I am not picking on Kirsty Strickland. I have selected her column in today's National only because it so neatly exemplifies the fallacy that has gripped a substantial part of the Yes movement. I could have taken the First Minister's appearance on Sophy Ridge on Sunday and her conclusions regarding the latest anti-democratic pronouncements from … Continue reading Fallacy and folly
My first reaction on seeing a headline such as this in today's Sunday National ─ UK Government considering legislation that would require 50 per cent of entire electorate to vote Yes in indyref2 ─ is to wonder why readers might be taken aback by being thus informed of the British state's intentions towards Scotland. It's … Continue reading The long night
My intention this morning was to write an article prompted by the headline over Richard Walker's column in The National - Yes movement has to come together and recapture the spirit of 2014. It's one of those very sensible-sounding things that people tend to agree with having given the matter little or no thought. It … Continue reading No way back
No great political sophistication is required to intuit that when a politician says we should be looking at this thing it's because they don't want us looking at that thing. Everybody knows that when a politician insists on answering what they refer to as the 'real' question rather than the question they've been asked it's … Continue reading Don’t read this! Read that!
Let me make one thing clear from the outset. I fully recognise the crucial nature of the climate crisis. I was persuaded by James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis long before climate change became the stuff of mainstream media interest and global political significance. Nor am I one to minimise the not unrelated issue of zoonotic pathogens … Continue reading There’s aye somethin’!
The closing paragraphs of James Kelly's analysis of the latest full-scale Scottish poll from Redfield & Wilton Strategies fully explain why we need to be at Holyrood when the Scottish Parliament resumes on the afternoon of Tuesday 31 August to tell the Scottish government that "now is the time". They show no sign of deciding … Continue reading Now is the time!
If you are asking what the SNP is going to do about the dismantling of our democracy and obliteration of our national identity by the British state then you are asking the wrong question. To paraphrase John Fitzgerald Kennedy, ask not what a bunch of politicians might do for you, but what you are prepared … Continue reading Defiance! Not compliance!
The following started off as a reply to somebody on Facebook wanting to know what they could do to put pressure on Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government in order to force them to act on the constitutional issue. I had been meaning to write something about this anyway. This will serve. Other than shrugging … Continue reading Combination is the key
I am 65 years old. In the, slightly more than, half a century that I have been politically aware, I cannot recall a time when ‘we’ were not in the midst of an economic crisis; on the verge of and economic crisis; or struggling to recover from an economic crisis. In all circumstances, the measures … Continue reading Killing politics
A recent piece on the excellent Lallands Peat Worrier blog contained the following less than flattering assessment of mainstream political journalism,Understanding the politics of devolution increasingly demands that we understand the law of devolution. Regrettably, most of our key commentators and opinion formers still haven't the nearest, foggiest clue about how the powers and reservations … Continue reading The immaculate innocence of journalists?
Peter A Bell 