The Prime MInister was in Jockland to announce his new Devo Shsh initiative. Here is David Cameron eating porridge in Fife last week. Special prize to the reader with the funniest caption for the event…
Caption Competition
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Category Archives: Identity
Greek Independence
Interview with Liana Kanelli an independent MP elected under the flag of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) for the last twelve years in four consecutive elections. Ms. Kanelli has been a journalist for 36 years and holds a degree in law. By Moira Dalgetty, our correspondent in the Edinburgh of the South.What do you see as being the historical/political context for the situation Greece is now in?
LK: To understand what’s happening in Greece now, you have to go back 40 years or more. You have to know that this country, this nation, are the people about whom Winston Churchill said after the Second World War: “Hence we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks”, and this should never be forgotten.
We gave our blood for independence, we fought with no money, no weapons. We built an anti-Nazi front in which not only the Communist Party but 95% of the Greek people took part in, we delayed the invasion in Russia, we practically helped our western allies to win the war. But then, after everything that happened in the Middle East at that time, after the king that was imposed on us, we ended up being a country that had lost half its population to famine after the civil war in addition to those killed during the Second World War, whilst in the rest of Europe there was prosperity and re-building after the war, with the Germans getting away without paying us reparations. Continue reading
An Awfully Big Adventure
By Christopher Harvie
According to Neil Oliver the referendum will be ‘the biggest decision in 300 years’. So ca’ very canny … I wonder.
In 1707-15, as far as the mass of Scots were concerned, there was no decision. The deal was done, for good or ill, by elites – or parcels of rogues – north and south, for dynastic and diplomatic reasons. In 1837 the same Union was partly dissolved, when Victoria could not, by Salic Law, become Queen of Hanover. She was replaced by the reactionary Ernest August, Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, whose repression helped provoke the German liberals who rose and fell in 1848. In 1866 Hanover’s king backed the Austrians against Bismarck. The blind George V’s state was swallowed by Prussia, and with it the chance of a type of liberal confederalism. Did anyone notice?
What operated in the UK after 1707 was more a tacit confederation than a union. The ruling groups of both Scotland and England invested in distinct ways, and the separate Scots ‘estates’ of kirk, law, learning and local government had about as much autonomy as small states enjoyed within the European empires. The alternative wouldn’t have been the ‘freedom’ that the likes of Paul Henderson Scott optimistically infer from Fletcher of Saltoun’s pamphlets, but either a version of England’s ‘Poynings’ Law’ that paralysed nominally self-governing Ireland, 1494-1782, or a drastic French-Jacobin-style ‘co-ordination’ of administration and civil society. Continue reading
The Case for English Independence
By Dan Hind, author of The Return of the Public
The British are meant to be content with the spectacles and dramas laid on for them. In the New Year, David Cameron told us with the pink suaveness of an ambitious young headmaster that this year we could look forward to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics. Ed Miliband wants to put on a slightly different show; imagine a chorus line of crocodiles weeping while the financial sector gets everything it wants. But they are united in their desire to hog the national limelight and avoid discussion of what goes on backstage.
The Scots don’t want to be a miniature Britain, and never have done. In the years before 2014 they will decide for themselves what it means to be a great nation. A progressive beacon, Salmond says. If the Scots create a polity where free citizens have the powers they need to secure prosperity and social justice, then the light of it will be visible to all her neighbours. And that is the last thing that anyone in Westminster, or the City of London, wants.
Read the full article over at Aljazzera Opinion.
Irish Ayes
By Jim Slaven
The constitutional question has dominated Scottish politics for some considerable time. During the last parliament the SNP minority government tried in vain to get parliamentary support to hold a referendum on independence and since last year’s election of an SNP majority at Holyrood any political discussion has been viewed through this prism. Until recently this debate was largely contained to Scotland with the other nations on these islands contenting themselves with a watching brief and sometimes not even bothering with that. However in recent weeks all this has changed with interventions from the Prime Minister, the First Minister of Wales and First Minister of the North of Ireland.
David Cameron is widely seen as having failed in an attempt to set limits on, or even take control of, the Scottish independence referendum. While this analysis is understandable, and at one level almost certainly accurate, it is also likely Cameron’s motivation was broader and more subtle than it first appears, namely an attempt to set some parameters on the parallel, UK wide debate on the changing nature of the British state and its likely configuration in the coming decades.
The attempt to allow Westminster to set the rules and timeframe for the referendum and rather pathetic threat of court action over any Scottish Government organised poll not only played badly in Scotland it also signalled the beginning of some sort of fight back from UK unionist parties. Carwyn Jones, the Labour First Minister in Cardiff, indicated a willingness to campaign in Scotland against independence and said “From our point of view we can’t simply sit back and think it’s not going to affect us.”1 Peter Robinson the DUP First Minister at Stormont had already indicated his willingness to enter the fray by using his party conference speech at the end of last year to defend the union saying “I think we will play a full part in encouraging our Ulster Scots brethren and sisters to be part of the Union, to reject the notion of separation.”2 Continue reading
The Destruction of the Metropole
By Mhairi McAlpine
It is an odd situation that Scotland finds herself in at the moment. A bit like a teenager, yearning for the freedom which is only a few years away but seems like a lifetime is to be lived until the magic date which will denote the beginning of our independence. And like a teenager we must make good use of the intervening period to ensure that our freedom once obtained is not shackled by repeating mistakes that many have made before and lived to regret as the first flush of their youth evaporated.
In the 1950s and 1960s a wave of liberation swept through Empire. Great hopes were held for the third world and grand schemes were developed. By the 1980s, riddled with debt, systematically stripped of resources and a pawn in the Cold War, its people were hungry, impoverished and disease ridden as the newly rich implemented the tricks of the Bwanta – syphoning off the nation’s riches, using ethnic and cultural differences to justify exploitation and conflict, all the while squandering the capital of the nation to build luxurious and impressive symbols of the nation in its capital. Welcome to the new boss, same as the old. Continue reading
Show Me the Mone
By Mike Small
Michelle Mone’s intervention in the independence campaign (‘Scottish lingerie tycoon Michelle Mone has threatened to move to England if Scotland votes for independence’) was the first big boob from the No Campaign. It show’s – if anything – that we live in times of enormous cleavage. It’s all a storm in D Cup. Okay, having got the compulsory gags out the way, what’s going on?
Miss Mone, one of the UK’s most successful businesswomen, said she was “passionate” about Scotland but she did not think it could “survive on our own”. Mone’s been on twitter saying about how she said these things two years ago and it’s all no big deal. But the episode tells us a lot about how businessmen and the idea of the entrepreneur have infiltrated our culture. These people are the new gurus, from Duncan Bannatyne to Lord Sugar we genuflect beneath their greatness. This is the long 1980s, Gordon Gecko style.
Last year’s Holyrood election saw a slew of ‘endorsements’ and Mone’s statement sounds like an anti-endorsement. Remember when Stephen Hendry and Lulu were persuaded to say they’d flounce out of Scotland if devolution was won? It’s all terminally unconvincing. But at its heart is a misconception about how wealth is created. If we hold in high esteem a business based on push-up bras we’ve surrender to Ultimo Democracy. Continue reading
Positivity
By Mike Small
Pundits seem to be coalescing around the idea that a ‘positive message’ is an essential part of political campaigning (nothing new here, see Pat’s Juggernaut of Joy thesis). Whether it’s Obama’s upbeat derivative (but ultimately empty) Yes We Can, or, as critics had it, Salmond’s indy question (characterised by some as some sort of Derren Brown-style mass hypnosis), the idea of positivity is the key, or so we’re told. It’s simple: people who whinge and moan all day become a bit of a drain to be around. We naturally gravitate towards those who bring a bit of sunshine and light into our life.
This presents the Unionists with a challenge. How to oppose the Yes Campaign with a positive? What is the positive case for the Union? Well it’s about security, continuity and stability. All good things, but in stressing these you have to also sort of pretend it’s all okay as is, and that’s where they get unstuck. The nationalists have to say things will be okay, the unionists have to pretend things are okay. It’s not jam tomorrow but it’s a set of ideas – a vision – based on hope. Now we know that this might not work out but we have aspiration whereas in the HERE and NOW we kind of know perfectly well what things aren’t working. UK Plc has nationalised the banks and given our money away to the super rich. People can’t get the homes they need, and there’s an outbreak of mass unemployment, fuel poverty and a generalised economic insecurity that strikes into the heart of peoples well-being by the residual stress it creates. Continue reading
We Pay for This
Something for the weekend: Big Burns Supper & Neu! Reekie!
by Kevin Williamson
For anyone planning on being in the Edinburgh or Dumfries area this weekend, here’s a heads-up on a couple of events I’m involved with that might be worth checking out.
The monthly Neu! Reekie! culture club returns on Fri 27th with the usual eclectic mix of film, spoken word and music. This Friday we’ll be celebrating the birthdays of two very different Scottish poets. Continue reading
Braveheart Buddhists
By Andrew Barr
“Independence isn’t just history.” That was the message of leafleters outside Scottish cinema screenings in the 1990s as Wallace rode onto our screens ready to free the nation.
Today the Braveheart effect on Scottish politics may have worn off, with modern nationalism now being centred on economics, democracy and future aspirations. But with the referendum set to be held in 2014, the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, just how closely the independence movement should run to historic sentiment is still a real issue of debate.
Recently, several sources including the Scottish Centre of Himalayan Research reported that Tibetan monks had been watching Braveheart, even between prayer times, presumably encouraged by the story of Scotland and its fight for independence from a much larger and much more powerful neighbour.
Perhaps it is the monks’ philosophy of all things being interconnected that has in some way influenced these developments – and that is something we should learn from. Independence movements around the world are bound together by a common goal; and in the new age of internet democracy that solidarity will have an even greater part to play. Continue reading
Empire State of Mind
By Gerry Loose
These are the territories and countries that could never make it without England’s support.
They would fail.
They would fail.
- American territories east of the Mississippi (in modern USA)
- Thirteen colonies
- roughly the area of Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia
- Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, Wisconsin
- Minnesota east of the Mississippi River
- Thirteen colonies
- Belize
- Canada
- Upper Canada, Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, British Columbia, lands administered by the Hudson’s Bay Company (Rupert’s Land and North-Western Territory)
- Mosquito Coast
- Oregon Country Continue reading
Vote Britain
By Alan Bissett
People of Scotland, vote with your heart.
Vote with your love for the Queen who nurtured you, cradle to grave,
Who protects you and cares, her most darling subjects, to whom you gave
the glens she adores to roam freely through, the stags her children so dearly enjoy killing.
First into battle, loyal and true. The enemy’s scared of you.
That’s why we send you over the top with your och-aye-the-noo Mactivish there’s been a murrrderrr jings! crivvens! Deepfriedfuckinmarsbar wee wee dram of whisky hoots mon there’s a moose loose aboot this smackaddict
Vote, Jock. Vote, Sweaty Sock. Talk properly. Continue reading
Lilliput Nation
By Clare Galloway
I awoke at 2am with my usual head-buzz about my house renovation, and the sustainability of my lifestyle at present… but rather than nodding off amongst ever-decreasing eddies of problems-versus-solutions lapping round my mind, something started to germinate from what my dad had said on the phone earlier, about the question of Scotland’s independence from England: If we are such a dead weight, so unable to stand without the crutch of English political, economic, etc support, then why (the hell) is it that England is hanging on so adamantly to our inconvenient weight? And in their Christian good-neighbourliness, so familiar from the colonial days, and so similar to the American consumerism of all world cultures; what are their real interests in/ on behalf of their poor northern relatives? Continue reading
Scotland 3.0
By Mike Small
As the date for the liberation poll is announced the need for clarity is needed. Liberation from what, for what? A replica mini-state is not what we need from this process. We need a new operating system, not a new computer. What social software do we need? What political apps are required? What could Scotland 3.0 look like?
Number one on my list – and I suspect the vast majority of us, is a response to the crisis in child poverty outlined yesterday as figures suggest 13 Scottish councils have wards where more than 30% of children live in pockets of severe poverty. Equality needs to be hard-coded into the new Scotland. The ‘worst areas were in Glasgow, the west of Scotland, Edinburgh, Dundee, Fife, Aberdeen and Stirling’, in other words right across the country. Continue reading
The ‘Three Scotlands’ and How to Win an Independence Referendum
By Gerry Hassan
Scottish politics post-the election and the return of a majority SNP Government have existed in a seeming state of limbo, a kind of political phoney war.
The SNP have won a landslide victory but have yet to produce a serious strategy for winning independence; the unionist parties in Scotland have all been reduced to an existential crisis about defining their purpose and point; while David Cameron’s government (if it ever thinks about Scotland) is of the view that the break up of the United Kingdom isn’t a serious threat and those pesky Nats will soon be put in their place. Continue reading
Speaking our Language
By Fiona MacInnes
One of the rare fond memories I have of Stromness Academy in the 70s, was the cubby hole of a classroom which was the Latin teacher’s lair. This cramped den complete with fireplace, was converted from the former female staff room of an earlier era. A time when male and female staff were kept socially apart. The men’s staff room emitted pipe smoke and the other whiffed of spinsterhood. Those were the bygone times of Boys and Girls entrances, cold outside toilets dropped like tardises (tardii!) in the mud and gravel playground, and a world fragranced by Jeyes-fluid.
The small groups that trooped to the Latin room eschewed Woodwork and the finer intricacies of Home Economics having in most cases been reluctantly steered there by aspiring parents coercing them into the ‘usefulness’ of a dead language. Thereby a tranche of conjugating university fodder was brought forth who could neither bake a scone nor fix up a shelf bracket.
But no, the Latin teacher knew that education was about much more that input and output and that the brain was like bicep and triceps requiring to be equally and oppositely stretched. She willingly allowed herself to be diverted by topics of all kinds, her classes flowing untrammelled into serendipitous spheres of history, philosophy and gossip. All the while the necessary input of Latin text, translation and vocabulary managed to settle itself as if by stealth, somewhere inside our heads, exams, as they should be, a mere blip in the real world.
Because of the flexibility that our particular school had then, and the linguistic enthusiasm and interest of the teachers, pupils could learn Latin, Greek (ancient and modern), Italian, Spanish, French German and Norwegian. That’s eight languages all taught within one small department. The Latin teacher was the catalyst, often learning alongside us and keeping one step ahead in order to teach what she had just learnt. Mrs Hunter was the ‘can do’ of language tuition. Continue reading
Materialism’s High Price
Tim Kasser – who spoke at St Andrews University Sustainability Institute on Tuesday night:
Iceland’s Revolution Response
By Deena Stryker
This is a long Overdue Response to “The Reykjavík Grapevine” and all those who have taken exception to my August blog: “Iceland’s On-going Revolution”.
This article is written at the instigation of Bella Caledonia, which received 27,000 hits on my original article (‘Why Iceland Should be in the News But Is Not’). As it made its way around the world, many commented on the factual mistakes that I translated from an Italian radio text. Bella understood that the gist of the article was more important than the factual details, and encouraged me to respond to my critics, once and for all. Continue reading
For a New Scottish Democracy
By Gerry Hassan
The concurrent Scottish, British and European debates go on as mostly separate, but interconnected conversations; political and economic parallel universes often seeming oblivious to the existence of each other.
The British state sovereigntists wax lyrically as if their moment has come, the Tory Party, in David Cameron’s once revealing remarks, returning to its comfort zone of ‘banging on about Europe’, while Labour slowly shift away from two decades of pro-Europeanism, and the Lib Dems and SNP fall nervously silent. Continue reading
