Cybernat

He [Iain Gray] added: “Back in May I asked Alex Salmond to get a grip of these ‘cyber nats’ bloggers. At the time they were spreading rumours about me and other politicians as well. I think Alex Salmond has to come to parliament, apologise, and explain just exactly what has gone on.”

The time could not be more crucial, with the referendum on Scottish independence only two years away, and fears emerging that the war of words between so-called ‘cybernats’ and ‘cyberbrits’ could distort or even stifle mainstream political discourse. Labour peer Lord Foulkes claims crediting for coining the term cybernat to describe Nationalists and supporters of independence who conduct rhetorical guerrilla warfare on Twitter, Facebook and the comment threads of newspaper websites. Rather than initiating discussions about policy or ideas, cybernats demonise those opposed to the SNP and independence and dismiss them as, inter alia, cowardly, unpatriotic, and even traitorous.

Currently, he [Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan] openly presents himself as a 'vauntie cybernat, former ambassador, and human rights activist', keeping him in sync with the alternative diplomatic culture he always practised, though he now freely engages in the everyday ambassadorship he once struggled to legitimate among his peers.

The much-vaunted phenomenon of the "cybernat", spraying online vitriol from a dingy bedroom, does indubitably exist, but so does its exact equivalent on the opposite side.