IF you’re looking for serious news today, you’re going to have to wander down to the far end of the EPG on the telly and watch Al Jazeera or Euronews.
Because as far as the British media is concerned, absolutely nothing is happening anywhere in the world except for an orgy of British nationalist exceptionalism involving all the members of the royal family who haven't had to get their mother to pay off the sexually trafficked teenager who had accused them of inappropriate behaviour.
In Scotland, the lack of widespread public interest in the royalist festivities is such that even the BBC has been grudgingly forced to acknowledge it, at least in passing. The lunchtime news presenter on Reporting Scotland coyly admitted that celebrations in Scotland are more "muted" than the flag-shagathon which took place in London on Thursday morning.
That's a bit like saying that you have received a "muted welcome" after getting a bucket of cold water thrown over you, the door slammed in your face, and being screamed at never to darken that doorstep ever again. In this household, as in most households of my acquaintance, preparations for the jubilee have consisted of lining up sufficient TV series and movies on Netflix or Amazon Prime to get through the four-day BritNat fest.
Even so, a reporter was sent out by BBC Scotland for the lunchtime news to stick a microphone into the faces of passersby in Edinburgh in order to ask them how they plan to celebrate the jubilee. "Trying to find something else to watch on Netflix” clearly not being the answer that the BBC was looking for.
However, much to the chagrin of the BBC Scotland news bosses whose London masters have apparently given them a jubilee quota to fill, she managed to find just one couple who were enthused about going to a street party, and they were an English couple who seemed to be in Edinburgh on a day trip and who planned to go to their jubilee party once they got home to England. The rest expressed their utter lack of interest in the proceedings with varying degrees of politeness.
One reader of my blog wrote that after wandering around Edinburgh's leafier suburbs, including Ian Murray's People's Monarchy of Morningside, today and yesterday, he had failed to find much evidence of the jubilee fever that the BBC insists is sweeping the entire UK. He encountered just four shops with jubilee-related decorations but absolutely nothing at all in any private residences.
It's a similar story here in South Ayrshire, despite this being an area where a significant number of people are still foolish enough to vote Tory. Two shops in the High Street have got out the bunting, and that's it. There is nothing else to be seen, and no local events are taking place.
Meanwhile, in Perthshire, the planned 5k Platinum Jubilee Run has been called off due to lack of interest. Organisers have blamed Covid for the lack of public enthusiasm. Now there's a jubilee party straw for them to clutch at.
Glasgow City Council has refused to spend any public money on jubilee events. Councillor Ricky Bell, the SNP council deputy leader and city treasurer, told the Herald newspaper: "In the current financial restraints that Glasgow City faces, spending money on a jubilee celebration would in my opinion be crass, I want to direct every penny we can to helping with the cost of living crisis."
Just yesterday, Douglas Ross harrumphed at FMQs about the money being spent on the independence referendum and insisted that dealing with the cost of living crisis should be the main focus. His colleague, Glasgow Tory councillor Thomas Kerr, clearly doesn't agree, because he said that he was deeply disappointed that the council wasn't diverting funds from dealing with the cost of living crisis.
Meanwhile, over on Al Jazeera, the main news is that the famine in war-torn Yemen continues to worsen and thousands are facing starvation while the world's attention is focused on the continuing war and devastation in Ukraine. But in the UK, nothing is happening except an orgy of flag-bedecked self-congratulatory nationalism.
This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.
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