“There’s romance in railway stations and an emotional tug in the sound of familiar place names. A reminder, I think, of the physical links and feelings joining people in distant places: singular but shared.”
Archives for 2016
Indyref1 and Brexit: Lessons for America
“Or we can stand up and try, at least try to build a better world. Instead of looking for a man on a horse to save us or for walls to keep us apart, we can look to our better angels.” Chef Anthony Bourdain sets out the stakes now and in future.
The Press attacks the rule of law
“Theresa May has other problems to confront. The court ruling has emboldened the opposition and is likely to unite them around a ‘soft-Brexit’ line – wanting to keep Britain in the single European market, or at least the EU customs union.”
Creative cities: built on can-do culture
“Here’s to the kindling of generous can-do creativity in every town and city. It looks fun but it’s deadly serious too. In the turmoil of Brexit (along with wider global uncertainties), the healthy prosperity of city life is essential to the economy and social cohesion of nations.”
Art 50 decision restores politics to Brexit
“Might there be an early general election? This looks very likely if MPs did succeed in passing a vote that either rejected Theresa May’s Brexit negotiating goals or if they passed a vote for a second referendum on the outcome of the talks… an early general election would result in a Tory landslide and ensure a fairly free hand for May from then on.”
UK gives up foreign policy influence post-Brexit
Kirsty Hughes that at a time of major global and European challenges, the UK’s decision to sideline itself and retreat into mercantilism, is an act of folly with ramifications that are much bigger than the narrower question of whether or not the UK keeps access to the EU’s single market.
Zionism, anti-semitism and the Left
“Rich navigates this exceptionally fraught and emotionally charged terrain with great sensitivity. But on occasion his focus on making plain the nature of leftist anti-Semitism leads him to understate or omit some important elements of the Israeli-Palestine conflict that motivate Israel’s critics.”
Europe’s future is Walloon – and Scottish?
“Since then, the economic crisis, the travails of the euro, and the destructive impacts of globalisation have blown that logic apart. Free trade – and its liberal corollary, the free movement of people – have lost their mass appeal. Nowhere is that more true than in Wallonia.”
Scotland’s disappearing low income students
“At the very least, the hyping in 2012 of a new of ‘minimum income’ which would benefit all low-income students looks increasingly to have been based on a shoogly set of assumptions about how quite a few of its target audience would respond.”
Mayism and the economics of nationalism
“It won’t work. May’s project will flounder. It cannot deliver the communitarian goals it strives for, and will damage Britain’s competitive position.” But: “In Scotland, things will keep going catastrophically nowhere.”