UNION Jackery – the practice of wrongly labelling Scottish food or other products as British, complete with the Union flag – is something this newspaper feels very strongly about.
In fact, in November 2017 we launched a campaign called Save Our Scotland Brand to have all retailers recognise the Scottish producers of items made, grown or developed in Scotland.
The SOS Brand campaign started as a direct result of our readers flooding us with complains about major retailers, such as Marks & Spencer and Tesco, either mislabelling our goods or defacing them with the Union Jack when they are clearly made here.
It also stressed the importance for the Scottish economy that our quality food, drink and other goods produced in Scotland should be recognised as Scottish, as well as the fact it was not about nationalism, but about the economy.
Labelling such goods as Scottish assures buyers they are getting a quality item, and it would seem only a matter of common sense that retailers should be proud of that Scottish origin.
READ MORE: Viewer pans Union jackery of BBC property show visiting Scotland
There is a tendency to think that Union Jackery is a relatively new concept, which has worsened in recent years as support for Scotland’s right to decide its constitutional future has continued on a fairly steady upwards trajectory following the disappointment of 2014.
We recently reported on an episode of the BBC TV show Escape to the Country, where prospective home-buyers are shown properties that could help them escape city life.
Presenter Sonali Shah was in Dumfries and Galloway with a London couple seeking such a life-changing move, and the programme opened with her walking down a country road on the Border.
In a shot to camera, she said: “For me, one of the things that puts the Great into Great Britain is this.”
Pointing ahead of her she continued: “That’s England, and that’s Scotland and I can quite literally walk across this bridge over the River Sark from one country into the other without the need for this,” while digging into her pocket and waving her passport at the camera.
However, one of our readers has pointed out that it is far from new and the BBC has tarnished “the Scottish character and Scotland’s incredible achievements” at every opportunity for half a century.
Iain Kilgallon, from Dunoon, told us: “Dad’s Army’s Corporal Fraser as the morbid, penny-pinching drunkard, to the EastEnders (arguably the worst show in TV history) character Trevor Morgan being a violent, drunken wife-beater, to recently even their nature shows getting in on the act with Countryfile completely omitting the part of Bill Gates recent speech claiming Scotland is arguably the most innovative nation in the history of the world, alongside the Ancient Greeks.
READ MORE: Morons waving the Union Jack annoy Yes-supporting Rangers fans like me
“Moving over to food shows, only last week we had the ‘Great’ British Menu claiming England invented Tarmacadam.
“This week on a radio show we had the Scottish football manager Davie Moyes telling the show that Stuart Pearce, the former England footballer argued that Scotland didn’t invent X, Y or Z and they were in fact English!
“The truth is there are hundreds of other instances of character assassination, we could reel them off for days.”
Kilgallon added: “This week my friend visited the Isle of Wight.
“He and his wife took the hovercraft from Southsea, Portsmouth to the island to find the hovercraft has recently been repainted to resemble a huge, floating Union Flag.
“Add to this the latest brainwashing of the children at school, that you featured only this week, with the [One Britain, One Nation] OBON nonsense, and make no mistake if the British state and the BBC are our friends, I really don’t wish to ever meet our enemies.”
Indeed.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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