http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/7144135/CyberNat-trolls-are-sucking-the-life-out-of-polls.html
"IT’S one thing being a bad loser.
But it’s far more unpleasant to be sneered at by a bad WINNER — and, sadly, we’ve been over-run with them since last week’s Holy-rood elections.You know who you are. The ones who weren’t happy with doing your bit to help the SNP back into power, but felt the need to abuse anyone and everyone who didn’t.The very people who howl for freedom, but who in truth only mean the freedom to think the same way they do. An increasingly bitter brigade living by the divisive credo that others are either with you or against you.
And you know what? You’re taking the fun out of being Scottish.
The rise of the Nats has been so incredible, their influence on the landscape so significant, that even those who don’t share their politics should be able to admire their achievements.Yet the tighter their grip on our little country, the more difficult it is to love them, thanks both to the arrogance of some of their new breed of candidates and the aggression shown by too many unquestioning followers.
It’s not a healthy state of affairs. It’s no foundation on which to build a happy future.And unless they realise it and act on it, they will forever fall short of their ultimate goal of independence.In the wake of the results being announced last week, for instance, I lost count of the social media posts labelling those who’d boosted the Tories into second place as “c**ts”.
Well, not in my name they’re not. I’d never vote with them, but to do so is their personal choice — and it’s a hugely worrying trend that so many among us simply cannot accept this basic truth.
I read the bile these people spew, listen to some I think of as friends railing against those who don’t buy into nationalism, and really don’t want to be part of whatever it is they want Scotland to be.
What happened to democracy? To decency? To the Nats being the alternative to negative politics? This cool, progressive place to live they promised is instead in serious danger of turning into an ugly scrubland where any hint of opposition is seen as treason.
This week, as another for instance, Glasgow East MP Natalie McGarry — currently suspended by her party over allegations of financial wrongdoing — had to pay £10,000 in damages for calling No campaigner Alistair Cameron “an outed holocaust denier”.
Not only was this deeply offensive, she wasn’t even bright enough to defame the right person — she’d confused him with a blogger called Alistair McConnachie who HAD disputed that the Nazis used gas chambers.
If McGarry wore a Labour or a Tory rosette, the CyberNats would be tearing her limb from limb.
Yet where’s the outrage when it’s one of their own? Where’s their moral compass now?
As part of her punishment, McGarry was ordered to pin an apology to Cameron to her Twitter profile for two weeks. She put the post up, but then made it private so only her followers could see it. When Cameron complained, she made it public again, but is now randomly blocking users from seeing it. That’s the attitude the SNP’s new-found power has created — a culture of entitlement where too many feel they can say and do anything and then act all offended when they’re pulled up about it.
Was that the plan when they first shoved Labour aside in Holyrood then set about annexing a big slice of Westminster? To win at all costs and to hell with those who stand in their way?
Are these the supporters they wanted their policies to produce — angry, foul-mouthed, small-minded Little Scotlanders?
If so, count me in as one of The 45. No, not THAT 45 — the self-styled rebel force formed in the wake of the other 55 voting No. I mean the 45 per cent of the Scottish electorate who didn’t see the point in going to the polls last week.
They’re the ones the Nats COULD have won over, but who they are instead pushing away through their arrogance and allergy to accountability. The ones whose brief excitement about politics in the run-up to September 2014 was soon doused as it all settled back into the same old yah-boo guff we were promised would be no more.
Result? A 55 per cent turnout, down from over 84 per cent at the referendum. Barely half of the 4.4million registered to vote actually voting, of which the SNP got 46 per cent, taking away their Holyrood majority and leaving them less able to make things happen. Yet such is the denial among those blindly loyal to the cause that the result has still been widely described as “overwhelming” and “stunning” — with, of course, anyone who dares disagree being told that they’ll see you next Tuesday.
All of which leaves us with four years until the next General Election, four years during which we really have to take a look at ourselves and remember that we’re meant to be a nation, not a collection of tribes.
But for that to happen the Nats have to lead the way by admitting they have a problem and are dealing with it.
And as Ms McGarry has shown so clearly this week, it’s not an ability that comes naturally.
