‘Since the referendum and the subsequent Brexit takeover of the party, they (Conservatives) have moved further into the shadows. What are their values? Where are they headed? What are the implications for all of our futures?’
Rejoin the Sea League and save the seabed
‘The Our Seas coalition is, once again, a renewed opportunity to protect a precious and fragile environment. But campaigners will need the energy, vision and determination of John Campbell. And that means never letting go.’
Nato’s irrelevance?
Turkey’s incursion into Syria has exposed deep rifts between Americans and Europeans over Nato’s future just as many are questioning the alliance’s future…
We are not amused
‘The Queen will have been used to make a Conservative party political broadcast….” Why a Queen’s Speech now is an unnecessary sham.
Putin’s complaisant middle class
‘Members of both (public/private) sectors currently prioritise stability and economic security over liberal values, and both express high levels of trust in the Putin regime.’
Winners and losers on #MoultriesHill Part 3
Updated: Having won a battle that they should have lost (over the hotel), the bosses of Edinburgh St James are now engaged in one they should lose…but eventiually reached a settlement instead.
The tangled history of Edinburgh St James
‘So St. James Square remained the province of a handful of small businesses and workshops and 3,700 or so of Edinburgh’s lower orders and their exploitative, ever-neglectful landlords. The long decline of James Craig’s tenement buildings continued. Rack followed ruin and ruin begat rack.’
Aspects of Edinburgh (and Dundee)
‘Makar: Stewart Conn prefers “that term’s more egalitarian ring than ‘laureate’, with its whiff of Parnassus.” Down on the ground, a poet among people not stuck up, high on the Mountain of Muses.’
Once more with feeling: rediscovering local history ‘from the ground up’
Change is a constant fact of city life but Fay Young finds a sense of place endures in a digital archive of local history, told by local people. ‘These Leithers – born or made – sound connected to a place that matters.’
People O’ Oor Ain
‘Recall the teeth-gnashing of unionists that people were being sold a false prospectus, that ‘real politics’ are what mattered. Indeed so, but people see constitutional matters as the means to better social and economic policy.’