MURDO Fraser’s “no more vegans, Buddhists or Green Party members” remark after Russell Martin’s sacking was billed as a joke, but it fits a pattern of what psychologists call disparagement humour – prejudice disguised as banter. It’s a way of normalising bias while making critics seem humourless or “woke”.
Fraser’s post didn’t just mock Martin, it signalled that certain spiritual, ethical, and political identities are somehow incompatible with the culture of Rangers. That tells us far more about Fraser’s mindset than about the club or its former manager.
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Rangers FC, after all, has worked for decades to confront its history of exclusion. The decision to sign Mo Johnston in 1989 broke an unspoken sectarian barrier and began a slow, often painful process of modernisation.
The club now runs community, women’s, and anti-sectarian programmes, yet pockets of its support still resist difference. Fraser’s comment tapped that nerve. It was a wink to those nostalgic for a narrower world, dressed up as wit.
Martin’s veganism, Buddhism and Green politics are unusual in football, but hardly disqualifying. His approach – reflective and values-led – fits a newer, psychologically literate model of management. If Martin’s belief systems were genuinely the reason for Rangers’ poor results, that would suggest poor oversight of him by the club, not a failing on his part. Fraser’s framing, however, doesn’t analyse performance – it reduces a person’s professional worth to their personal convictions, a move that in any ordinary workplace would be recognised as discriminatory, not witty.
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His follow-up clarification only deepened the irony: “It was obviously a joke,” he said, “but Russell Martin’s period at Rangers perfectly illustrates how everything goes wrong when Greens get into positions of power.” That’s less a retraction than a rerun – the old “I didn’t mean it, but I absolutely did” routine. It’s the standard culture-war manoeuvre: mock, retreat, then reassert under cover of irony.
Fraser’s brand of humour is familiar. It allows reactionaries to frame prejudice as common sense and inclusion as excess. When challenged, they cry censorship, mistaking accountability for oppression. The tactic is tired, but effective enough to sustain outrage cycles and harvest clicks.
The deeper irony is that diversity, equity and inclusion, properly understood, isn’t about hiring because of difference, but ensuring that difference isn’t a barrier. Fraser’s joke reverses that logic, implying that diversity itself is the flaw – when the only real failure here was professional performance being reduced to personal belief.
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So yes, there’s a certain satisfaction in seeing the mask slip. A Tory MSP, a self-styled modern conservative, ends up proving why inclusion still matters.
For Fraser, I suspect his opposition to Scottish independence makes Ibrox feel like home, though if I were similarly narrow-minded, I’d say he’d be more at home watching the Eton Wall Game – a wall in which he is (to quote Pink Floyd) just another brick, and merely one off the nearest pallet rather than a handpicked keystone.
The goalposts may have moved to the right, but he’s wide of the mark as usual!
Ron Lumiere
via email
IN the midst of the political conference season, what message is forthcoming? Well, Labour, the party of government at Westminster, have portrayed a message of turmoil, with a leader hitting rock bottom in the opinion polls. Its backbench MPs are restless, with rumbles of discontent regarding policy announcements and the Prime Minister’s very low ratings in national opinion polls.
The future of the Labour leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, is daily being undermined by a UK Labour government whose policies always indicate Scotland is an afterthought.
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I am not sure the main opposition at Westminster, the Conservatives, deserve a mention, because they are all but a busted flush, currently sitting in fourth place in national opinion polls. And Wednesday’s speech from their UK Leader Kemi Badenoch MP confirmed what we all know and expect from the Conservatives – let’s give tax breaks to the rich while slashing welfare spending. Some things never change.
The PM and the leader of the opposition in Westminster have done nothing to set the heather on fire, they have only achieved negative headlines from their party conferences. Conference is supposed to be an uplifting experience for political anoraks and an opportunity for politicians to take the stage and inspire voters! Yet the Labour conference only portrayed the message of a party in crisis and the Conservative conference are portraying a party fading into oblivion.
The performance by the party of government and the main opposition at Westminster raises the question: can Westminster survive, or are the devolved governments about to become stronger? Because we simply cannot go on like this and we shouldn’t have to.
Catriona C Clark
Falkirk
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