I have no idea whatsoever whether Mark Daly is a “Rangers supporter” or not. I do not care about that. I have watched his investigative journalism work over the years and find it to be first rate. He better hope that this is up to his usual standard.
In fact he better hope it is of a higher standard than usual because he and his bosses are playing on the big stage now having publicly accused a politically connected billionaire of tax evasion after he’s threatened litigation. I have little doubt he will follow through.
The path to this is murky; let me tell you what I know of it. BBC Scotland is playing a minor role in the exposure of the so-called Paradise Papers.
To understand what BBC Scotland is doing you have to understand what those documents are. They are leaked information about the financial affairs of the rich and powerful. Every report opens with one caveat; that there is nothing unlawful about the vast, vast majority of these holdings.
Their publication, on public interest grounds, is important; I wholly agree. It exposes the myriad legal ways in which companies and individuals protect their wealth.
These organisations and persons use loopholes and special schemes to avoid paying their fair share. That has been going on as long as the tax system has existed. As a UK tax payer I want to know who’s not paying their fair share, because that has an impact on me and my family.
The Paradise Papers are being scrutinised by a number of media organisations; the BBC is one of them. The BBC is a huge organisation; it claims that BBC Scotland is working separately on stories involving our country. This is what they’ve come up with.
Even the sums involved are ridiculous; in an investigation involved hundreds of billions the best they’ve come up with is an allegation that one of Desmond’s companies successfully avoided tax of £1 million … over three years. Anything to get them their headline, I guess, knowing that’s all some people care about.
And of course, they are using the public interest defence.
The thing is, this is not a public interest story and BBC Scotland knows this fine well. This is sheer bin raking. For openers, Dermot Desmond is an Irish based businessman; he is domiciled there and his tax responsibilities are to their exchequer not ours. The companies which were the subject of the report are not registered in Scotland and have no connection with this country.
This story has one connection with Scotland; Celtic.
We were the first word in the headline. This is an anti-Celtic story, a piece of muckraking nonsense. There is no “public interest” except that certain members of the public are interested; that is not the same thing. This is entertainment as news and an undisguised attack on the integrity of Celtic.
When we criticised Dave King initially it was because he was under indictment for hundreds of counts of tax fraud and other offences and was trailing himself as the owner of a Scottish club.
When we criticised Rangers for EBT’s it was because they used money that should have gone to the tax payers here to buy players they could not afford, to win games.
These are issues with a clear public interest in Scotland, and especially to football fans.
Dermot Desmond is Celtic’s biggest shareholder.
He is not our owner.
He is not our majority shareholder.
His money does not fund Celtic.
But the media knows full well that the connotation of this is that people are supposed to think this has some kind of moral equivalence with what has gone on – and what, by the way, continues to go on – at Ibrox.
I don’t care whether Daly is a Rangers fan or not. I don’t care whether his bosses, who put him on this assignment, are either. Their story has one Scottish connection – Celtic – and that’s why they are pursuing it. They have swapped doing the news for trading in gossip. They have downgraded the national broadcaster to the status of a Sevco conspiracy blog.
And they better have their facts right, all of them, 100% … because they have a tiger by the tail here. God help them if they lose their grip, even a little.