It’s no great insight to say that liberal politics today is built on elaborate gestures and performative displays of virtue. The Obama era exemplified its pathology: oodles of empathy, zero underlying change.
James Foley
Everyone, from fans groups to Tory Prime Ministers, seems dead against. There has been a lot of anger, both righteous and performative. But money talks, and even if this doesn’t go ahead, the implications could still transform the economics of sport.
Source Direct: Football & Capitalism – Competition is for Losers
For the aspirational politico, fretting over Alba has convenient side-effects, giving the aura of a moral high ground without damaging your prospects among those with real power. True progressives should treat all such risk-free stances with a dose of scepticism.
Source Direct Election Profile: the Alba Party
With Alba likely to be a sideshow at best, the Greens could move front and centre. If that means coalition, the question will be, have they really thought it through?
Source Direct Election Profile: the Scottish Greens
There are two inferences that almost everybody agrees on: firstly, that the Taliban has won and will likely exploit the power vacuum for their own barbaric purposes; secondly, that America’s decision to leave is nonetheless the best for all concerned.
Source Direct: Afghanistan – Failed States and Rogue States
Sturgeon is renowned for her staid, lawyerly command of briefs. There is no prospect that she would fight a referendum on a platform as flimsy as the Growth Commission.
Source Direct Election Profile: the SNP
He was neither a giant of the age nor a vicious fascist; in truth, he was a standard figure of the upper reaches of the British aristocracy.
Source Direct: Philling the Void
The Lib Dems have long faced a crisis of function. They were formed as the third way between a working class left and a capitalist right; broadly, they would represent the middle-class centre. Ironically, given their history, they spent their most productive years opposing Labour from the left.
Source Direct Election Profile: The Lib Dems
A recent poll gave Galloway a fighting chance of winning a seat. But, in all likelihood, his presence will merely pinch votes from an already demoralised band of Scottish Conservatives.
Source Direct Election Profile: All for Unity
Ruth Davidson capitalised on the anti-2014 backlash, but those fires are almost extinguished, and the new leader sounds so shrill that the Party seems tempted to relegate him from frontline campaigning. One party source said of Ross, “he needs to smile more”. So far, he’s had nothing to smile about.