Michael Kelly's insinuations of fascism

Apparently having failed to spot that his comrades have made utter fools of themselves by claiming there is some kind of 'moral obligation' on Scotland to sacrifice its tourist industry by accepting joint ownership of riots that have nothing to do with us, Michael Kelly has belatedly decided to join in -

"Nationalism as a political philosophy has too many overtones of authoritarianism and discrimination to sound attractive to anyone who has studied the history of Europe in the 20th century. Supporters of the SNP would, no doubt, point to the number of legitimate struggles for independence from overbearing colonial power waged on other continents during the latter part of that period. But in those countries there were deep, just grievances as indigenous peoples saw their resources exploited for the benefit of the foreign conquerors.

Scotland is suffering no such enslavement, ill-treatment or bleeding dry."

Translation : any nationalism that is not borne out of brutal oppression is automatically fascism, but I'd really rather not utter such a demonstrably silly sentiment directly, so I'll just say it by insinuation.

Not good enough, Michael. I can do no better than to quote the words of the former Presiding Officer George Reid -

"Each nation has its own private place in space, time, history, social and economic development. Any attempt to link the SNP and the Nazis, as happened in the Kinross and Perth by-election, is as foolish as lumping John Smith and Stalin together because both were socialists. Similarly, while all democrats will rejoice in the re-found freedom of the peoples of Eastern Europe, any attempt to make direct comparisons with where they came from, and where we are, would be offensive. And any association of the SNP with violence is absurd, given the party's 60 years of absolute dedication to pacific, civic nationalism."

Stalin or Hitler?

It's the debate that's raged for decades - was Stalin worse than Hitler? Is communism intrinsically even more evil than fascism? This story settles the matter conclusively. It seems fascist countries could only win the Eurovision Song Contest by cheating. Communism may be responsible for the deaths of millions, but one thing is beyond dispute - it won its sole victory at the Eurovision by talent (ahem) alone.

I'm sure no-one needs reminding, but the song in question was "Rock me, baby" by Riva, which won for Yugoslavia in 1989. As with the seemingly corrupt Spanish victory in 1968, it was the UK that was edged into second place with the (really quite good) "Why Do I Always Get It Wrong?". To clarify in the words of the Swiss host on the night - "that isn't my question, it's the name of song from United Kingdom..."