JABBA THE AGNIVORE

ABU JABBA

Has anybody noticed that Traynor's diatribes on the Rangers web site are becoming increasingly like the rants of Loony Leggat? The latest example is that both of them are frothing at the mouth over the stories about Rangers owing £400,000 to a far-Eastern company called Orlit. Leggat trots out the paranoid tripe we have all come to expect: anti-Rangers agendas etc. etc. but, amazingly, Traynor goes down the same path. He even follows Leggat's lead in calling for a boycott of newspapers that print anything 'anti-Rangers!'

If I'm to believe what I'm told, Traynor was once an important and conscientious journalist. Like Citizen Kane, however, he eventually sold out. Over the past few years he has slavishly followed the Ibrox party line to the detriment of any journalistic skills he might have had. Under his editorial command the sports pages of the Daily Record never questioned anything that was going on at Ibrox, even cravenly believing everything that Craig Whyte said. Remember the ring-fenced funds, the off-the-radar wealth, the warchest, the front-loaded money for players? All Traynor's doing.

Now he contents himself by lambasting others for doing what he should have been doing all along. The story about owing money to Orlit surfaced on the internet and was reported as such in the papers. The newspapers reported these rumours as rumours and, like journalists should do, they asked Rangers for their side of the story. The pronouncement from Ibrox was that the stories were untrue. To Traynor that should have been the end of the matter and if he had still been at the Daily Record that would have been the end. The nasty, evil, Rangers-hating journos now at the DR, however, then got in touch with Orlit, who confirmed that they were going for a winding-up order. How dare they print such things!

We all learned recently, after the brouhaha created about Kilmarnock and the catering company, that a winding-up order is not really such a big deal. The way the papers reported it you would have thought that Kilmarnock were only minutes from liquidation! We soon found out otherwise. So now, wiser, we read the same thing about Rangers and realise that it's probably not that big a deal. So does that mean that the newspapers should ignore it? 

Traynor therefore makes himself look totally ridiculous by making such a big hoo-hah about this. The way he is going on makes it look as if there is something to hide. He could easily just have laughed it off but no, he has to put it in the context of some great anti-Rangers conspiracy in the press, à-la-Leggat. He bangs on about journalists claiming that Rangers is a new club, when it's not. Strangely, that's something that I've not seen in any Scottish newspaper; every journo in Scotland has gone along with the lie that Traynor gives us: that Rangers is not a new club, it merely has a new owner. This is garbage. Green failed to buy the club when his CVA proposal was shot down.  He, possibly illegally, bought the assets and started a new club. Every journalist in Scotland, however, has gone along with Traynor's view, despite what he might say. He is basically lying to stir up trouble.

He also contradicts previous statements of his when he has a go about the TUPE case. He condemns papers for reporting that Green had 'lost' the case when, as he points out, it was not the final decision. And yet, when the First Tier tribunal came down on Rangers' side in the tax case he trumpeted this as a Rangers victory when, as the very name suggests, this was just the first stage. Talk about twisted!

 Traynor has always come across as a bit of a bully-boy. On his radio programme anyone that phoned in and disagreed with him was liable to be shouted down, put down with snide, personal remarks and even just cut off. And like some panjandrum in the Chinese Communist Party he fears the internet and the chance it gives for people to speak back. When comments were no longer allowed on the Daily Record website one of the reasons given was that people were making personal comments about their staff. No prizes for guessing which member of staff spat the dummy there!

So Traynor has found his niche; a forum where nobody gets to answer back and he has a totally captive audience. He is going to have to be careful, however, with this rabble-rousing rhetoric. Convincing folk that there is a huge conspiracy against them, trying to keep them down is a dangerous business. It seems remarkably similar to the ravings of Abu Hamza, who tries to incite Muslims to fight back against their so-called oppressors. Traynor's call to arms is unfortunately of exactly the same ilk. He might couch it all in calls for boycotts etc but the hatred pours out of every syllable. What does he think is going to be the end product of all this bile and hatred and these calls for vengeance? I hope when the inevitable violence does rear its ugly head he is prosecuted for his part in inciting it!