Politics
Not up to the courts
Whether or not Scotland can legally hold a referendum without the consent of Westminster has provoked much debate. Ciaran Martin argues that the answer to this question does not really matter: regardless of the legality…
Emerging from the shadows
“Opportunities for Labour arise from an SNP that excels in performative politics but fails in policy performance. The respective and competing nationalisms of Edinburgh and London governments are shrill and limited in their understanding of…
NHS alert: code red for climate change
Bold declarations of climate emergency and world beating targets came before the pandemic showed just how quickly human behaviour can change. We can do it when we have to. Yet last year’s euphoric thoughts of…
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.
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…
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…
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…
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,…
Blame Westminster but Holyrood has powers
Councillor Gordon Munro. was suspended from the Labour group on Edinburgh City Council after refusing to back the SNP-Labour coalition budget in May. He makes his case in the week Scotland’s Accounts Commission released a…
Where’s the great transformation?
‘If the 2021 Holyrood election is remembered as a turning point it will be because it was the catalyst for a referendum. The manifesto and style of politics adopted by the SNP do not suggest…
A more representative Holyrood?
‘In the aftermath of an election that was largely framed in terms of independence and the union, now is the time for wider debates and discussions over what recovery from the pandemic might look like,…
Saltire in the sky
‘It is perhaps under-recognised by many in the independence camp just how much support there was for the Union in 1707 among middle-class Scots. That support was based on a hunger for opportunity. But Brexit…