Scotland's Offensive Bill

I noticed that Gordon Waddell's column in the Sunday Mail raised a few eyebrows amongst our support. Probably blood pressure too. You have to hand it to the Scottish Press they don't just get things wrong, they get them terribly wrong.

I said a while back that until they walk about in our shoes for a while, the differences in perception are going to poles apart. Actually, delete “poles” and insert “universes”. And while Keith Jackson was thumping out the old “forgive, forget and move on” melody, Leckie obviously didn't take my advice about shoes, and saw fit to describe Rangers as “offensive”. Furthermore he seems to suggest that we should be going on a “charm offensive”.

Oh how I laughed. All the way to Waterstones in fact where I bought Leckie a copy of an English Dictionary. Because those universes seem to be keeping us galaxies apart in our interpretation of the word “offensive”.

So let me get this right. The club who have been, and continue to be, treated unjustly by the Scottish Football authorities, who have been lied about in various press columns and in the media, who have been subjected to the most vicious and malicious witch hunt in the history of Scottish sport, should themselves be going on charm offensive ?

You have to hand it to Leckie, as the ridiculous scale goes it's on a par with suggesting a rape victim deserved her fate because she happened to be wearing a short dress.

Of course the “forgive, forget and move on” and the “Rangers are offensive” campaigns work well for the Scottish Press. They don't have to examine their own roles and failings in the witch hunt which was waged against Rangers. No need to address their own culpability, responsibility and failure to act as the “moral guardians of society”.

Determining and treating someone as guilty before verdict, that to me is “offensive”. Offensive to the fundamental principle that a party should be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Blackmailing a party to accept something which a Scottish Court has deemed unlawful, as a pre-requisite to granting a licence to play football – that to me is offensive.

But perhaps most offensive of all is that coward's like Bill Leckie and his ilk fail to ask the questions of those who have abused their power, who are accused by many (outside the Rangers community) of bullying, intimidating and lying in their Machiavellian exploits, and yet continue to govern our national game.

Seems Scotland has more than one “Offensive Bill”.