His new piece invokes one of my own favourite subjects, the Eurovision Song Contest, and innocently inquires what Scotland can learn from it. The punchline comes at the end, when he mentions that the Eurovision voting system does not automatically give the majority what they want, but instead gives weight to expert opinion, because experts sometimes know best. "Interesting" says Mark. So this appears to be a call for democracy in Scotland to be semi-dismantled and replaced with an electoral college system in which only 50% of the vote goes to the public, and the other 50% goes to unionist "experts". And that is, to be fair, pretty much the only "voting system" I can think of that might have any chance at all of electing Douglas Ross as First Minister.
But well disguised, Mark, I'm sure no-one even noticed how barking mad your worldview must be.
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While I'm on the subject of Eurovision, this is the final call for any genuine Eurovision fan who has heard this year's songs and fancies giving opinions on them in a special edition of the Scot Goes Popcast, ideally to be recorded at some point tomorrow. If no-one volunteers, you'll be getting a monologue, I give you fair warning of this. My contact details can be found in the sidebar on the desktop version of the site, or on my Twitter profile.
I'm still in shock that Tick Tock didn't get though, but Russia's entry did. It was a terrible song - even if the Dalek dress was kinda cool
ReplyDeleteJames, end your obsession with Independence, well for this weekend only.
ReplyDeleteI watched the semi-finals on Tuesday and Thursday and the songs I liked failed to qualify. The southern Balkan countries all seemed to be in last night's semi except Northern Macedonia and they probably voted "neighbourly" Bulgaria, Greece, Moldova and Albania all went through along with Serbia from the north.
For all Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater 'don't really care about independence' they talk an awful lot about it.
ReplyDeleteRather that just about how they hate sturgeon and disabled loos are dangerous cos they're 'mixed sex'.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19318468.patrick-harvie-must-now-show-urgency-case-independence/
And it is notable since the election how all the talk of iref2 being blocked is now being heavily toned down.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/19319210.adam-tomkins-holyrood-run-indyref2-may-deemed-legal-supreme-court/
After all, blocking an indyref would be the same as the USSR preventing e.g. Polish independence. Lots of our European neighbors have been through this, from Ireland to Estonia. It would not be a good look for the UK to forcibly occupy another European country against the will of it's people in such a way.
Scotland reaching the Euro finals was really ideal timing to highlight this point.
We've had their views on how little they care about freedom for Scotland from their own mouths.
DeleteWe don't need murrell apologists to translate for us.
I want Ukraine to win as the song is unusual and in Ukrainian. I wouldn't be sad if Albania or Switzerland won either. I don't understand why people like the Greeks, Dutch and Swedes sing in English, or anyone else other than Britain (or whatever it calls itself in the Eurovision), Ireland, Malta and at a push Cyprus.
ReplyDeleteIf for no other reason, if the lyrics are crap but sung in Georgian or Macedonian, few peopl outside those countries with realise that.
Scotland being banned from Eurovision must have been one of the scare stories form 2014. There were so many that they all blur together.
ReplyDeleteScotland not hosting the Open golf was a good one.
Also Scottish players not being eligible to play for the British, British Isles, or British & Irish Lions. Whatever they are called nowadays. They've played under each of those names during Andy Nicol's lifetime, which made his comment even more pathetic.