I know and respect Canon Tom White, who was attacked and spat upon after Mass as an Orange Walk passed St Alphonsus at the Barras. Fr Tom is parish priest at St Marys’s, Calton, the church were Br Walfrid decided to form a football club in 1887. He minsters to an overwhelmingly underprivileged part of the city, just as it was when Celtic were formed. When you speak to the man, you appreciate the drive to use our great football club for the reasons it was first conceived – to help those in need.
Police Scotland initially described what happened, not as a crime, but as a “minor incident” until the Archdiocese drew attention to the matter, at which point they realised this could not be swept under the brogues. It is now recorded as a hate crime.
Tweets of support from politicians are useless if they do not address the key question: what level of assault is required on a priest before Police Scotland are prepared, under their own measures, to consider a crime has been committed?
Today we know that level is higher than it should be, and that is the issue politicians should address.
On Friday, lawyers for Sports Direct went to court to assert their rights to match “some or all” of a third party’s offer to sell Newco merchandise. These rights were acquired under a contract, signed by Newco under Dave King’s regime.
The court issued an interim injunction, stopping any Newco branded merchandise from being sold (including replica strips).
The initial contract Dave King agreed with Sports Direct, allowed the retailer to match whatever offer Newco could get from a third party. Sports Direct are, therefore, entitled to the retail profits from Newco merchandise for a period which has not been confirmed yet. These profits will be significant.
This clause should have been cash neutral for Newco. They simply needed to get a competitive bids from other retailers, then allow Sports Direct to pass or take whatever they wanted – on the same terms.
Now we are in a different space. Any contracts made with other retailers are legally enforceable by the retailer, but impossible for Newco to deliver without satisfying Sports Direct. Or, I suppose, committing Contempt of Court – you know Dave!
I suspect they simply forgot about the Sports Direct contract, which speaks of a competency you and I can scarcely comprehend. Rushing out a blabbering statement about the SPFL chairman on Saturday has to be the most transparent attempt to pull wool over their own supporters’ eye yet.
The worst (best) possible person campaigned to get control of Newco. He chased one of Europe’s richest men away. Each year he re-invents the same old garbage about having everything in place, while the only achievement he manages to record is the compliance of pet journalists and media organisations.
The entire club has reached an utterly brilliant level of dysfunction. You know how this ends.
254 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- »
Auldheid
He didn’t resign to leave the government.
He resigned because he wants to lead the government.
And of not him, then Rees-Mogg, slithering into pole position on his own chariot of privilege?
I see little reason to celebrate
HH jamesgang
Officers investigating the hate crime said the identity of the attacker is still to be established, however there are reports a man, with a shaven head, aged between 20 and 30, was involved.
Cops are also checking reports a young man was seen trying to hit the priest with a baton.
Police are urging members of the parade to come forward to help identify whoever is responsible for the shameful incident.
Superintendent John McBride said: “We will not tolerate any form of hate crime and behaving in such a way is contemptible.
“I would like to assure everyone that those who choose to react in a sectarian or religiously motivated matter will be identified and dealt with under the law.
MONAGHAN1900 on 9TH JULY 2018 3:59 PM
Dumbstruck
https://en-gb.facebook.com/Cloughfern-junior-williamites-Jlol58-1582612172068653/
——————————————————————————————————————————————
Me too!
…and dumfounded!
…and speechless!
The messages on their page appear to have been composed(?!) by a pre-school infant!
HH!!
Bada
Shaven head – probably was wearing a bowler hat
Gene- looks like the polis have had their cage rattled to get their finger out.HH
GENE on 9TH JULY 2018 4:10 PM
Bada
Shaven head – probably was wearing a bowler hat
————
No bowler hats among that mob. A curious mix of Hi DI Hi and On the Buses.
THE BLOGGER FORMERLY KNOWN AS GM on 9TH JULY 2018 3:26 PM
GM, as a Parish Community we will not let this rest. I can say more eon this tomorrow.
PARKHEADCUMSALFORD on 9TH JULY 2018 3:48 PM
e-mail me at vfr@girfuy.co.uk and I can get more details to pass on to Canon Tom this evening.
KTF
Do the polis not wear body cameras?
TALLYBHOY on 9TH JULY 2018 4:08 PM
The messages on their page appear to have been composed(?!) by a pre-school infant!
————
None other than the “Superintendent”!!
Vfr
More power to you and your parish community
Bada
From the description sounds like a chelski fan.
So if you are carrying a baton in public you are either 1…Out looking for trouble…
2….. A serving police officer……or … 3 ….. in a band…., now it cannot be# no 3 because the spokesman for the OO told us it wasn’t,# I think number 2 is also unlikely as that we bit of info might have leaked out by now……
So number 1 and it then becomes a serious problem as its obviously premeditated, which carries a jail sentence if I remember correctly, now all they have to do is find the culprit.
# assuming he ain’t lying through his teeth here.
Bigots then bigots now bigots forever….
I have spent a large part of today putting this appalling story out onto English language message boards and news blogs here in Norway, and asking Norwegian friends to raise it, in Norwegian, on the online sites of NRK, VG, Aftenposten and the other mainstream news networks.
With special reference to Police Scotland’s shameful first statement on the attack, which beggars belief even for me, born and brought up in Glasgow through the 60s and 70s.
The reaction amongst Norwegians so far has been one of shock and complete outrage.
This country takes basic human rights very seriously indeed, and hearing about a man of the cloth – ANY cloth – and his parishioners being treated in such a way by a supremacist gang of thugs has genuinely shaken people over here.
Tonight I will send the story – with the Police Scotland statements and links to the coverage today – to friends and contacts in several countries across the world.
I really believe that the wider the international audience the better, in the hope that our global neighbours will shine a light into the dirty little kailyard that is Scotland, and straight into the eyes of those smug, smirking establishment placemen who allow such obscene behaviour through on the nod.
Rant over.
If he wasn’t part of the OO , would the fact that he was carrying a baton not alert the police that was a dangerous weapon ?.
Naw, too simple…
remember my late father telling me, the orange barstewards tried to walk through his beloved croy, many many years ago, but were given short shrift.hh.
a man with a shaven head……..cannae be many of them about
Some on here have been saying,”What would have happened if that had been a Mosque,and an I mam attacked”.I can tell you.There would have been thousands of Moslems on the streets of Glasgow today.I can tell you.There would have been maybe ,tens of thousands,of seething Moslems on the streets of Glasgow today.And rightly so.Catholics in Scotland have for too long ,turned the other cheek.1When I was young,my Father used to go mad at the “Alter rail huggers”,as he called them.Full of,”Oh,let them have their day”.”Just ignore them”.
Look at the reaction today.Plenty on this blog angry,putting it mildly.A petition,which considering we have 53,000 ST holders at Celtic Park alone,has reached,15,000.I fear tho old attitude,which my Father railed against many years ago,still prevails.Hand wringing,turning a blind eye.
The only way is to meet force with force.If there had been 200 outside the Chapel defending it,does anyone think the Police would have allowed it to happen?They would have been re-directed.Thousands blocking the streets will bring it to head better than any petition,or venting anger on a football blog.Sadly,when it comes to this type of action,the scrum leave us standing.
shurely the digitally enhanced cameras located in the city centre would picked this shaven head guy out…..or could it be he was wearan wan they bald heeded wigs officer.
Headlines coming up in Scotland this week
a row has broken out between the Catholic Church and yada yada
Brendan Rodgers sparks racism row yada yada yada
Keiran Tierney not good enough for yada yada yada
Hibs set to ‘snub’ Celtic again
Murdoch McLennan considering his future
Stevie Gee set to……..’ swoop for yada yada yada
CQN csc
BOURNESOUPRECIPE on 9TH JULY 2018 4:48 PM
You forgot Comical Dave’s ‘feud’ with the Takeover Panel.
DAVID17
Excellent
Auldheid,
I heard about Davies about midnight. That cheered me; Johnson going improved my mood. These morons are leading us to the abyss. I hope to God that Gove and Fox follow their lead and take the likes of Rees Mogg with them.
I presume they’re plotting to down May and take over. I hope the rest of the Tories keep her in charge. She’s not my idea of a Prime Minister but she seems to realise that the softer the Brexit the better for the country.
We might not even get a Brexit, if the other parties demand another referendum as the price of letting her stay in power until the negotiations are complete.
No party in Scotland with aspirations of forming a government will confront the OO and ban their insidious parades.
Usually round about now we’ll get Martin Niemöller?
So many good comments this morning..hard to keep track..
Starts with Paul67, then Neganon2, Battered Bunnet, VFR, Topkat, Parkheadcumsalfor, weebobbycollins..
Top marks to all of them and more besides..
To VFR (or others in the know)
This Orange & Purple band chose to march along the Gallowgate, then left into Kent Street before turing right into London Road. I don’t know where their gang hut is, but it appears that they deliberately marched on this route so that it would take them past St Alphonsus – just as Saturday evening mass was kicking out.
It’s one thing for “spokesman” to claim that the assailants were nothing to do with the OO, but when their member band elects to take a route that is designed to be deliberately provocative to a religious minority while in the act of that religion – then their deniability is groundless. When you also consider that followers usually are family/friends/fellow club members of the band, it becomes very clear how well they plan these confrontations – or baiting of a religious minority.
Their custom in practice is to march weherever and whenevr they want – on the Queens highway.
They consider this to be sacrosanct & above ANY other law in the land.
They know that they have no real control over member bands during the day & none at all over the baying mobs that encourage sectarian abuse – especially near Catholic churches.
Their refusal to be accounatble for violence or intimidation is founded in their culture of marching arrogance & contempt for the rest of society.
The action of Police Scotland so far has not been professional or frankly competent. They have a big recovery job on their hands if they want to regain (?) the confidence of many of us. If the police knew this was a flashpoint (the stationing of officers makes this clear) then a mad rush of every police officer there to an as yet unknown police emergency close by – looks either suspicious or very Keystone cops. Neither option are enhanced by the initial police response to the assault.
As others have made clear, these marches take place because the Police in Glasgow allow it. The Council have the authority to refuse them but they rely on the Police, just as Aberdeen did, to formally submit the objections during the application process. Largely, the Council’s hands are tied if the Police do not oppose the granting. The Police rationale for NOT objecting to these marches, with their disruption, drunkenness, abuse & intimidation is hard to fathom for the public. The legacy of the past is never far away & tradition is as much concept for Polcie as it is for that sectarian club. However, the Police almost seem scared to ban these marches – perhaps they fear that the response would be lawlessness that is NOT pemitted as opposed to the licensed lawlessness that we witnessed in London Road near Kent Street.
In an era when the Police have happily mustered heavy resources to pen & arrest Football fans who posed no real threat to public order, it’s hard not to conclude that critical mass lawbreaking is allowed while the smaller group infractions are subject to zero tolerance.
There’s also the clear inference of political interference in operational policing priorities. The OBA Act still haunts Scotland.
Good wishes to Father Tom White & those parishioners who were also impacted by this hate crime.
HH
Like most people today I’ve been saddened and angered by the events of the weekend.
Also like most I feel this incident would have been dealt with differently if the clergy attacked had been a Rabbi or an Imam so what does that say about our nation?
Is it the West of Scotland historical mindset that permeates, what I believe, most levels of political and Civil power in the land or is it something else.
Most people that I grew up with in the 70’s were on the receiving end of this at one time or another.
Wearing a Celtic scarf was a ‘free pass’ for verbal sometimes physical abuse.
The comments made today by people from far afield giving this story oxygen beyond these shores is part of the modern age where yet again the media and powers that be struggle to contain the narrative.
The celebration of your Culture (whatever that means) should in no way infringe on the liberties or common decency expected in any normal society. When it does, and it is allowed to pass unchallenged, then the whole of society is on a slippery slope.
There does seem to be a certain section of society that has a mindset that ‘If I’m not better than a (here insert any religion) then I’m nothing’. Unfortunately these individuals cannot make themselves feel better except through intimidation and violence.
Similarly organisations talk about their ‘right to do this’ or their ‘right to do that’ well with that right comes responsibility and if you cannot or will not discharge your rights responsibly then your right should be removed for the general benefit of society.
Gareth Southgate to replace Boris Johnson?
I see that I dn’t know my left from my right.
It would be left from Kent Street into London Road.
Still Lost CSC
Theresa yer teas oot
‘arry Kane, new Foreign Secretary?
HH!!
Ikea have just hung up on Theresa May.
Turkeybhoy
I don’t know how people would have reacted in Glasgow had this happened to an Imam outside a Mosque, because I haven’t lived in Glasgow since 1979, but I did live in the Bradford area for a lot of years when English Fascists and their fellow-travellers regularly attacked and desecrated Mosques.
The attitude of the huge majority of Moslems towards this was to put up with it in silence, just as a majority of Irish Catholic descent in Scotland have done with the same discrimination over the decades.
I don’t think the answer is meeting fire with fire. The answer is to target the figures who are paid to uphold a fair and democratic society, ie MPs, MSPs, Police Scotland, the Press; and pressure them to do what they are f*****g well paid to do.
Without the MPs, Press and police looking the other way, which is a sleek it and slimy form of approval of their behaviour, the OO would wither and die within 5 years.
From the pics of the “procession” there weren’t many police around or police vans…… mibees a lazy Saturday afternoon was on the cards……hey billy when dis that kettling and tea potting thing start up again
Turkeybhoy on 9th July 2018 4:43 pm
The only way is to meet force with force.If there had been 200 outside the Chapel defending it,does anyone think the Police would have allowed it to happen?They would have been re-directed.Thousands blocking the streets will bring it to head better than any petition,or venting anger on a football blog.Sadly,when it comes to this type of action,the scrum leave us standing.
===
Do you believe that individuals would have the stomach for such a confrontation in Scotland and be prepared to face the consequences if things got out of hand – jail etc. Growing up in North Belfast confronting them was ingrained in us turning the other cheek was never an option regardless of the consequences however Glasgow isn’t Belfast it isn’t as tribal with the clear demarcations that exist in Belfast. We had a community defending their families, friends and the area they lived.
HH
Turkeybhoy…had it been an imam, the culprit(s) would have already been arrested…and the 200 defenders outside the chapel would have been huckled away long before the zombies arrived…
The marchers are bad enough but the utter scum that drunkenly follow follow them through the streets are extremely dangerous, fascist bigots…
Regards
greeninbingleyinoslo
I agree entirely with that strategy.
We’d be wasting time & energy in any dialogie with those who march or who defend those who march/haners on.
The Police have a statutory duty in all areas here – they’re tasked with preventing & detecting crime & maintaining public order. They are THE body that controls whether the marches are permitted at all or even with restrictions. The council are required to consider applications and they seek input from the Police to allow them to decide to grant/refuse/grant with restrictions.
Since we don’t have a Parades Commission this process is the only one available to Glasgow to scrutinize the applications and look at how theese marches have been conducted in the past.
Representations to the Police in whatver way AND to Glasgow councillors. This has to be replicated across Scotland where these marches are planned.
The prospect for public disorder & thus crime & initimidation is always there but when they choose routes to deliberately go past Catholic churches or through known Catholic areas, then their intent is very clear.
Any Police failure to recognize this procative behaviour and /or to take responsibility for it in the licensing stage or operationally needs to be brought back to haunt them.
If we can bring Resolution 12 to SFA action/notice then nothing is impossible.
HH
Petition signed.
Booked a surprise for my bhoys 21st next month.
Santa Ponza for ten days, he will be over the moon until i tell him it’s the two of us going together.?
There from 10th- 25 August if anyone on here will be there, it would be good to meet up as my bhoy will be out hunting for the duration. :((
Genuine question.
Are there any orange lodges in the Highlands and islands ?
Are there any parades in the rural areas ?