On Valentine’s Day – or any other day – Sceptical Scot is pleased to publish this tribute to Robert Burns and his lasting truth by new writer Pat Sutherland.
Archives for February 2017
Hitting out at the world: Trump’s narcissism
“The problem for us ordinary folk is that a leader who feels constantly threatened becomes even more erratic, more authoritarian, more dependent on intimidation and tantrums as a stress management strategy. That is a serious problem for the globe.”
Poking Scotland in the eye on the EU
“The behaviour of May and her Brexit lackeys Davis, Fox and especially Johnson have won her few friends in Brussels, while Sturgeon’s smoother approach has started to pay dividends there and in Berlin too.”
The English question resurfaces
“For the kinds of free trade arrangements which many Brexiteers appear to favour are exactly the forces that have opened up the chasms between capital city and provinces, and between the networked and the ‘left behind’ which have done so much to bring a disaffected, political Englishness into being.”
T2 Trainspotting: back to what future?
“Except for a brief cameo of the Parliament building, you would be forgiven for not realising how much political upheaval there has been in Scotland alone since the first film was released—in 1996, before devolution—for there is a feeling of stasis throughout.”
“More money” and spending cuts for local government
“The Scottish Government, as is their right, have simply decided that they would rather spend the increased funding elsewhere. They have, it seems, other priorities.” The agreed Scottish Budget provisions for local government are unpicked.
Blimey: can Scotland meet its widening access targets?
New data from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) suggests the scale of change needed to meet the Scottish Government’s targets for widening access to university – a key pledge of Nicola Sturgeon’s first full term – may be too much. The 2021 targets Government’s targets come from last year’s report by the Commission on Widening Access, […]
What should Labour’s pro-Europeans do now?
Brexiteers won the first skirmish but experienced former parliamentarian Mark Lazarowicz explains why the battle in the House of Commons is far from over, and urges pro-EU MPs to resist triggering a ‘Hard Brexit’ Article 50.