The Will Rhodes Portmanteau

Not many people outside of the UK has heard of Alex Salmond - not that many have heard of him in it - but he is the First Minister in Scotland, like a Prime Minister but not. He is all for Scotland going independent from the rest of Britain, much like a former James Bond - you will have heard of him, Sean Connery. Somehow these people feel that they are oppressed by England, but anyway, that isn’t this blog.

Mr Salmond is having a hissy-fit about football not being shown on terrestrial television. Not just any football - the Scottish national side. It would seem from that, that this is part of the British government oppression of Scotland, I mean, not showing the national side on terrestrial TV is bad, watching Scotland not qualify again is bad, as we all know. But Mr Salmond wants Scotland losing to be televised because England is televised on some broadcasters throughout the UK. Bad, eh?!

Well not that bad - you see the Scottish Football Association made a deal with a satellite company, BSkyB, to show all their games on - satellite, as they would. But Mr Salmond doesn’t seem to understand contracts and that the SFA have been, or will be paid, a substantial amount of money for those games. This happens when the BBC show England games - the BBC is paying to show the games. Business is business they say.

So, Mr Salmond wants the Scottish FA to break an agreement with BSkyB and sell the rights to others - I am sure Mr Salmond wouldn’t advocate the breaking of a contract between two bodies to promote his political aims, would he? No, surly not - that would be too far beneath him. But if you can prove oppression by watching your national side being beaten by Italy once again - so be it I say.

Elsewhere in the lecture, Mr Salmond said his administration was “angered but not surprised” at figures last October which showed Scotland’s share of total UK network production falling from 6% in 2004 to 3% in 2006.

Then why doesn’t Scottish companies come up with their own version of Neighbours, or Coronation Street or, god forbid, Eastenders? I am sure that would bring about Mr Salmond’s Culloden.

You have to understand I like Scotland - I like it a lot but I find that while this person is in charge Scotland will have to go through his rhetoric for some time. How much damage he does to Scotland we will only know at the end of his term - maybe he could start his own TV company which make shows like “Porridge - 1001 recipes to keep you warm.”