#scotlandspeaks again
What’s being billed as ‘the last debate’ takes place tonight. No, I know there are other debates in ‘the regions’ but they were put there just as a pretence of parity so we… Read More
Monthly Archive: April, 2010
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Prepare for Civil Disobedience
Anger is the most common response to the court case ruling, but not surprise. Ian Hamilton writes: “Think on this. Every political institution in Scotland has been created by the English Parliament. What… Read More
Common Good
In a sea of cynicism, when it seems as if the courts, the media class and the political elite are against us, here’s a blast of practical Glaswegian idealism, ‘its not all bad… Read More
#scotlandspeaks
Our report just back on the #scotlandspeaks campaign over the last few days says that we reached 48, 797 people via 1,471 tweets, which created an exposure of 380,223 impressions. Wow! That’s amazing!… Read More
The Myth of the Liberal’s Defense Policy
It is fatally flawed because he is trying to placate the deep-seated nuclearism of the British nationalist parties – that is, all the Unionist parties – while aspiring to don the mantle of progressive anti-nuclear campaigner at the same time. And it doesn’t work…
Time to Settle a Democratic Disgrace
There are two days to change the election. Alex Salmond has said the BBC must either include an SNP politician on Thursday’s debate or organise a fourth debate with the Nationalist voice heard. … Read More
Identity (Cards) & Democracy
As Labour gets driven and split in it’s already post-Brown squabbling it faces a simle choice. It can revert to type, retreat to the ‘heartlands’ and avoid a whitewash, or change rapidly and… Read More
Three Questions
In our instant poll of polls our readers concluded: 33% thought the live TV debate was an insult to the people of Scotland and Wales, 30% thought that it was manufactured consent for… Read More
BBC Trust Reject Scotland
Complaints from the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru over being excluded from the BBC leaders’ debate next Thursday have been rejected by the BBC Trust. No surprise there. Tonights debate will be at 8pm… Read More
Carbeth Land Buy-Out
Fran Higson writes: Travelling North West out of Glasgow on the A809, wealthy suburban housing estates give way to rich farm-land and pristine tgolf-courses, the land opens out towards the Campsie Fells and… Read More
The Constitution by Media
Mike Small writes: There are certain rules. Davina is the Queen of Big Brother (RIP). Simon Cowell is the King of X-Factor and Graham Norton searches for Dorothy. The latest tv tradition we have established… Read More
The Breakers Yard of the Vanities
`Rome fell, Venice fell, Hindhead’s time shall come.’ Bernard Shaw’s forecast in Heartbreak House (1919) casts back to John Ruskin’s `less-pitied destruction’ of the Empire and to Kipling’s`Recessional’. They imagined not just the decline, but the partition of Britain, going the way of Venice the Serene, or the empires of Sweden and Lithuania. Was 2008-9 not, objectively, both inevitable and a relief? Like that moment in the life of the very old where the brave attempt at coping, `understanding the world’, ends, and the care home doors fold behind?
Scotland Speaks
Tonight’s leaders debates (sic) is the latest line in efforts to distort the electoral process reducing the imagined choice at the UK General Election. ITV1 will broadcast the show from 8.30 pm in… Read More
Gaelic Language Matters
Wilson McLeod writes: The Gaelic digital service BBC Alba has been broadcasting for more than eighteen months now, but is still struggling to find its feet. In many ways, the situation of BBC Alba… Read More
There is no Alternative?
A Twitter Poll site wrote this morning: ‘So Deutsche Bank are with the Tories? It’s slipping away Labour’. The election is being conducted as if business backing policy decides all. Kevin Williamson on the narrowing… Read More
Autonomy & Independence
Doug the Dug writes: Ian Bell has an article in the Sunday Herald (‘Hung Drawn and Independent’) where he looks at how a hung parliament might lead to Scottish independence. In can be… Read More
Team Glasgow
Mhairi McGregor writes: my ‘Sunday Best’ column is late. I blame Jesus, bunnies and Cadbury’s (not necessarily in that order). Kenneth Roy over at the Scottish Review (‘The Secret Networkers’) asks simply: who is… Read More
