Kaye Adams, the host of Mornings, With Kaye Adams on BBC Radio Scotland, is the reason why so many people who support independence do not tune into the station.
You need to be a special sort of masochist to want to start your day risking an aneurism as Kaye indulges herself in her patented brand of cringe Scottish/British nationalism. Most BBC presenters who oppose Scottish independence at least try and hide their political preferences; Kaye doesn't seem to bother.
Her BBC Radio Scotland call in show, Call Kaye, which ran until 2015, became notorious for the seeming preference it gave to callers who espoused vehement anti-independence views and visceral hatred for the SNP, leading to rumours that a caller could only get on air if they were listed in Kaye's Bumper Book of British Nationalists.
The same perceived anti-SNP and anti-independence bias pervades Adams' current programming. During a discussion about the UK Covid Inquiry on her show on Wednesday, Adams interrupted a contributor, columnist for The National Kelly Given, to comment that Nicola Sturgeon is “not a human being”.
Discussing the recent media furore around Nicola Sturgeon's WhatsApp messages, Given said: "Nicola Sturgeon has submitted evidence to this inquiry, she's submitted her informal messaging, and I think we need to take that at face value, she's done that. Why are we holding these people to account as if they’re not human beings? Nicola Sturgeon got a new phone or deleted her messages or whatever...”
However, she was unable to finish her sentence as Adams interrupted her in order to Britnatsplain: "Because in this instance they're not human beings, they're politicians."
Kelly Given (below) responded: "Politicians are human beings."
In the eyes of Kaye Adams, politicians – particularly pro-independence politicians – lose their status as human beings the second that they are elected on a pro-independence platform. From that moment on their entire lives, both public and private, apparently become fair game for the attack dogs of the anti-independence media in Scotland, and subject to dehumanising language from BBC broadcasters.
Following the remarks, SNP MP Pete Wishart demanded an apology from the BBC, saying: "Absolutely shocking. I hope @BBCScotland think about an apology, or at least some sort of correction, for this."
Sturgeon’s clown comment makes her most relatable politician in the country
In WhatsApp messages sent to her former chief of staff Liz Lloyd, Nicola Sturgeon described the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson as a "f***ing clown," adding that Johnson's "incompetence in every sense is now offending me on behalf of politicians everywhere". She's not wrong.
The messages also revealed Sturgeon saying Boris Johnson's comms "are [beyond] awful" before she added: "We're not perfect but we don't get nearly enough credit for how much better than them we are."
Lloyd meanwhile said she was "offended on behalf of special advisers everywhere".
We have to congratulate the Scottish media, in their attempts to throw mud at the former First Minister they have merely made her look like the most relatable politician in the country.
The topic of the Covid Inquiry and Scottish Government WhatsApp messages dominated First Minister's Questions, as Scottish Tory girner-in-chief Douglas Ross attempted to deflect public attention from the chaos, incompetence, and corruption which characterised the Conservative Government's woeful mishandling of the pandemic by aggressively questioning the deletion of Sturgeon's WhatsApp messages.
Unlike the Conservatives, who did use informal messaging for making policy decisions, the Scottish Government did not, yet the Scottish Government has provided reams of information, including thousands of WhatsApp messages, to the Inquiry.
Compare and contrast with Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, both of whom gave variants of the dog ate my homework excuse to the Inquiry for their inability – or rather unwillingness – to share their WhatsApp messages with the Inquiry.
These blatant lies from two men who were fined by the police for breaching the rules they imposed on the rest of us went unremarked by most of that Scottish media which is currently baying for SNP blood.
Douglas Ross is being as disingenuous and misleading as ever
On the day that we heard Scotland Secretary Alister Jack would not be giving evidence to the Inquiry, and as Humza Yousaf is due to give evidence, it is pretty rich of Ross to accuse the Scottish Government of a culture of secrecy.
As the First Minister noted: "Douglas Ross talks about a culture of secrecy? We handed over 28,000 messages, 19,000 documents, the former FM did 250 media briefings - taking questions from journalists day after day. That hardly rings true of a government hiding from scrutiny."
Alister Jack won't even deign to come down off his high horse long enough to give evidence.
Ross claimed that the evidence provided by Lloyd proved that the Scottish Government was trying to use the pandemic for political purposes.
He's being as disingenuous and misleading as ever, taking Lloyd's notes out of context – the context being that the Scottish Government wanted to take further action to limit the spread of Covid-19, but since it had no powers over furlough, it had to pressure the Conservative Government to extend furlough to Scotland.
Nowhere in any of this do we hear what this supposed Scottish Government "culture of secrecy" was trying to cover up. If there was the merest snifter of the corruption, incompetence and rule breaking which was going on in Downing Street, the opposition parties and the Scottish media would be going to town on it.
But all we get is innuendo and a desperate attempt to paint a moral equivalence between Holyrood and Westminster.
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