Source: Reuters
George Square was invaded last night by the worst elements of scum Scotland has to offer. This came after weeks of peaceful demonstrations in Glasgow’s centre, resulting in no arrests.
Nonetheless, a night of violence and terror ensued. I’ve analysed the BBC’s coverage of this event. Additionally I pulled together the videos showing what really happened. Read, then watch. Make up your own mind.
This will be no means a balanced article as I could not find any balance – no matter how hard I tried. I scoured YouTube for examples of Yes supporters acting in such a way, on such a scale. It was to no avail.
As we live in a democracy still, I think, feel free to share evidence proving me wrong. I’ll happily eat my words. If you can make it so.
Let me say first, I do not agree with the No vote but I can appreciate why people voted for it – if not understand.
I feel no ill will for those people. The referendum was democracy in action, the people chose as was their right.
I have my gripes that my home council of North Lanarkshire and my city of Glasgow voted to leave the union, and were ultimately denied this. We went against the will of the wider country, such is the nature of the beast.
The BBC article reported the clash, in a troubling manner. I’ll be looking at the article “Scottish referendum: More arrests pledged over George Square disorder” published on the afternoon of Saturday 20 September.
It said: “Officers, some on horses, moved in to separate a large number of people waving union jacks from a group of “Yes” supporters in George Square on Friday evening.”
Note the use of language here. A ‘large’ number of ‘people waving union jacks’ were separated from ‘Yes supporters’.
Surely these union jack waving individuals are ‘No’ supporters? If this large group had people waving Saltires what’s the chances they would have been labeled Yes supporters?
On this same level, how do we know the man who hit Jim Murphy with an egg was a Yes supporter? It could have been a Better Together campaigning student upset at how he betrayed the NUS. Or a unionist of Iraqi heritage pissed off Murphy backed an illegal war. Hell, it could have been an English man offended by Murphy’s very presence in existence, as he is after all, a highly vile person. We all no the BBC exercised no restraint in labelling malcontents as Yes supporters throughout the whole two-year campaign.
So now, let’s properly balance the article with the appropriate labels: “Officers, some on horses, moved in to separate a large number of No supporters from a small group of Yes supporters in George Square on Friday evening.”
This sounds more balanced – but it is not perfect yet. What happened here was that a ‘large’ group was ‘separated’ from a smaller group.
Here is a question. Why were the groups separated?
Violence erupted after the No voters stormed the square. I have video evidence below. Scots were told not to wear the Saltire because the police could not protect people from this mob, the officer said – “I am not your bodyguard”.
Now we are getting closer to what happened. Yes supporters were assaulted and intimidated. Let’s re-jig the copy yet again.
“Officers, some on horses, moved in to protect Yes supporters from a sizable mob of No supporters who stormed George Square, where they arrested eleven members from the group for acts of violence and public disorder.”
Now, this story is backwards. And its never been more accurate. The videos below tell the truth.
Later, the article said: “The square had previously hosted a pro-independence party ahead of Thursday’s referendum.”
It is worth interesting that the Yes campaign’s gathering of diverse supporters from across the region – coming together in political solidarity – was dubbed a ‘party’.
Over 2,000 individuals filled the square on Thursday. Was that a party too? A weird choice of words for one of the most significant political gatherings in Glasgow’s long political history.
A BBC article published earlier on the 20th of September as the riots were happening called “Scottish referendum: Police separate rival groups in Glasgow” was slightly more honest in its approach to the incident. Nonetheless, it was still reluctant to call the ‘large number of people waving union jacks’ No supporters.
It said: “The trouble began when the Union supporters fired a flare and charged. Friday evening’s confrontation started quickly with flares being fired and a “co-ordinated” charge from the Unionist side, who were singing Rule Britannia. Some of the pro-Union side were carrying banners featuring Loyalist imagery.”
The article sticks to the facts and to an extent placed the blame on the violent No supporters, the following article studied earlier did not. But it seemed to follow a greater BBC policy to dissociate the thugs from the No campaign.
It continues: “A large group of Union supporters later gathered in George Square again, this time at the top of the square next to Queen Street Station. They sang Rule Britannia and a flare was let off. Police formed a human barrier to block off the route to Buchanan Street – where scuffles also broke out – and contain people in the square.”
Following this critique is all the footage I could find of the riots. You make your own mind up whether this was well reported on. Even add your own videos in the comments section.
Here are further videos you will have to access through the links because I’m having trouble embedding them with WordPress. Click through, they are worth seeing. Share this as you read it, as many people need to see these videos as possible.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10202806902641500&id=1468866766
Posted on September 20, 2014
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