SNP trade minister Ivan McKee evocatively called them a “shiny squirrel” while Nicola Sturgeon noted they were widely associated with “low-cost, low-wage, low-value opportunities”. Fortunately, the Scottish Government aren’t proposing “freeports” but “green ports”…
Analysis
“Free trade regimes – either EU or UK – are incompatible with environmentally sound and socially just economic development, as the fishing communities know only too well.”
Analysis: Scotland’s fishing communities need more than European free trade
Joe Biden’s inauguration yesterday thus had the feeling of a global event, with all of us vicariously participating. Much of the media, including our state broadcaster, put objectivity to bed and resorted to fawning, like Nicholas Witchell narrating the birth of a Royal baby.
Source Direct: Biden with Me
Capitalism, our system, is ageing, inept, bilious and barely able to rise from its sickbed. Economic news does not determine the constitution, but it does ask questions about what type of independence might be possible or desirable.
Source Direct: System Shock
“Only the course of coming years will tell us if Trump’s experiment in erratic anti-politics in power leaves a legacy of disorientation, or renewal on the right.”
Analysis: The Republicans are down but far from out
It’s tempting to ignore the Scottish Labour leadership election. Here will be two career politicians with milquetoast opinions fighting for the soul of a party that long ceased to matter in Scotland’s real power stakes.
Source Direct: On the Slab
The SNP’s launch of a new “independence taskforce” was greeted with a predictable round of predictable scolds from a predictable group of unionist leaders led by a predictable Scottish Labour leadership candidate.
Source Direct: Breaking Free
Theoretically, there should be an element of shock in Richard Leonard’s resignation as Scottish Labour leader, so close to a Holyrood election. But nobody seems even remotely surprised.
Source Direct: Slabbed Through the Heart
Scotland’s news today is dominated by further lockdown restrictions. The measures may appear marginal: limitations on click and collect deliveries; firmer rules for takeaways; curbs around alcohol. But they are designed to stamp home the message that there is no imminent return to normality.
Source Direct: Lock Me Down
“The classless euphoria of ‘Clap for Carers’ is rapidly giving way to class tension. Some of it is starting to rise to the level of real conflict.”