UNATTRACTIVE drunks who are usually in the London Underground, or indeed Parliament, begging with “an outstretched palm”.
Michael Gove’s “comedic” assessment of the Scottish people did not go down well with audiences in 1992.
His “A Stab in the Dark” Channel 4 show was cancelled after a single series and the audience could be heard to boo as he delivered his monologue on Scots.
Gove’s sketch did not go down well with the public when it resurfaced in 2019. One person said it showed he was a “prize numptie, even then”.
Now, Gove’s sketch has not gone down well with social media giant TikTok.
A renewed interest in our 2019 article on the clip, in which Gove talks about “the Scots’ ability to wheedle money out of the English”, prompted us to think there were still many people out there who hadn’t seen it.
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In an effort to remedy this, perhaps for the younger generations, The National posted the video onto its TikTok account.
The video proved popular, with more than 30,000 views overnight, however the language Gove used about the Scots was deemed inappropriate by the social media platform.
After being up for just a few hours, the website identified the video of the now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster as “hate speech” and removed it from their platform.
While we cannot say exactly what led to the removal, it may have been Gove’s assertion that Scottish people are “handicapped” by their “impenetrable” accent, or that: “Most Scots in London are not professionals, they're not journalism, the law or in business, they're usually in the London underground begging.”
Whatever it was, the video has now been restored and can once again be viewed on The National’s TikTok.
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