posted on another site ,,,,,feckin telt
Good response from James Dornan to Mad Murdo Fraser:
Murdo Fraser, the Conservative MSP, decided to mention me in his diatribe “Does the SNP have a problem with Rangers?” published this week in an Edinburgh-based newspaper.
It was all good knockabout fun, worthy of the Rangers News or the Follow Follow fan website. But as a comment piece on politics it is as fanciful as his perpetual defending of Rangers supporters whenever they are accused of breaking the law.
Fraser states that there were scenes of disorder from a “small minority” when referring to the riots in George Square where Rangers fans went to celebrate their first title win in ten years. You would have thought if he was being even-handed he would have mentioned that the march and gathering took place illegally during a pandemic. Somehow he forgot.
Still, he is nothing if not consistent. In 2008 his “Queen’s Eleven” travelled to Manchester to play in a European final, a magnificent achievement. However, Rangers fans rioted, fighting the police, attacking everyone around them, while destroying anything in their way.
Fraser said the conduct of a “tiny minority” of fans was “disgraceful”. But he also said it was “questionable” whether the deployment of riot police was a proportionate response.
When I joined the SNP my parents were shocked — up to that point Labour was telling “Protestant communities” that Home Rule is Rome Rule, while telling “Catholic communities” the SNP would “close down their schools”.
I explained to them that outside of two members, one who had been in my son’s class and the other being Roseanna Cunningham, a Catholic whose religion had been used against her in a by-election, I had no idea about the religion of any politician in the party. To a great extent I still don’t, nor do I care. Neither I nor any of my colleagues use phrases like the “Queen’s Eleven”. For most adults religion, football and politics are separate things and it should shame Fraser that he uses them as he does to stir up division as a political tool.
I am not a Catholic, I’m an atheist. I don’t care who you are and neither does my party. But don’t think that gives you the right to trample over other communities. We expect all politicians to stand up and condemn law breaking, not defend it for political gain. The problem for Fraser is he thinks so little of his fellow Rangers fans that he believes their support for their football team denotes how they will vote. I can assure him it does not and his diatribe will not stop them putting the wellbeing of their families before the team they “follow, follow”.
James Dornan is the SNP member for Glasgow Cathcart