Hireling Traitor's Wages

…wrought now by a coward few,

For hireling traitor's wages…*

Let's just talk about treachery for a minute. Now that Scottish Labour have descended into the pits of stupidity and compiled clypegate.

Here we have a document, so amateurish in its construction as to defy belief that it was put together by a serious political party with any serious purpose.

I'll actually begin by saying, on first reading it, I found a handful of folk publishing tweets using language that would sound commonplace in an energetic pub discussion. Not the language of political discourse, I grant you, but the cut and thrust of rowdy, slightly pissed rantings later on of a Saturday. In fact, I'd expect the Labour Party's founders in smoke-filled rooms and public meetings back in the day would have given as good as they got in similar terms and called it 'part of the struggle'.

Now, I don't tweet (canny hack it) but I Facebook and blog and some of the terms of endearment I've seen bandied isn't to my taste. But, hey, I'm used to conversations with a few expletives. The clypegate revelations are little different in tone, milder, if I'm honest. I've heard much worse on the tweety tongues of the other side. Vile cyber-bollocks, maybe, but I'm thick-skinned. Scottish Labour are not, it would seem. Or else they're disingenuous and, in the footballing manner, taking the sympathy dive.

But treachery. That struck me. Reading the document and the highlighted terms picked out for all to gasp at I found the word 'traitor' seemed most prevalent. Now against so much abuse I wondered at how come that's the word to get singled out.

So I looked up traitor and found this definition:



Note this definition (first to appear on a Google search, by the way) extends the term to betrayal of a friend, cause or principle. Of course, it has a patriotic nuance, much favoured by jingoists and nationalists of many flavours (Brit-nat not the least). It's susceptible to this interpretation in many of the clypegate tweets but I think you can equally read political betrayal into many of them.

I say this because Labour collectively or as individuals can be called 'traitors' for the simple reason of the political betrayal of their own principles, their working class cause and, in this instance, all of these in the social and geographic context of Scotland. To strip that away and just wave the 'see the vicious nationalists' flag is thoroughly cheap. A mere political trick, one belonging firmly in the politics of the past that still grinds away in Westminster.

So, I come simply to conclude Scottish Labour and, because they're inseparable from their southern masters, the entire Labour Party are traitors. Forget the patriot spin, because that's the Tory, right-wing mantra. Labour have betrayed their working class roots, they've sacrificed their principles and no longer even bother to put up any opposition in Westminster.

In Scotland, as I've said here before, the antecedents of the labour movement, Hardie, MacLean, Aldred, Shinwell, must be birling in their graves. Too many following them have worn Labour colours to find their way to the comfortable benches of power and taken the Queen's shuln for their trouble. They bought into the establishment. Their betrayal, in that regard, is not only of Scotland but of the entire UK nation of working people, of the people whose interests lie at the heart of the Labour cause. They are now abandoned. By the above definition, this is treachery and those who are responsible are traitors.

The use of these terms, traitor, quisling, and the like isn't an insult, it's a description of an insult: the actions of the Labour party itself. They have made themselves quislings by colluding with their opponents, the Tories and Liberal Democrats, in the referendum. 'Quisling, as you'll note is included in the dictionary definition above (and others), as synonymous with 'traitor' extending the meaning beyond specific military conflicts into general political behaviour. I might as well further describe them as 'Benedict Arnolds', from the actions of the American defector who betrayed his own side in favour of the British in1780.



I'll go further and extend my own insult to Labour in the manner of the Norwegians at the time of Vidkun Quisling. They referred to him as Vidkjent Usling (well-known wretch). Scottish Labour, in particular, will remain weel-kent vratches in my book until they wake up to reality. They really must now try to understand the anger coming at them. Much of it is in poor taste but fighting to correct the expression without exploring the anger itself is pure self-delusion. I like to think the SNP and the Yes movement actually understand why some express their anger and fear about independence so vigorously and so crudely. I don't get any feeling that Labour see any value in pursuing such an enquiry. It's time they did. Then they might move on to formulate some policy and principle for the future.

Without it they'll simply flounder. Asinine stunts like the clypegate scribble will only dig them deeper in the mire.

* Robert Burns - A Parcel of Rogues