Hear No Evil I knew a bold Scottish Republican once
who with two or three others dynamited an electricity pylon near Glasgow and telephoned the police to tell them about it and solicit their prompt and (they hoped) brutal arrest. The police turned up and disobligingly told them to get the hell out of it before they got a martyrdom no more dig- nified than a thick ear and a boot on the back- side. And that was that. The authorities seem to be taking much the same line with Radio Free Scotland, a nationalist group which operates two illegal transmitters, one based in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh. Their programme comes on the air for half an hour every Monday night just as the BBC transmission on Channel 3 closes down, and they advertise themselves in a brochure which gives their headquarters as No. 16 North St. Andrew Street, Edinburgh. Why, they ask. after six years of existence, have the police made no effort to nick them? The obvious answer is that the radio, though illegal, is morally justified in its existence and those in authority know this.' Or maybe it's just a case of sticks and stanes would break their banes, but words will never touch them. I suppose the police would draw the line at the blowing-up of Berwick Bridge or the compulsory takeover of the BBC studios?
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