Monday, December 14, 2009

Thatcher, Thatcher Stadium Snatcher!

It's my own fault for dipping into the Scottish Sun I suppose.

The latest variation on the "Trust us, them English Tories will eat your babies" scaremongering comes not from the DUP, but their sister regionalist party in Scotland:
Yesterday a spokesman for the First Minister, Alex Salmond, said: "This says it all for the Tories' attitude to Scotland."

"This" being accompanied by a "Thatcher Bulldoze Hampden" screamer:
TORY stalwart Teddy Taylor last night defended the secret Thatcher government plot to bulldoze Hampden - and insisted it was a "terribly good" idea.

The former senior MP's claim came 30 years after he told the then-PM's administration to ditch their pledge to rebuild the national stadium.

And the shocking proposals - revealed in newly released secret documents - show he planned to "sweeten the pill" by relocating Scotland games to other parts of the country.
So...actually the headline is not quite that accurate then, it's more a:
"Teddy Taylor, 30 years ago, after the local council withdrew funding for a stadium revamp, asked "wouldn't it be wise to call it a day on Hampden" with no bulldozers or Mrs Thatcher in sight:
He suggested the Tories could "sweeten the pill by indicating that big international matches would be played at various grounds, with Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh all getting a share."
The fiends, "forcing" the national team to play around the er.. nation.

The more important point to be gleaned from this non-story is the complete lack of Conservative (apart from Teddy Taylor, who retired in 2005) comment. Yes, it happened over 30 years ago during the reign of Mrs Thatcher but that hasn't stopped the nats from trying to pull some kind of benefit from it.

A witty one-liner or a simple "Sigh, that was then, this is now" would have sufficed-they will have to step their game up pretty sharpish when faced with this kind of nonsense and not only in Scotland.

3 comments:

tony said...

>>scaremongering comes not from the DUP, but their sister regionalist party in Scotland:(meaning the SNP)

Not happy with trying to bed us with the BNP you now try it with the DUP. I'm sure you are aware that your party has almost everything in common with the DUP. Supremacy, anti-Catholicism etc etc etc. NI. may well be an administrative region of the UK, but Scotland is a nation my friend.

O'Neill said...

I'll admit on social and "community" policy they're on different planets but both the SNP and DUP are using the (English) Conservatives as bogeymen, bith parties emphasise their region/nation at the expense fo the greater whole.

I've said before that's the SNP's job as nationalists, for a Unionist party however it's a mighty strange stance to take.

tony said...

>>both the SNP and DUP are using the (English) Conservatives as bogeymen, bith parties emphasise their region/nation at the expense fo the greater whole.<<

Haud oan noo! Labour are the ones who play the Tories up as the bogeyman. The SNP have been happy to play ball with the Tories in Holyrood, and to be fair to them I like Goldie who (pearl necklace and blue rinse apart) does not come across as an atypical Tory. Nor I might add do you, those pearl earings are a bit much dont ye think ;¬)