“Saving the Highland’s rural schools, and with them the traditions and future of the communities they serve, will take joined-up thinking and a strong and determined approach to regulation of the housing market.”
Russian army wives speak out against Putin’s war
“These women are also exercising the fundamental right of citizens to hold their government accountable for its policies – there is no more political act than this. Ultimately, women’s “patriotic dissent” is a powerful form of resistance and it must be taken seriously.”
Options and challenges for Wales’s constitutional future
In her latest European Conversations podcast the author talks to a member of the independent commission on the constitutional future of Wales about its findings – and their relevance for Scotland
Sunak’s day of two (poor) speeches
Bring on the election and put us out of our misery, urges one of our regular columnists in a partially updated piece written before this week’s UK Budget which has apparently failed to turn the dial for the Tories.
Let’s end public subsidies for commercial conifer tree-planting
The RSE sets out its new report calling for a radical rethink of tree planting in Scotland…It makes a series of recommendations for how public financial support for tree planting in Scotland can be reorganised to better serve Scotland’s people, environment, forestry industry, and public purse.
Northern Ireland environmental catastrophe
Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland is an “ecological disaster” – thanks to agricultural pollution and poor enforcement of regulations inter alia
Gaza and the Westminster debacle
The debacle over the Gaza vote last week was shameful. But it also tells us a lot about the state of UK politics, the differences across the Tories, Labour and SNP, and the simplistic views of many London-based commentators both on foreign policy, on Gaza, and on the SNP. What it hasn’t done is help Gaza in any way or add to pressures for a ceasefire and for the UK government to change its position.
Can Scottish Labour leave the branch office?
Scotland’s influence in Britain will be strongest when you have a Scottish Labour Party working with a Labour Government. If you want a Britain that places Scotland and its interests at the heart of the Westminster debate, if you want a politics that is committed to smashing the class ceiling, if you want to […]
Green backlash: EU, farmers and the Far Right
“Farmers across much of the EU (and further afield) are protesting and demonstrating, including blocking roads and parts of cities. Many political leaders have rushed to appease them including, in the case of the European Commission, dropping or delaying key climate and biodiversity laws.”
Scottish devolution – time to reboot
“If this centralisation trend continues unchecked, nearly all public services will be delivered by unelected quangos or Scottish Government departments with no effective local democratic control or accountability. That would make Scotland an outlier amongst western democracies where the role of local democratic organisations is embedded in constitutions, valued and supported.”
Devolution returns to Northern Ireland
“…there is no room for any future withdrawal from government by either veto-holding party, and if that happened, temporary steps to overcome the veto would need to be considered. Issues of longer-term institutional reform may now have slipped down the agenda. But they will have to be dealt with at some point, and a more informed debate on them would be helpful.”
Who should we bomb next?
“UK ministers, far from contributing to negotiations and peace in the Middle East and elsewhere, are making a volatile world even more unstable than it already is.”
Bias, politics and the need for serious debate on independence
“As Rishi Sunak says he respects constitutional nationalism in Northern Ireland, the same, of course, is not true for Scotland where the debate has sunk to silly levels in recent days. Are Scottish government officials biased towards independence? Did Nicola Sturgeon ever think about independence during the Covid pandemic? Our politics will be better, the more serious our level of debate is.”
Britain’s governance problem laid bare by Covid
Hoping that you can form a decent personal relationship with key Ministers in London isn’t a satisfactory basis on which to run a complex country in the middle of a crisis.Fixing the structural weaknesses revealed by Covid is a task that a pro-UK Government in Scotland will need to tackle. The next time, Britain needs to work better.
Labour’s green gaffe plays into Far Right hands
Labour is dumping its £28bn “green prosperity plan” like farmers dumping manure outside the European Parliament: no way to save the planet, modernise the economy, take on the Far Right backlash…
Sturgeon in the stocks
“Many people who watched or read the transcript of Nicola Sturgeon’s evidence to the Covid Inquiry may have been reminded of just what a good First Minister she was at that time. She can do the detail. She is smart, empathetic and forthright. Her engagement with the people of Scotland brought comfort to many in a difficult time.”