I never cease to be taken aback by the number of people who voluntarily join discussions on social media fully determined that they will not be influenced by the discussion they're joining. What is the point? Those who are open to having their views modified through engagement with others seem to be the exception. But … Continue reading The millstone of policy
In all of this the British government would be arguing against relevant provisions of the UN Charter and various UN declarations and internationally accepted conventions. It is entirely possible that the prospect would be too daunting for them.
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.
There is not now and never was any route to the restoration of Scotland's Independence which does not involve confrontation with the British state. It was always a nonsense to suppose that, in the wake of the 2014 referendum and with a rising wave of democratic dissent in Scotland, there could ever be a viable process that was critically dependent on the full and honest cooperation of the British government.
What is left is the Scottish Parliament and a new constitutional and legal framework constructed for the defence of democracy in Scotland. A constitutional and legal framework informed by the distinctive political culture which British Nationalists are seeking to eradicate along with such other distinctiveness as is deemed inimical to the 'Little Britain/Greater England' fantasised about by those British Nationalists. A constitutional and legal framework built on the solid foundation of the sovereignty of Scotland's people and the democratic legitimacy of the Scottish Parliament.
Constitutional politics is dismissed as not being about real life in the real world. As if economics was! Those rights and freedoms are all very well, but will you be paying more tax? That's the important question. Why are you fretting about democracy when people are homeless and hungry? It's nice to have aspirations, but they just aren't economically viable. We have to make the hard choices. There is no other way!!!
Constitutional ideology is not at all like any other other area of politics. Constitutional politics both overarches and underpins all of a nation's politics.
As with bank collapses and terrorist atrocities, so with the current public health emergency. It's the only thing there is. One crisis only allowed. Nothing else matters. To suggest that something else matters is to invite accusations of attempting to diminish or dismiss the seriousness of the 'real issue'.
Can the soul of a nation be weighed? Can it be accorded a monetary value? Are our "institutions, rights, identity, values and principles" for sale if we get the right offer?
Economics does have a few 'iron laws'; a scattering of fixed points to which it is tethered in order to prevent it straying too far into the realms of fantasy. Other than that, economics is pretty much entirely at the mercy of personal prejudice and political expediency.
Peter A Bell 