I VOTED FOR DEVOLUTION in 1997 from a sense of Scottishness and because I thought bringing decision making closer to home would improve our public
IN HIS PLAY, “The Crucible”, Arthur Miller has the protagonist John Proctor, say the following, “We are what we always were in Salem, but now
TWO YEARS AGO a few Aberdeen City and Shire Better Together veterans, including the two chairmen Ian Lakin and Professor Hugh Pennington (better known as
Henry Hill article from Thursday 29, October, 2020 ONE OF THE REASONS for the deep and debilitating incoherence of the unionist response to the SNP’s Covid-fuelled resurgence is that different parts of it seem to be trapped at different, equally useless stages of grief. There are famously seven of these, but only three need detain […]
THERE IS NO INTERNATIONALLY AGREED principle for the maintenance or breakup of states even within Europe. While Czechs and Slovaks are rightly proud that their
THERE IS a very blunt message coming from those who run Scotland’s outdoor education centres and we all need to pay attention. They are telling us that around
EDINBURGH CITY COUNCIL is at it again, planning the big picture future whilst the city slowly stops turning. Wednesday this week brought a report to
Linda Holt article from Wednesday 16, September, 2020 WE ARE NOW officially living under the Rule of Six. The police are charged to enforce it. In Scotland, more than six people (not counting children under 12) from a maximum of two households are banned from meeting outside of work, school and certain other specified settings. […]
A FORTNIGHT AGO, I returned from a week’s visit to Amsterdam. I am not given to conspiracy theories, but when Nicola Sturgeon advised people not to book a holiday
RECENT MONTHS have left me more despondent about Scottish politics than ever before. No doubt the ennui and oppression of lockdown, endured in what has felt increasingly like a one-party state, has
AS I WRITE, I have no idea if Dominic Cummings will eventually fall on his sword, deciding à la Alastair Campbell that the advisor has to go
Tom Gallagher article from Tuesday 19, May, 2020 LAST WEEK the libertarian politician Douglas Carswell came near to admitting that decentralisation measures introduced in Britain over the last twenty years had gone badly awry. He tweeted: “Let’s be honest, it’s not been a great moment for us localists, this crisis. Police commissioners have been invisible. The […]