It’s been some months since Mr S last reported on the antics of James Dornan, the SNP MSP and amateur Hate-Finder General. The gaffe-prone Glaswegian managed, in the space of just one week, to get himself embroiled in multiple minor scandals after accusing an Edinburgh bus company had stopped services on St Patrick’s Day because of ‘anti-Irish racism’ (an untrue claim for which he had no evidence) and then for refusing to apologise for claiming Rangers’ players had sung a sectarian tune (another untrue claim based on poorly-doctored footage). Three weeks later he also told the Catholic leader of the Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg: ‘If your God exists you will undoubtedly rot in hell.’ Nice!
Undaunted by past controversies, the amateur sleuth is back on the detective trail again. The Sherlock Holmes of Holyrood has deduced that the perpetrators of an attack on his office – in which a sign was taken down and allegedly urinated upon – were none other than… Gers fans. Steerpike is no fan of such stunts but is there any evidence that ‘Rangers supporters’ taking ‘out their anger and hatred’ were responsible for this act? More than 24 hours after naming and blaming the Ibrox club, Dornan is yet to corroborate his claims. He has posted screenshots from a Rangers website in which anonymous users express their hopes that supporters were responsible – but crucially, nothing to show that they were in fact responsible.
In light of Dornan’s habit of throwing around allegations without evidence, it seems only fair to ask: does he have any proof to back up his accusations? As mentioned previously, it’s not the first time Dornan – the poor man’s Mike Russell – has had run-ins with Rangers. In March 2019, the Celtic-mad MSP was forced to apologise to Rangers fan group Club 1872 after complaining they ‘abuse him regularly’ on their website and that moderators fail to monitor their user content. Amusingly, this is the same MSP who subsequently penned an article for the Times titled: ‘Keep politics out of football and we’ll all be winners.’
A member of Scotland’s governing party using his position to repeatedly demonise one of his city’s biggest clubs? Even Poirot wouldn’t have trouble solving this one.
Comments