“I didn’t get into politics to make bureaucrats more powerful or hand more control to politicians. I’m here to get power back to people, to communities, to tenants and passengers and patients and students and frontline staff. We need the state to make it happen, but then we need them to take their hands off.”
“People will remember the mad-dash scramble to “fudge” the UK figures to meet the target of 100,000 tests per day by the end of April. Less well advertised is that while the UK’s testing figures are still less than spectacular, they have overtaken Scotland’s and have remained consistently higher since late April and for the entire month of May.”
“On Monday, thousands turned out in Quito and other cities, again with face masks and a careful distance between each protester. In fact, it was the police who did not respect social distancing, as they charged protesters in the historic centre of Quito, using tear gas and truncheons.”
New figures for the first quarter of 2020 have revealed an astonishing collapse in the profitability of shale gas extracting (fracking) firms in the US.
“The rot is set so deep in the British political system, and is carried by so many of its influential actors, that it becomes difficult to see how it can be reformed – an impasse which only bolsters the appeal of independence.”
“Accepting Jeanne Freeman at her word, why didn’t she realise what anyone working at the coalface in the sector could have told her – that discharging any infected person from hospital to a care home could have disastrous consequences?”
All Dominic Cummings needed was ‘plausible deniability’. In the world of sharply polarised political opinion, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s closest adviser, and a key strategic figure in the UK Government, didn’t need to be exonerated. He just needed […]
“We need to start moving more towards a Circular Economy which will mean designing our products to last longer, use fewer resources and be easier to repair. This attitude stands directly in the face of many of the mass market shops on our High Street which thrive on selling us fast, single use items that we have to buy again and again.”
It was interesting to see Troy Deeney, the Watford English Premier League football captain, explain why he wouldn’t be going back into work. He said: “My problem was in the meeting, I asked very simple questions. “For black, Asian and mixed ethnicities [BAME], they’re four times more likely to get the illness, they’re twice as likely […]
“If this strategy is not implemented adequately then it will have much the same effect as not implementing it at all. This will force Scotland to re-impose the strict lockdown that we’ve endured until now and will come at the cost of even more lives than we’ve lost so far.”
“It seems to me the best possible mechanism we have is the independence movement itself. Shouldn’t we be spending time, thought, resources and discussion on how we can build a truly visionary, popular movement of movements – one that goes beyond mere party allegiance?”
With few protections being given to renters since the Covid-19 crisis hit, and record job and income loss, a high burden is being placed on the shoulders of renters.
It is a grim irony that on the day it was announced that Heriot-Watt University had removed the Salmond “rocks will melt with the sun before I allow tuition fees to be imposed on Scotland’s students” stone, the Scottish Parliament had one of its most dire day’s on historical record. Many university Principals are now […]