“We can do better than this, and we have no right not to try. We have no shortage of those who have not given up.”
Coronavirus
“As the necessity of extending the eviction ban grows ever more obvious, we must remember: Your landlord is not your friend. They are not your genial host. They sustain themselves by leeching from you all they can get, in exchange for which they occasionally send someone round to fix the boiler.”
Sean Bell: Extending the eviction ban is the bare minimum of what is required
Regardless of whether the lab leak thesis is remotely plausible, the liberal moral panic about Trump clearly had a chilling effect not just on public debate, but also on research agendas.
Source Direct: The Lab Leak Hypothesis
“The substantive issues about the way older people were discharged from hospital last year are not about legal processes at all – they are about whether appropriate measures were taken to protect vulnerable older peoples’ lives in the face of the unfolding pandemic.”
Nick Kempe: Lessons from the hospital discharge to care homes scandal?
The Cummings-Johnson showdown looks likely to play out like Holyrood’s own high noon. Revelations and accusations will titillate the political class; and some authentically scandalous insights into state power will be uncovered. But the wider public may look the other way.
Source Direct: Cumm Again?
“Tomorrow’s Holyrood election – for which more than 4.2 million people have registered to vote, the highest number yet recorded – has arguably frustrated Scotland’s politicians at least as much as the public on whom their futures depend.”
Sean Bell: What kind of election campaign has it been?
“If we are to design a NCS worthy of the name, it is essential that the full truth about that disaster is made public, including the role of central government, private sector providers and the relationship between the two. The revelations of the last two weeks represent some tentative steps in the right direction.”
Nick Kempe: Would the Scottish Government’s proposals for a National Care Service have averted the death toll in our care homes?
“As our national and international conversations turns increasingly towards post-Covid recovery, we will dwell less on what has traumatised us and more on what might heal us. Of course, this is where it gets tricky.”
Sean Bell: What does a post-Covid recovery for our mental health look like?
“If Scotland is to be a place to live a good life in a good society, we should take the lessons of mutual support groups and the new fluidity of governance offered by the pandemic upheaval. We’ve seen the power when people come together – when communities are shaped by us and for us, all done at a local level.”
Willie Sullivan: Only real local democracy can rebuild our communities
“It would appear that Police Scotland are more frightened of belligerent football fans than nonviolent anti-racist protestors. That may be entirely rational – one does not need to be an expert in urban pacification to conclude that the latter can be kettled and bullied far more easily than the former. This does not make the double standard any less grating.”