******** the What?

imagesScottish Labour’s attempted revival took a further surreal turn yesterday with news that Jeremy Corbyn was told not to mention the word “Scotland” for fear of “playing to the nationalist agenda”. One party source told the Herald: “You don’t hear MPs talking about ‘England’, but rather, the places in England like Manchester and Birmingham. This should be the case with Scotland. By referring to Scotland instead of individual places, some of our people are playing to the nationalist agenda.”

Like Macbeth, religion and lesbianism, ******** has been consigned to one of those areas of life which, for various reasons, it’s better just not to talk about at all. It’s a cunning ploy that leaves ******** hovering somewhere between Brigadoon and a national equivalent of the Invisible Man.

The move seems to be on the back of the success of the ‘don’t mention trident’ tactic at last Brighton conference. The idea prompted suggestions for other areas of public policy that could be solved by just not mentioning them? Obviously we have ******** itself and Trident in the mix, but what other Unmentionables should they include? We suggest for starters: Jackie Baillie, Harriet Harman’s austerity capitulation, the Iraq War, PFI, Labour’s immigration mug, the whole Dave McDonald thing,  Johann’s ‘something for nothing’ comments (which they’ve made a start on already), and, of course George Foulkes.

As well as these Unmentionables we suggest that large parts of ******** could be quietly erased over a rolling five-year period.

We suggest ******** Labour starts with Dundee, which could be removed from maps and quickly dismantled. Trains could leave from Leuchars and simply arrive at Balmossie. ****rail guards could distract passengers with excessively loud announcements explaining delays and cancellations as they cross the Tay Bridge. Of course large sections of the North-East would have to be removed, as would Glasgow. Murrayfield and Hampden would be redundant and could be turned into more useful arenas for storing now defunct agencies previously associated with ********. Some of this is simple language. The ******* Office would simply become The Office. ******* Power would become simply ‘Power’. The ******* Football Association would become simply ‘the Football Association’.

Flower of ******** could be replaced by John Cage’s 4’33’ (1952) which would be a less ‘nationalist’ anthem for the Unmentionable Place.

Although this approach does pose some logistical problems these problematic areas, just by their very existence, are clearly ‘playing to the nationalist agenda’. The Proclaimers, Paulo Nutini, Ricky Ross, Django Django and Stuart Braithwaite could be replaced by a series of simple Prince-like symbols, Alans’ Cumming, Bissett and McCredie could be consigned to history, while the likes of AL Kennedy, Elaine C Smith and Emma Pollock could be digitally deleted.

Problematic cultural signifiers like Hogmanay, Burns Night and St Andrews Day could be replaced by Happy New Year Night, Scotty Dog Language Day and Great Britain Day respectively. God Save the Queen could be sung in all schools and all public buildings should fly the Union Jack at all times. Embarrassing iconic buildings could be sold off for high-end hotels.

Map erosion begins at 12 noon tomorrow.

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  1. Alan Martin says:

    “Happy New Year Night”, love it! And, as well as being pure dead funny, it rather neatly expresses the absolute absurdity of this rather nonsensical train of thought,…..if indeed any thinking was involved…Good one Mike.

  2. Alan McCredie says:

    I’d quite like to be consigned to history as long as I get to choose exactly what period I get consigned to. I think Rome as it slid into decadence would be well worth a visit.

  3. John Leavey says:

    Sorry, ****ty dog would be disallowed.

    1. Socrates MacSporran says:

      We could reclassify the breed as a ‘Mull Terrier’ (or any other Hebridean island).

  4. Andy Nimmo says:

    I’m having to type this using my mobile as I’ve just spilt coffee on my laptop laughing so much.
    I just have this vision of 50000 North North British Rugby fans singing
    ‘Flower of North North Britain at St James’s Park this afternoon.
    No very catchy Sorry

  5. John Walsh says:

    We could display a superfluous Union flag on driving licences! Just more subliminal indoctrination.

  6. John Page says:

    Thanks, Mike, for this wee Saturday morning treat

    John Page

    Will London luvvies talk about the North North British play?

  7. Rose Strang says:

    Brilliant! I do actually love the idea of 4’33 being the National anthem mind you!

    1. Broadbield says:

      Jeremy could (not) sing along to that one!

  8. Ian says:

    Dumping Scotland from the names of some of our institutions isn’t such a bad idea.
    As a teacher in Scotland I used to be a member of the General Teaching Council (GTC), for some reason we agreed to change the name to the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) when the GTCE was created in England. As the GTCE was scrapped in 2012 we should claim our name back.

    We should never have given our name up so easily in the first place – England has the FA not the EFA, American websites are .com or org. etc not .co.us or org.us, our stamps have no country named on them….

    As for John Cage’s 4’33” – that sounds like an excellent idea for a national anthem (replacing the god-awful God Save the Queen). For the first time everybody would know the words (Jeremy Corbyn clearly supports this idea as he recently sang them in public while everyone else sang God Save The Queen). It’s a bit long though – a shame the composer is no longer alive to pen a shorter version. If we allowed others to much around with it then it’s surely only a matter of time before somebody invents a controversial fourth verse and people starting getting offended by it. It’d probably go something like this:

    .

  9. David MacGille-Mhuire says:

    When the neo-Thatcherite, uber-Blairites in BritLab do an Ides of March on the Bearded North London Selective Imperialist, will they vow to redact La Dug and her fellow SLABBERS, too?

    Nah, they’ll probably renege on that one also.

    Ah, but cheer up, the Holyrood elections are on the horizon whence the guid folk of the North British Redactorate will probably save them the f@@@ing (redacted) trouble:)

    PS Nothing against beards as I sport one on pain of death from Japanese my wife if I shear it; nor am I an anti-leftie – am one, but just not of the Brit imperialist type.

  10. Daisy Walker says:

    Map erosion started some considerable time ago… haven’t you seen the weather map? If they tilt it any further all anyone will see will be the cliffs of dover. Insecure wee souls that they are. Bless.

  11. Les Wilson says:

    They whole idea would be funny, if it was!

  12. Douglas says:

    Do they still get to call us Jocks?

    1. Kenneth Coutts says:

      Yes! and we parle jockanese

    2. Heidstaethefire says:

      Sweaties surely?

  13. Bob Agassi says:

    Ah Mike but didn’t the Viceroy Fluffy tell us that ‘S******d’ was extinguished in 1707 and incorporated in to the greater English kingdom and renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain…

  14. Valerie says:

    With the discovery of water on Mars, any microbial life that might exist, surely has a higher IQ than the collective hive mind of the SLabbers?

    Please, please, good people, get rid of as many SLab as possible come May.

  15. Dinnatouch says:

    Great North Briton Day surely?

  16. John Page says:

    Can we stop wasting all this money on Gaelic and start giving North British primary school kids elocution lessons……….

  17. Robin Kinross says:

    “You don’t hear MPs talking about ‘England’, but rather, the places in England like Manchester and Birmingham.”

    Here is the clue to the whole absurd story. England inflates itself into “Britain” or “the UK” and forgets that it is actually a distinct country / nation too. The people who proclaim their pride in England are usually those on the right of the political spectrum. The liberal and left English keep pretty quiet about their nation. Class solidarity across the United Kingdom and singing the Red Flag, once a year, seems to be all they want. England – and especially the English left – needs to sort itself out. Then Scottish Labour could begin to feel more relaxed with its own allegiances.

  18. John Mooney says:

    Slab H.Q. aka. Fawlty Towers command to Basil Corbyn “For f**** sake don’t mention the ” “the War”? asks Basil “NO numbnuts,the S******* F****** word” screams S.Pia! Roll up,Roll Up,the Labour end of the pier show,the comedy that just keeps giving.L.O.L. :o)

  19. John Dalrymple says:

    (********): no longer even a parenthetical clause

  20. willie says:

    What a slimy shower dog droppings the Labour Party are to consider restricting the use of the word Scotland.

    They have learned nothing from their wipeout last May and they never will.

    Wee Dugdale has just been put in her box as has the remnants of the branch office they called Slab.

    Can’t wait till their MSPs get wiped next at Hollywood 2016.

  21. willie says:

    And meanwhile the BBC and the rest of the British propaganda machine are cencoring comment on the absolute horror of the American bombing of a Medicines Sans Frontiers hospital in Afghanistan.

    The death toll it seems keeps rising with at least 30 staff and patients burned alive.

    The UN says it is a war crime and most decent people would agree that burning hundreds in a hospital is a crime against humanity.

    So why the British silence on the slaughter. Could it be because the UK is currently also involved in the ‘ humanitarian bombing ‘ of civilians as a strategy to wage war.

    Make you realize just how pro Trident, pro War the Better Together parties actually are.

  22. willie says:

    And against this hospital air raid slaughter the good old trade union movement come out at the Labour conference in favour of Trident because it supports jobs.

    No doubt the same unions will be celebrating the consumption of another few missiles used on the bombing of this hospital.

    It’s a dirtu job bit someone’s got to do it making missiles, using them and then replacing them.

    And the Labour movement most certainly agrees. Time to fire a few Tridents – eh what Jackie Balilie agus Kezia the Dug.

    1. Jeff says:

      Please don’t tar all trade unions/trade unionists with the same brush. Thousands of TU members are pro Yes and anti Trident. Unfortunately the leadership of some right wing ‘trade unions’ such as ASLEF take their members’ decisions for them.

      1. willie says:

        My comments were made in sheer frustration at the right wing ideology given over many years by the trade unions and their Labour bedfellows.

        Support for weapon that can kill hundreds of millions of civilians on the grounds that it creates jobs for a few trade union members is obscenity.

        But that is the mindset of much of our Labour movement who would no doubt call the Clydebank Blitz an opportunity for their members.

        But yes Jeff, I agree that not all trade union members are the same. And if they are not the same then let them speak out.

        High time that the trade union movement purged itself of the right wing neo liberals that infest the Labour Party. Or are they like Alisdair Darling and Tony Blair just the same.

  23. willie says:

    And while we’re all keeping stuum about aerial bombing, how many people in the West of Scotland notice the high altitude aernautics of planes gyrating all over the sky above our nuclear deterrent facilities at Faslane last Tuesday afternoon.

    Looked very much like a dog fight in the sky from the vapour trails and with the Air Traffic Control and the CAA denying their awareness of any aircraft in the area, one’s suspicions rose lunchtime the next day when in response to public concern the RAF issued a statement to say that they had one plane on a training mission surveying and mapping the West of Scotland.

    Looked more like a dry run of an attack and intercept exercise on our Faslane facilities with three high level planes involved.

    Certainly, at least for me, reinforces what it is to be a target, and what the consequences are.

    1. Gordon says:

      Don’t tell me they’ve just twigged that Faslane could be put completely out of action by a conventional aerial bombardment. I would go further, it would be put out of action in a 9/11-style terrorist attack by a passenger jet. Our sea-roving sub would then have nowhere to return to and no knowledge of the perpetrator. A worse scenario would be an attack on the nuclear warheads storage facility at Coulport which would send several tens of kilos of particulate radio nucleides into the atmosphere to land anywhere in the UK and Scandinavia, rendering food production impossible. Remember Chernobyl and the radioactive lamb? We are not talking nuclear warfare here. Scotland is in grave danger even in a conventional attack.

  24. Jeff says:

    “…all public buildings should fly the Union Jack at all times.”

    In Dumfries this already happens unfortunately.

  25. Craig mckechnie says:

    What????

    Just more reasons to be working Together

    nonamedog

  26. Richard says:

    “The ******* Office would simply become The Office. ”

    I was under the impression that this had already occurred, with both David Mundell & (formerly) Alister Carmichael performing in the role of David Brent.

    ……cue “Handbags & Gladrags”

  27. Brian Fleming says:

    That’s all very well (the article), but the ‘Football Association’ already exists (at least ‘officially’), although us thrawn ***** may insist on calling it the English Football Association. If you just drop ******** from the the front of ******** bodies, or ‘(********)’ from the end, the names will be same as those for England. Ahah, I see your cunning plan.

  28. Alba Woman says:

    The Union Flag flies 365 from Rutherglen Town Hall. Enquiries during the Referendum as to its removal during the campaign, were met by information that decisions to fly or not to fly are made by a committee in Westminster. You could’nt make it up or maybe my informant had a go!

  29. willie says:

    Every plane coming in to Glasgow airport has to be a potential risk to Faslane.

    A 90 second deviation from the landing flightpath and we’d have a major nuclear catastrophe on our hands.

    But that’s why Faslane is up here and not down south.

  30. bill fraser says:

    I was born in S……. and have lived most of my life in S.I spend as little time as I can in …land when I have to go down there.I hope this will not affect our tourist trade as they may stop incoming flights to….burgh…..gow or …..ness.We’ll just have to wait and see!

  31. ben madigan says:

    coming very late to this discussion – but i hope you enjoy https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2015/10/03/scotland-gets-the-silent-treatment/

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