slogans and multiple plastic tents full of sticky protesters eating tinned food in brutally hot temperatures. Indignant in their defiance, the “los indignados” are demanding new jobs, public investment and changes to the government’s austerity plans but their wishes have fallen on deaf ears. Spain like so many other debt-ridden European nations has elected a centre-right government into power.

Madrid’s tent city should perhaps serve as a reminder that political dissent has not always been tolerated in Europe. For this red scar of rebellion may be gathering momentum in 2011 but situated in a former hospital is a heart stopping reminder of Spain’s fascist past. Forming an integral part of the holy trinity of Madrid’s historic art museums, the Museo Reina Sofía is renowned throughout the world for hosting Picasso’s Guernica. Awe inspiring and superbly displayed, this icon of twentieth-century European art is one of the few universal masterpieces that commands a religious silence from all visitors. Displayed on the second floor, the art crowds flock to Guernica all year round and cross-legged school children listen attentively to the horrific origins of the painting. Picasso painted it as a response to the Luftwaffe bombing of Guernica for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exhibition in 1937.

As a universal symbol against the fight against fascism, Guernica is a brutal reminder that under General Franco Spain was a military dictatorship until the late 1970s. On forming a one party state, the Falange, political censorship was vigorously enforced under Franco. Trade unions were banned. Catalan, Basque and Galician languages were severely censured and political opponents were mercilessly executed. The majority of Britons will be unable to comprehend the level of repression suffered in Spain during this period. Most people in the UK understandably take the liberal fruits of universal suffrage and freedom of speech for granted.

Britain is one of the oldest and most stable democracies in the modern world, and has enjoyed peaceful growth from 1945 until the present day. Guernica is a potent reminder that Britain has enjoyed its most comfortable, safe and prosperous period in its living history. The global recession of 2008 has triggered violent rioting in Greece and led to tens of thousands of protesters kicking spokes in the hub of Madrid’s wheel.

Britain’s anti-cut march in London attracted over 200, 000 people but it feels strangely weak and deeply uninspiring compared to the demonstrations in Madrid. The protest was quickly forgotten after a day’s headlines. And it will be most likely remembered for the self-aggrandising violence of a hundred upper-middle class anarchists. Spain feels different. Although history will judge how effective the Spanish revolution will be in what is going to be a very difficult decade for Europe. A generational time bomb is slowly ticking because of this economic crisis. Unemployment and living costs continue to rise across the continent. But if history is to offer any guide, and hard as this is to admit, sometimes you have to travel across your own borders to realise how lucky Britain really is.

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Faded Seaside Glamour

04/10/2011 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Brighton is the undisputed liberal capital of the UK and a proverbial honeypot for decadent Londoners. The seaside town’s bohemian reputation has seen it become the equivalent of Shoreditch-On-Sea with its massive gay and lesbian scene and an increasingly left-wing population. If you want to buy the Guardian in Brighton on a Saturday then don’t bother. It has already sold out. Brighton’s liberal ascendancy peaked in May 2010 when Caroline Lucas was elected as Britain’s first ever Green MP. The Green Party’s landmark victory only further confirmed the town’s reputation as a fantasy world of boutique hedonism, vegan restaurants and G-string clubbing. More than 30,000 people live in Brighton and travel the 53 miles to work in London every day and many of them are wealthy media types.

However, Brighton hasn’t always been an arty liberal utopia and up until 1997, Brighton Pavilion had consistently voted for the Conservative Party. So what happened to what happened to all the Tories in that blue-rinse retirement home by the sea? Well Brighton might have become a Guardian reading refugee camp since the late 1990s but it remains a shifting city of conflicting values. Britain’s favourite seaside town retains an affiliation with the English working-class and is still affectionately known for serving fish and chips, ice cream and lobster bellied men on the pebbled shore. Protestants of the flesh can be found wearing sunglasses and reading Rupert Murdoch’s finest on deckchairs on Brighton Beach during the long summer months.

Anyone walking along Brighton Pier will marvel at the views at sunset but the structure itself is a bona fide cultural Chernobyl. Somewhere where you go to fall in love and get stabbed simultaneously. Britons of all social classes love the seaside and wealthy playboys echo Brighton’s decadent past by chasing each other on speed boats on sunny afternoons. Trudging back over pebbles and sand, a strange dust will land on your hand as dozens of grand Edwardian hotels stare out towards the English Channel along the Marine Parade.

Such grand emblems of historic wealth are unlikely to be occupied by counter-culture hippies. These luxury hotels remain the spiritual home of Conservative Party MPs, who secretly long for a return to the 1980s, when they didn’t have to go up north to Birmingham or Manchester for their party conference season. Blue rinsed traditions still retain their historic prominence in 21st century Brighton, which remains socially diverse with different groups co-existing in relative harmony.

It appears the demographic shift towards bohemian liberalism has not stopped Brighton from becoming the drug- injecting death capital of the UK. Understandably the Golden Syringe trophy is unlikely to take centre stage on the tourist board’s website but English seaside resorts have always been pretty seedy. A haven for criminality and smuggling for centuries, novelist Peter James has suggested Brighton is one of the top favourite places for criminals to live in the UK.

With seaports on both sides and a nearby airport with no custom post, masses of unguarded coastlines and London only an hour train journey away. Brighton is easy to escape and has a massive drug market with its two universities, booming club scene and arty middle-class residents with experimental tastes. Now one of the most exciting British cities, the seaside resort has been mentally rebuilt in a different order with many of its old Tory characteristics obliterated. Society is always changing and is forever being rebuilt and having its old assumptions challenged. The town, after all, remains the truth, and its residents the shifting fable.

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The Binge Society

04/05/2011 By in Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

As the Scottish Government commit to plans for minimum pricing to tackle Scotland’s historic alcohol abuse problems. Glaswegian artist Kathyrn Rodger has explored the social mores of Scotland’s binge-drinking culture in her forthcoming Let Yourself Go exhibition, which focuses upon youthful hedonism and the need to escape. By evocatively capturing the feverish sensation of drunkenness, the Edinburgh College of Art student has cast a powerful lens upon the emotional and psychological effects of alcohol.

Letting off steam in a miserable climate is perfectly understandable and for two millenniums there has been a direct correlation between a lack of sunlight and excessive alcohol consumption. Although no one is really sure why this wet green island first developed a taste for booze. Bad weather is probably a good place to start and from the outset there have been two drinking cultures. Sunless nations such as Britain and Ireland adopted the Germanic model, where beverages based on grain were drunk away from the dining table. In the south Mediterranean they embraced the Roman model and offered children diluted wine at mealtimes instead.

Given the unique blend of dreary weather and social repression, the northern isles of Europe were almost destined to become the drunk men of Europe. Although many people will be surprised to learn that in 1970, the average Briton drank less than a third as much as the French or the Italians. But being unable to moderate her love of alcohol and the subsequent deregulation of previously strict temperance laws, Britain has now become the drinking capital of the world.

Spirits that once cost the equivalent of £45 in today’s market are now being sold in benevolent supermarket chains for little as £8.33 per bottle. As the liberalisation of the UK’s drinking laws continued throughout 1970s, the drinking rates in Britain have continued to soar and alcohol is 62% more affordable than in 1980. With super strength lagers and ciders available for the price of a chocolate bar, Britons are now able to ‘pre-load’ before ploughing fields in trashy night clubs such as the Shanghai Club in Edinburgh. Although you can’t blame the weather for all of the stab huts and fight clubs on the high street. As there is something psychologically wrong with a population that needs to get absolutely wasted before they start dancing.

Victim surveys show that roughly four in ten assaults now involve drinkers, and more than half of these incidents take place on a Friday and Saturday night. Anyone wading through a valley of chips, gravy and kebabs after a night out will relate to the horror of getting a late night bus home. Unable to make eye contact with your fellow drunken reprobates, the chances of leaving the bus with anything less than a violent hangover is very slim indeed.

Scotland’s top law officer Elish Angiolini has already predicted that the country is facing an alcoholic “apocalypse” from soaring drinking sales. And with the breweries continuing to be given a free reign over the UK drinking laws, the majority of British cities have failed to provide a sociable alternative to getting drunk. Deprived of sunlight and warmth for the majority of the year, it is perhaps understandable that citizens of this island let themselves go in the easiest manner available to them.

Britons will clearly continue to knock back supermarket booze unless prohibited to do otherwise. Although nothing has ever satisfactorily explained the extraordinarily high levels of violence associated with alcohol abuse in this country. Unpredictable weather patterns and seasonal affective disorder all seem to combine to make people more depressed in the north. And where better to illustrate our dysfunctional relationship with drinking than the Granite City. Situated in one of the most northernmost regions in Europe, it is a remote area but no different than any other British town when it comes to alcohol.

Aberdeen on a typical Saturday night usually involves ambulances, riot police and a marauding pack of savages tyrannising the city centre. Aggressive thugs will viciously chase one another across the street, stuff chips down their throats and whenever you approach their chicks, they will swoop and try to kill you…and that’s just the gulls. Drink up or face the consequences.

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Arrested Development

02/06/2011 By in Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

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After the Guardian revealed Lord Wei of Shoreditch is unable to fulfil his Big Society duties because working for free is incompatible with ‘having a life’. Lord Wei not only exposed the sham of a government expecting people to work for nothing in an era of massive spending cuts. Moreover it shone a torch on the murky world of corporate exploitation in the modern workplace. Earlier this week Richard Bilton’s excellent BBC documentary showed how class continues to restrict access to professions and well-paid careers to all but an exclusive pool of well-connected individuals.

Anyone looking for work in the publishing, fashion or media industry will already be familiar with internships. The vast majority of media jobs in Britain are based in London and anyone lucky enough to receive an offer can be expected to work for 3 months unpaid and still have no guarantee of employment. With 1 in 10 graduates now out of work, I can recall my struggle to make a break through after graduating from the University of Glasgow in 2004.

After the privilege of studying at a world-class 15th Century institution, the harsh reality of finding stimulating employment became all too apparent when I temped for the financial services industry. While I wanted to use my creative writing skills for a living, I sorely lacked confidence and with no connections, I found myself trapped in a vicious circle of dead end temping jobs to pay the rent. Glasgow is the call-centre capital of Europe and after graduating, I would turn up every day for £6.04 an hour wearing a Britney Spears headset on behalf of the Scottish Co-Operative Group.

With my dignity in tatters, I quickly realised that in order to improve myself, I had to go down the Scottish voluntary route. By doing so I religiously scoured the internet and worked for free on behalf of tourist boards, local restaurant guides and a global university website. Eventually I quit my administrative day job to focus entirely on voluntary writing positions I had initially agreed to fulfil in my spare time.

On not wanting to let my future references down, I eventually gave them my full working week for nearly 5 months and used credit cards to pay the rent. Clearly unsustainable I fortunately managed to get a salaried media job in London as a result of my volunteering and agreed to move down south.

While I have clearly benefited from volunteering and believe it is often a necessary passage for young people to get ahead. Anyone doing a voluntary internship in London will have astronomical overheads compared to what I had to pay in Glasgow where the cost of living is far cheaper.

If young graduates want a media job in London then they will be expected to serve not one but several unpaid internships before getting a salaried position. Expecting people to work for nothing inevitably favours upper-middle class children from the South East, who have financial support or live within commuting distance of their parent’s home. This new aristocracy of coming from a home owning family is increasingly divisive and helps to form an unfair and disproportionate workplace in some of the most desirable sectors.

Once you’re inside the door then depending on your employer it is increasingly down to the dark arts of networking and internal friendships to progress. While it would be desirable to think you can progress through ability and hard work alone, I often find social intelligence and the ability to ‘work a room’ is all too prominent in making that elusive connection to get ahead. From a personal perspective I have always found the charm offensive very difficult because I don’t have a silver tongue to seduce random strangers at launch parties, meetings or screening invites. We are all made differently and the path ahead is not always going to be a fair or equal one.

When Labour leader Ed Miliband spoke of the British promise being under threat by cuts to public spending. He tapped into a deeper trend of how the current generation cannot expect to exceed the wealth and standard of living of their parents. There is nothing clever about making the best jobs only for the rich and by narrowing the best opportunities to rich home owning families it only serves to create an increasingly divided and unequal society.

Clearly there are social, moral and long-term economic benefits from having a well educated workforce and to frighten off potential students from poorer or lower-middle class backgrounds is foolhardy in the extreme. It makes me extremely angry that higher education is perceived solely as a means for people to make money.

Surely in the current economic climate our future values have to change. We should be looking to create a fairer, balanced and more equal society instead of this myopic chase of prosperity. Even by writing inside a rented box in the sky for nothing, I am still enormously proud of my university education and feel it should be open and accessible to anyone. Something even Lord Wei would agree about as he reduces his voluntary hours in order to pay the bills.

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Your mind is the scene of the crime

02/03/2011 By in Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

After moving to South Hackney two years ago, I have enjoyed a peaceful inner city existence and never felt in any danger. Occasionally teenagers can be seen loitering around the canal bridge and feral kids play improvised football against the recycling bins. But this if anything provides a sense of gritty character to an otherwise dull residential neighbourhood. While the grim Stalinist appearance of the estate and being surrounded by human storage containers is depressing at times, I have never had any reason to be fearful. Well at least until the coalition government’s new crime website was launched this week. The location based website provides an interactive map of reported violent crime, burglary and anti-social behaviour on every street in England and Wales.

Almost immediately I punched in my postcode and against my better judgement, I found myself living in a crime hotspot. Everyday I walk over the canal bridge on Shepherdess Walk and feel perfectly safe. But the government website reveals a different story. There are incidents of burglary, vehicle crime and drug dealing on what I had previously assumed to be an idyllic thoroughfare. Clearly the teenage hoods on the bridge have been up to no good. Further inspection of the website reveals there were 2134 reported incidents of crime in my postcode area in December alone.

Should I be too scared to leave the house now? The chances of me being a victim of crime appears to have increased since I discovered what goes on outside when I’m indoors. Even though I should be terrified of my crime ridden estate, I have yet to even spot a litter bug during my two-year stint in Hackney. Such horrifying statistics are in stark contrast to what I experienced in rural Aberdeenshire as a child. After pouring over the dark side of inner city life, I initially began to reflect back upon how kids from my village would play football after school instead of drug dealing or car theft.

While times have changed since the 1980s and the rise of the internet and games consoles has probably contributed towards more kids staying indoors, I remember how my peers indulged in criminal activity of their own. Every year local school kids would construct massive hay bases in nearby fields and cause thousands of pounds worth of damage. Most eight years old’s are unaware of the economic value of a hay bail and are unlikely to have a crisis of conscience when they turn one into a straw heap. As a result, local farmers would angrily come charging after us in their tractors once they realised their cherished field had descended into a William Golding novel. The thrill of the chase begins when you are young and I fondly remember scrambling over stone dyke walls escaping from irate Doric farmers as a school boy.

Crime like love is in the eye of the beholder and while stealing strawberries and pea-pods from an allotment patch might have seem like harmless fun to a country village boy. Is it really any different from local youths in Hackney stealing Mars Bars and Coke cans from a 24 convenience store? Enid Blyton would have loved my village escapades and my experiences of youth crime seem incredibly idyllic in hindsight.

While urban youths are frequently demonised in the media, I can empathise with bored teenage youths loitering around shops in sub-zero temperatures. Dimly lit streets and high rise buildings judge their offspring cruelly in the absence of wide green spaces. In light of the newly publicised figures, I should perhaps tread more carefully along the streets of Hackney but appearances are deceptive and likewise so is the fear of me becoming another government statistic.

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God has given you one face and you make yourself another

01/29/2011 By in Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

As the toxic flames engulfing Andy Gray and Richard Keys over their sexist remarks continue to provoke outrage across the country. Time has surely come for people to reflect upon the grotesque voyeurism of this saga. While the former Sky Sports pundits were clearly guilty of acting like immature school boys when discussing Sian Massey’s ability to do a ‘man’s job’. No one should forget they were having a private conversation. Not for one second did they think their conversation was going to be heard by anyone else. But clearly once their embarrassing views were made public they both had to go.

Andy Gray and Richard Keys have since been condemned in various articles by former work colleagues, who have accused the pair of chauvinistic arrogance and bullying. But there is an enormous stench of hypocrisy regarding this saga, and more than a hint of skulduggery from a corporation that consistently promotes blonde supermodels as newsreaders. Hypocrisy is sadly not limited to Sky Sports and while the media have feasted over their fall from grace. Surely everyone will acknowledge they too make untoward remarks about their friends, colleagues and family that are never intended to be made public.

Earlier this year the Business Secretary Vince Cable was subject to an undercover tabloid sting by the Daily Telegraph. In an underhand interview, the otherwise popular and highly respected politician came across as arrogant, conceited and with an embarrassingly high opinion of himself. Once again the Business Secretary was having a private conversation and expressed views that he would never have made in public. It is clear that by demanding perfection in public figures and expecting them to be ‘on message’ in private you are always likely to be disappointed.

What many people are forgetting is that Andy Gray is one of two best football broadcasters of all time. While his position has rightly became untenable due to the offensive nature of his remarks. The electronic bear pit of the modern media has only served to prove that hypocrisy has no bounds. People aren’t willing to comprehend anything less than perfection and compete against each other to be most condemnatory. But is it really fair that two otherwise decent men are subject to the same public scorn as Nick Griffin for having a puerile conversation?

Most of us are never more than bundles of contradictory and complementary selves. Everyone carries different masks and express changeable views and opinions to suit nature of the occasion. But these fickle and crude inperfections are rarely exposed in the public eye.  While the former Sky Sport presenters were clearly wrong to express such immature views and have been sorely punished. This underhand sting  has only served to damage the promising career of Sian Massey and does nothing to improve gender equality in sport. But more importantly it exposes a society that refuses to acknowledge that decent people will have flaws.

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