Hogmanay Cancelled
The leaders of Edinburgh Council continue to be tone-deaf to the public issuing a statement urging people ‘not to visit the city centre’.
As local activist Jim Slaven put it: “They’re now terrified people gather on a dry, mild Edinburgh Hogmanay…if it can’t be monetised, it must be stopped.”
As questions are now being asked about the sustainability of the whole, event, claimed to be worth £50 million to the local economy, independent councillor Ross McKenzie has argued: “The council could transfer that £812,000-a-year (the funding from Edinburgh Council) into putting on ceilidhs in communities across the city and tell tourists that if they want to go and experience a bit of Scottish Hogmanay, then here’s a list of 20 community centres where they’re having local events — go and enjoy it.”
McKenzie also has questioned the nature of the event calling it: “….empty … vacuous …devoid of culture or tradition.”
Two companies, Unique Events and Assembly were awarded a new city council contract to stage Edinburgh’s Christmas and Hogmanay festivals for up to five more years in April. But there are growing questions about who the event is for and how viable it is.
To the astonishment of many Unique director Alan Thomson said: “Last year we had possibly the mildest, calmest weather we have ever had. It was relatively easy for us to put on and everyone loved it.”
“We have the complete reversal of that this year with three of the worst days of weather we have ever had.”
Thomson’s claim that this was “three of the worst days of weather we have ever had” doesn’t bear scrutiny, but there is growing dissatisfaction across the city about the nature of the whole event, the lack of financial transparency and the feeling that the city is used as a cash cow for Big Tourism with little or no regard for the residents.
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Edinburgh is a bit of a blot on the Scottish landscape. As is said in Glasgow ” all fur coat and no knickers”
Losh! Pat Lally lives! 😮
Friend in Edinburgh telling us she was a passenger on a bus when folk were told the roads would not be closed in preparation for the fireworks events. She said a spontaneous cheer broke out with folk clapping and cheering.
According to the Scotsman Hotel’s website, Hogmanay only started in 1993.
LOLs
It was obvious that the weather was not going to be serious. Nobody thought it worth giving ‘the storm’ a name.
I agree
Hogmanay anywhere in my opinion should never be a corporate sponsored/managed event. Another example of the gradual destruction of Edinburgh as an ‘Actual Living City’ where people ‘Actually Live’. This time of year should always be a people/community/local/PERSONAL event with family and close friends. Always nice for some additional friends to be there to add to and join the local events, but probably not a fee paying 50,000 or so who will likely never meet another Scot let alone someone from Edinburgh as part of it all.
I’m no fan of the Council but you have to have some sympathy. They are caught in a double-bind: whichever way they jump, they are sure to get hammered in the media.
The mainstream media thrive on stirring up controversy: it’s how they attract hits and maybe even make money. Same with social media. If a council acts, they get attacked for intrusive nanny-stating; if they don’t act, they are accused of failing to protect innocent victims.
This is the kind of two-faced cakeism that Boris J specialised in, and it’s one reason populism is now so popular. Whatever they – the elite – do, they are demonstrably wrong and out of touch. And democracy withers.
I wouldn’t shed too many tears for the ‘elite’. They are hardly the bedrock on which democracy is founded. They are much more likely to be a threat to it.
It depends what you mean by ‘elite’ here – the hereditary aristocracy? The wealthy? The well-educated? There is some overlap among these groups but they are by no means identical.
It’s a standard populist trope to contrast the elite (corrupt, effete) with ordinary people (natural, instinctive), and this sometimes carries over into an attack on education in general and science in particular. Look at the proliferation of conspiracy theories involving Covid denialism and vaccine scepticism.
I would argue that democracy and science are structurally linked. They both depend on debate, involving as many interested parties as possible, that is open-ended, norm-informed and voluntarist. By this I mean that participants share norms to which they can refer, and they are willing and able to change their views (and actions) in the light of evidence that fits those norms. Ideally, they should also be willing to revise their norms in the light of new evidence.
If this is even roughly right, democrats should be wary of any kind of populism that attacks education and science as elitist.
I remain mystified as to why you invoked the ‘elite’ in the first place.
Because ‘the people’ versus ‘the elite’ is a standard populist or Farageist trope that is widely used in the right-wing media. Some sources see it as the defining feature of populism.
So people who want to reject populism and defend democracy need to be careful in identifying the elite(s) they want to attack.
John Ma’s new book ‘Polis’ does a brilliant job of showing how Greek democrats broadly succeeded in taming and co-opting the oligarchical opposition by incorporating them into democratic discourse. There may be a lesson there for the 21st century.
Well, of course they do! The problem was that you didn’t. You mysteriously associated the City of Edinburgh Council with an undefined ‘elite’.
Whether the Council is functioning as part of, or in the interests of, an ‘elite’ or not, I believe that the approach it is taking to Hogmanay is seriously misguided. I don’t think that saying so makes me a populist or an enemy of democracy.
“Look at the proliferation of conspiracy theories involving Covid denialism and vaccine scepticism.”
Are you saying that questions about the above subjects shouldn’t have been asked? Are you suggesting that every “conspiracy theory” re COVID and so called “vaccine” hasn’t been proven true? Kinda puts the kibosh on yer pseudo rumblings when you are completely wrong on this point.
Is there no rainy day contingency? Is the puir auld City Council able to claw any money back from Uniquely Unfortunate and Unpredictable Events in respect of its conspicuous failure to deliver, or are Alan Thomson and his chums greetin all the way to the bank?
The insurance position appears to be unclear.
Mr Thomson is quoted in The Scotsman as saying “We basically need more support to pay for this festival. That’s the reality of it. Edinburgh’s Hogmanay costs more than £4 million to put on. It is easily running at a loss of more than £250,000.” So, why does he bother doing it? He also throws in “The festival generates more than £50m for the economy” quote again. There’s never any detail given on that return on investment, I suspect it’s just a figure plucked from the fireworkless sky