[Updated 17.30 below] In Today’s edition of the Sunday Herald, which declared firmly for the pro-indy campaign back at Easter, attempts to make a blatant and utterly groundless smear on Labour. This betrays what standards the press still has left – and also lays bare the pressure the indy camp is now feeling from the focused Labour campaign to save the Union. Desperate times clearly breed desperate measures.
On Page 15, the top two thirds is given over to a photograph of pro-independence actor, David Hayman with a flaring headline tying his name to a statement he has not made:
‘Hayman: Labour council is trying to cripple my pro-independence show’.
Since the text of the article makes no further reference to Labour,. nor reports Hayman as even saying the name of the party, the paper’s amateur smear makes a fool of Hayman – who appears to have uttered the unsubstantiated nonsense – as well as delaminating what is left of its own reputation.
The council in question – would you believe, is our own Argyll and Bute – which has not had a single Labour councillor since 1999 and has only recently elected its first candidate since then – Neil Macintyre in Oban South and the Isles.
The council is controlled by a mixumgatherun of all sorts – Argyll’s bad habit of discredited leading independents along with unbranded refugees from the SNP’s self-engineered meltdown, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives. The single new Labour councillor sits as the only true independent in the council.
So who wrote the Sunday Herald headline – and on what basis; and how does David Hayman feel about seeming to be the idiot who made a screaming claim he could not justify?
Hayman’s complaint IS with Argyll and Bute Council which he alleges has been dilatory if not obstructive is adding the dates of his current touring show, the pro-indy, The Pitiless Storm, to its online Events Diary. He claims venues he is using, mentioning Dunoon, Oban and Helensburgh, repeatedly assure him that the show dates will appear on the council website – but that this has not been done.
The joke is that this particular news source hardly acts as a recruiting sergeant for anything but, nevertheless, the lack of attention to his show sees the actor quoted by the paper as saying: ‘It’s a denial of my right to free speech, my right to artistic expression and my right to earn a living.’
This way over-the-top whinge can only provoke the advice to keep taking the tablets and lie down quietly for a while in a dark place until this feeling passes.
Whether or not the Council has behaved manipulatively – and that would be far from uncharacteristic – in not publicising Mr Hayman’s show, the failure to publicise what he is selling does not in any way affect his right to free speech, his freedom of artistic expression or his ‘right’ to earn a crust.
If venues were refusing to take his money and host his show that would be a different matter- but that does not appear to be the case.
In this shrilly, the actor makes a fool of himself and his profession. He also betrays an uncomfortable sense of entitlement.
No one has a right to publicity – unless they have paid for advertising and the service has not been delivered. The council is under no obligation of which we are aware to publicise anything except statutory public information.
July is also the Council’s holiday month and it is quite likely that this may have had an impact on an organisation which is hardly the quickest off the block at the best of times.
However, whatever the council has or has not been up to, For Argyll will happily publicise the dates of Mr Hayman’s touring show – and will also publish, unedited, whatever he wishes to say about it, should he care to send us the information.
For Argyll is openly not – now – pro-independence but we have never prevented anyone from putting their views on our pages and we have often published articles by others putting the contrary view.
The offer is a genuine one in the interests of information on a touring event our widespread readership – politically as well as geographically – will be interested in knowing about.
17.30 update: For Argyll has made contact with Labour party representatives on this smear attempt by a national newspaper. We understand that Labour party figures have asked The Sunday Herald to issue a note of correction and acknowledge the mistaken direction of the original article.
The online version has now been corrected – but with no note to say that what it now carries is a revised version.
One of the Labour people who asked for acknowledgment of correction is MAry Galbraith, Labour;s candidate for Argyll and Bute in the 2015 General Election. She told us:
‘This is a very revealing and embarrassing incident for the Sunday Herald. It shows their desperation to smear Labour at any cost; even when it only needed something as simple as verifying the political make-up of a council.
‘For all we know, the Sunday Herald knew the truth, that Labour had no say in these matters inside Argyll & Bute. But in their desperation to run any story badmouthing a party that is winning the No argument in the referendum, they went ahead anyway.’
What is also interesting is that when the original version appeared online, it was immediately followed by a flurry of cybernat abuse of Labour. This must have been pre-orchestrated, as is hardly unfamiliar – because, had the abusers read the piece, they would have had absolutely no reason other than the headline, to attack Labour – which had no traction whatsoever on anything Argyll and Bute Council did or did not do.
