Pete Wishart MP - The Scotsman, 13th Jan 2012

Sport and politics do mix and anyone who says otherwise is a liar and an apologist.

It's not often that I read The Scotsman, the east of Scotland's premier tabloid newspaper, but I like to keep an up to date list of their mistakes. So that is how I found Pete Wishart's article on sport. As will probably become clear, Mr Wishart and I look at sport in very different ways. Why The Scotsman felt they should allow an SNP MP to write such an arrogant (and poorly written) article about sport, I do not know.

I am a huge fan of the British and Irish Lions, possibly more so than my national team due to the sheer rarity and grandeur of these teams. I love the idea of players who batter each other all season long coming together and donning the same shirt for the same cause in what John Hopkins called, "a cross between a medieval crusade and a prep school outing."

So imagine my outrage when Mr Wishart writes,

"Following independence I hope that there will be occasions where we will come together as a "British" team just like we do in international rugby as the British Lions (sic)."

How dare he! If he is so desperate to leave the UK behind and let Scotland go it alone then how dare he still crave a piece of the British and Irish Lions. If he dislikes the UK so much that he wants to tear it apart and dislikes the very essence of 'Britishness' then how dare he make such a claim.

If he wants to 'come together' then he should campaign for Scotland to remain as part of the Union. If you insist on believing something so petty as independence then at least have the courage to follow it through. If you don't like the UK then don't try and hold on to the bits than you do like.

Now, I'm fully aware that an independent Scotland would still form a part of the Lions, of course it would. But for an SNP MP to come out picking and choosing which parts of British life he still wants an independent Scotland to be a part of shows a deep-rooted uncertainty about independence and a total disrespect for everything that the Lions stand for. Mr Wishart is the sort of narrow-minded fan who would watch the Lions and only cheer if a Scottish player scored a try.

The rest of the article is simply Olympics bashing. It's the sort of thing one would expect to hear from an MP whose only interest in the games is how they will benefit his constituents in Perth and North Perthshire. The crux of his unhappiness seems to rest in a total dissatisfaction with Perth being far away from London. Sorry, Pete, that's geography. He writes,

"Scotland will be overwhelmingly positive about the games and the potential for opportunities and spin-offs it offers us as a nation."

This is a horribly patronising way to view the greatest show of human endeavour on Earth and Scottish responses to it. Does Mr Wishart view Scots as miserly figures rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of weasling some extra cash out of the games?

I aim to write mainly about rugby, but the recent flurry of independence talk left me wanting to write about that too. Thank goodness for Pete Wishart MP for giving me the opportunity to write about both.

The lesson is as follows: if you don't like the very idea of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and make it your job to see it crumble, then do not have the cheek to claim continued involvement and interest in one of the UK's most wonderful institutions. You're either in or you're out, Pete.