In the world in 2012 only democratic nation states have the capacity to challenge global financial power. Which means that we will eventual have to choose between the two nationalisms available to us (Scottish and British) on the basis of a careful assessment on whether they are different or not.
Read More »If there is no alternative, we will soon have to choose one nationalism or the other
The Jubilee shows that Scotland and England seem to have a very different social contract with the state, with England’s deference contrasting with a more fundamental social democracy in Scotland. The Jubilee is over but the social question remains. How will the unionist-left resolve this?
It’s time to stop taking at face-value the idea that an independent Scotland would have ‘no option’ but to accept Sterling or the Euro as a currency. The independence debate could be quite different if supporters of independence would be less afraid of talking about the possibility.
The media always believes that what concerns it must concern us all. Twice recently it got this badly wrong – Iraq and the banking crisis where it simply failed to understand what was happening in the proportion of the world not made out of press releases. The navel-gazing over NATO and its difficulty in understand the Yes campaign launch suggest it may be starting to get things wrong again.
Supporters of independence have not come up with compelling answers on the question of currency and its implications for monetary policy. But if supporters of the union think their case for our influence over monetary policy is any more persuasive they are wrong.
Read More »Is someone offering us a democratic monetary policy?
It looks like an anti-NATO victory over possible SNP policy change. This shows the left that it has genuine power, but we need to realise that this puts Scotland on the front line of London’s drive to ensure military hegemony.
The idea that collusion with News International was entirely acceptable right up until the Milly Dowler phone hacking scandal is perhaps the weakest piece of self-justification in recent political memory
Read More »The ‘Wilson Defence’ of collusion with Murdoch shames him
The Hague argument about the need to maintain British influence on international security issues doesn’t really stand up to the ‘six-year-old’ test. But then, six-year-0lds are much less gullible than us adults.
Read More »Secured, but as in ‘tied down’ and not as in ‘kept safe’
The First Minister thinks he has a responsibility to corporate profit that extends beyond his responsibility to the Scottish people? If we don’t remove this infection of money from Scottish politics we will have no democracy left.
The defence and security establishment functions exactly like one of the oldest confidence tricks. But to make the game work we have to believe that Only They can save us from All Of Them out to get us. If only that submarine had crashed somewhere a bit more private.