Wardog - now an "ex blog"

(Please see UPDATE at end)

I just read an article in the Wardog blog tonight in which he indicates that he is hanging up his 'blogging clogs'. Unfortunately I haven't been reading his, or any other, blog much in the past few days because I have my own family concerns right now and besides been very busy with setting up a new website and these matters have been consuming more or less all of my waking houurs (not to mention giving me sleepless nights of late), but his final message indicates that he has been going through a rough time and has had various pressures exerted upon him which he says have left him with no alternative but to cease blogging. All his earlier articles have now been removed, as well as all his links, etc. (NB/ Note added 21NOV09 19.25 GMT - the 'Wardog' blog has now been taken down completely. Let's hope the writer is resurrected elswehere.)

To be clear, I always found Wardog a stimulating read. I rarely agreed with anything he wrote - he being what I would call a 'rabid' Nationalist and me being unapologetically in favour of Scotland continuing as a partner in the United Kingdom. I have absolutely no truck with the aims of the SNP, nor really the Devolution disaster that Labour has saddled us with, even if I've come to accept reluctantly that there is no going back to the status quo ante. In the greater scheme of things, Labour have more serious things to answer for - just as an example they have trashed the economy, just as every Labour government before it has done; Mr Brown is the very last person I ever, and not just in the past couple of years, could associate with the term 'prudence'.

However, I don't need people to agree with me before I am happy to acknowledge that they have worthwhile (if in my opinion often misguided) things to say. I certainly don't like people being coerced into silence because of what sound like the tactics of a Police State. But as I have been writing here for quite a few years now, that is just what the UK is becoming, or indeed may well have become if this latest incident and a number of others in the recent past are any indication; I've been writing as much for several months now. Freedom of expression, however objectionable some of the opinions expressed may be, is a vital thing and not to be surrendered lightly.

I have never made any secret here of the contempt in which I hold Labour (and the 'New' variety is just as objectionable as the traditional version of that noisome Party), nor frankly do I have a higher opinion of the fantasists in the SNP, or their sympathisers such as I think it safe to say Wardog numbered himself. But that does not mean to say I am not outraged when I learn that he has felt threatened both personally and professionally by what seem to be the actions of people who take have taken exception to what he has been writing. It is truly, truly outrageous!!

UPDATE: (Sunday 22NOV09 21.30 GMT) I've just come across an amusing, and pretty accurate, commentary today on Wardog's woes in the Nationalist Mythbusting blog (written by someone who operates under the perplexing of name 'sm753') - you can read it here. Incidentally, and I should have mentioned this when I was writing this article a few days ago, but in some of the articles in the Nationalist Mythbusting earlier this month there are many of what can only be described as 'obsessive' comments from said Wardog. I always try and be fair to people when I write my articles, but it's only fair to point out that Wardog often came across in his online persona as a bit of a 'nutter'; my view is simply that even 'nutters' should have the right to express themselves verbally within reason - and if someone has a genuine grievance that they have been libelled then they can take the matter to law. However the behind-the-scenes threats that evidently have been made against Wardog are noisome in the extreme.