The moving (middle) finger

See the Kings of Ibrox

Eat dust, or imbibe rocks.

The writing is on the wall, and Rangers FC finds itself shaken from its kingdom.

And I now think that I was in error in my earlier piece (Rangers: good riddance?). It’s not something I said: it’s something I didn’t say.

I asked whether Scottish professional football could survive without Rangers. This remains a taxing question, as it were. But to their great credit, the SPL and SFL are treating it as irrelevant. The question: “What will benefit us?” has been swept aside by the greater question: “What is right, and what is wrong?” Moral considerations have, for once, outweighed market considerations: and for that the clubs are to be applauded.

The new Rangers administration is to be equally admired. They declared in advance that they would accept entry into the Scottish Third Division. Did they have an alternative? Well, yes. They could quite easily have picked up their ball and walked away across the border. I am sure the English Premiership would welcome an Old Firm club with open arms. Who would stand in the way? Glazer? Abramovich? Mansour bin Zayed? Oh, please. What about the sponsors? That’d be Barclays Bank. Enough said.

But aren’t newco Rangers being punished for the sins of the oldco? On the contrary: the newco is benefiting from its association with the oldco. Most new clubs can’t just walk into the professional leagues. They start in the bottom division of a local league somewhere, and work their way up.

It’s still hard on the players and staff - at Rangers and elsewhere. But real and material questions (about mina and shekels, if you will) have been weighed and found wanting.

Simply Redtop

No connection with the item below (about reds and redtops). Simply an amusing resemblance.

There Is No Alternative

The other day, suspicious as I am of free-market Capitalism, I looked through a Communist newspaper. It was full of prefabricated screaming slogans. (A bit like the X-Factor build-ups, but with long words.) Nevertheless, from its pages I learned many things.

Firstly, I learned that the Syrian government is “magnanimous”, its agenda “peaceful” and its people “heroic and dignified”. (I will accept the last point.) And I learned that Colonel Gaddafi – who harboured Yvonne Fletcher’s killer and feted the Lockerbie bomber as a national hero – was “great” and that his works command “a feeling nothing short of awe”.

I’m aware that the West has an agenda. We routinely intervene in (say) Libya or Iraq, but not in Zimbabwe or Rwanda – which see equal atrocities but don’t have oil. Funny, that. But if we elect, or tolerate, people like Bush and Mugabe, that doesn’t suddenly make Saddam and Gaddafi good guys.

Secondly, I learned something about the Royal Jubilee. I don’t mean the revelation that the royal family (and all rich people) are a bunch of parasites. I wouldn’t expect a Communist newspaper to say anything else. I’ve blogged elsewhere (Sons and Daughters) about the useful role a ceremonial head of state plays in a democracy: but I don’t suppose democracy interests Communists any more than it does Capitalists.

No:  the surprising news about the Jubilee was quoted from an online commentator, who wrote: “The only sentiment allowed to be expressed in the media was pro-monarchial.”

Fair enough, it’s not everyone’s plate of cucumber sandwiches. But the only sentiment allowed? I’m sorry, but this is paranoid nonsense. The press includes reds as well as redtops. You may produce The Morning Star as freely as The Daily Star, and I may as freely buy it. There are countries where this would be impossible: where one cannot speak (much less write) against the establishment.

A more interesting question might be: why do we overwhelmingly buy newspapers with a pro- Establishment slant?

But maybe it’s a trick question. The attitude of the mainstream press (and its readers – chicken and egg) is more complex. In 1992, when Royal Divorce memorabilia was selling 3-for-2, the papers were largely anti-monarchial. The church, the Lords, the banks, politicians in general, are routinely pilloried. Fat-cat salaries and dodgy Middle East wars are fair game.

True, the mainstream press doesn’t really question Capitalist assumptions. The Guardian (for one) has a go, but it doesn’t hack at the roots. The redtops don’t even behave as though the questions exist. They would rather tell us about Wayne Rooney or … well, Kate and Wills.

And perhaps that is the problem with the coverage of the Jubilee. It has become another celebrity story with which the redtops fill their front pages. And they are free to do so.

The Communist press, by contrast, is quite happy to hack at the roots of the system. (Not with subtlety; nor with evidence of independent thought on the part of individuals. That’s OK.) Or they too can obsess about the royals. And they are free to do so.  

There are places where this precious freedom does not exist. Syria springs to mind.

There are other countries whose leaders oppose sanctions against the Syrian regime. (Perhaps because they look at its actions and they see nothing wrong: they see normality: they see themselves.) Which countries would those be? Ah, yes, of course.

Thatcher said “There is no alternative.” She was wrong. There is an alternative. There has to be an alternative. But this isn’t it.