“The failure to reduce demand in acute services through prevention is evident in the increasing proportion of Scottish budget spend on the National Health Service. This has had many consequences. Money required for acute services means less for other services.” A member of the Christie Commission on delivering public services in Scotland looks back/forward in sorrow
Little did he know: Donald Rumsfeld (RIP?)
‘To the risk community, the tribe I belong to, there was always something alluring and generic about Rumsfeld’s truism.’ Dominic Duckett ponders Rumsfeld’s (unknown) legacy.
Saturation point: why Scottish education needs fewer probation teachers
“62% of new teachers cannot secure full-time permanent jobs yet teacher training numbers are at their highest level in a decade. Scottish education must wean itself off cheap probationers before more damage is done.”
Post-truth and post-conservative?
“The British Conservative Party, perhaps more so than most other mainstream centre-right parties in Europe, has long flirted with populism – even (her critics would doubtless say ‘especially’) under Margaret Thatcher. But it has never embraced it as fully, and as recklessly, as it seems to be doing right now.”
What do those Catalan pardons mean?
“A move from unilateralism to deliberation suggests negotiation. So, if last week’s pardons counts as a concession by the Spanish executive, what will the Generalitat have to concede in return?” asks a Barcelona-based commentator of the pardon of nine leading Catalan politicians.
Risk and blame of vaccine politics
‘The curious nationalism we see displayed in claiming credit for cures and casting blame for ailments has a long history and we need to recognise it in ourselves and in our leaders and try to see beyond it as we coordinate an international response to the global pandemic. ‘
Win or lose – enjoy the games
Craig Angus takes a moment to dream. But whatever the result, Euro2020 reminds him how good it is to be there, among the crowd.
Poems for the dawn
Here is truth that we need to hear and confront in this viral age. Gordon Munro finds it in new work by Ben Okri and Marianne Faithfull
An unsustainable paradox
‘So, whilst the rhetoric may have softened, the constitutional paradox remains. Scotland can leave if it has a lawful vote to do so, but there is no way of having a lawful vote. For now, anyway. And there is no plan to have a plan.’
NATO’s future
‘Progressives often criticise increased European co-operation on defence because they fear the construction of a European army on the superpower model. But if we understand European defence co-operation as contributing to multilateral missions, this could be a positive development.’