A former deputy editor of The Herald, now a SNP MSP, has rebutted accusations she described Scottish supporters of the United Kingdom as ‘anti-Scottish’.
Joan McAlpine was reacting to an opinion piece by a Dick Mungin in the Scottish Review website which itself was responding to an article she had written she had written on her blog, GoLassieGo.
Wrote Mungin, a former chief executive officer and co-founder of private equity company, Scotland Funds: “Right across the nationalist spectrum, the daily language of political discourse has dramatically declined. Following the example of Salmond in abusive rhetoric, even the newly-elected Joan McAlpine felt able to say in her blog that Scottish unionists were ‘anti-Scottish’. One assumes that this experienced journalist knows exactly what she means in using such a phrase.”
Answering back, McAlpine yesterday stated: “Dick Mungin, in his recent opinion piece is guilty of the same extremism and misrepresentation he accuses others of.”
She continues: “He refers to my own work and says I accused unionists of being anti-Scottish. This is a crude misrepresentation of what I said, and indeed my political position generally.”
McAlpine goes on to say: “I have often praised unionists like Donald Dewar, for example, and most recently Brian Wilson for his stance against the behaviour of the Crown Estate.”
But Mungin today hits back, writing: “She immediately accuses me of ‘extremisim and misrepresentation’, lumps me in with other ‘unionist commentators’ but utterly fails to justify either insult.”
