Brief thoughts on the Daily Record

The Daily Record has a shameful record as a reactionary rag. During the Clause 28 debate it actively campaigned, with whipped-up homophobic zeal, to try to create support for the homophobic Clause 28 which just didn't exist.

The disgraceful role of the Record in the Keep the Clause campaign (which sought to have the legislation banning councils from "promoting" homosexuality retained) cannot be ignored. There was no grassroots campaign to "Keep the Clause", just the homophobic paranoia of a rich man and his allies at the Daily Record and the Daily Mail. Oh yes, and the hypocritical self-loathing of Cardinal Winning.

The Record was trying to sway the opinion of its readers and the population as a whole, not follow it. With that background, the Record's support for equal marriage in Scotland, which it announced in 2013, seemed opportunistic and less-than-sincere.

 But that's not all: in 2001 it not only put its racism on show, but also seemed to condone, or at least excuse, the murder in Glasgow, of Kurdish refugee Firsat Dag. "Stabbed Turk Firsat Conned his Way in as Asylum Seeker" raged the disgraceful front page banner. The Record took its information uncritically from the Turkish government, from whose anti-Kurd oppression Dag was fleeing, but that did not deter the Record from describing Dag, in the wake of his murder, as a "con man who came to this country to make a fast buck". That is hate-peddling pure and simple. There can be no justification for this type of journalism. It cannot even be called unconscious racism: it is open, vile and unacceptable.

 That level of vileness cannot simply be written off as a mistake. It will take a lot to convince me that there has been a change in culture at that vile rag.