We will only gain the respect of the international community if we demonstrate a willingness to assert for ourselves the attributes of a normal independent nation.
The ‘Great British Box’
The limits of oppression
One of democracy's imperfections is its fragility combined with its appearance of robustness and resilience. Those whose direct personal experience is confined to a broadly democratic society do not easily imagine anything other. The corollary being a tendency to take democracy for granted. If only they realised how tenuous is our grip on the freedoms we assume to be ours by dint of nature, they would fear for those freedoms.
Weighty questions
It is futile to try to explain to British Nationalists such as Douglas Ross and Willie Rennie that the choice of whether and when we exercise our right of self-determination is a matter entirely and exclusively for the people of Scotland.
None of his f****** business!
Mike Russell may be correct to say that the people of Scotland can vote for a referendum in the Holyrood election. He declines to add, however, that for them to do so the SNP must go into the election on a very explicit and quite unambiguous manifesto commitment to a process which will deliver a free and fair referendum at the earliest possible date. He might further have noted that, as things stand, the party of which he is President has given no such commitment.
The winning look
Winners win! Those who look like winners tend to end up as winners. And that is why this poll is significant. It shows the SNP as winners. The specifics don't matter so much as the overall impression. They don't have to actually win anything. So long as they look like winners.
Well, maybe next year….
Our lives often seem to lurch from one fresh start to the next. Every morning is, in a small sense, a rebooting of our life. Each night we switch off. Each morning we switch back on again. Every day begins with the hope that it will be better than the day before. That we will be a better person. That this will be the day reality and aspiration draw closer together.
No heroes
You could have been my hero. You could have been everything, Instead of nothing at all.
2020 – Top ‘n’ tail
Doing some kind of Review of the Year is problematic for me anyway as it's a task which necessarily tests the memory. I can't remember the last time I passed a memory test.
Who will stop the rot?
I hate to say it but there's also a definite whiff of the Bain Principle coming off the SNP's decision to vote against the Brexit deal.
Distracted
This British Nationalist propaganda unit is not there to help spin Tory policy, although it may do so incidentally. Why would the British government need to 'spin' policies it has the power to impose regardless of what the people of Scotland want?
