“Should we feel defeated? Only if we have forgotten that history has its own ways. The season will turn.”
Scottish democracy
There’s no proverbial white and black Stetsons to keep you right. Everywhere you look, it’s morally murky: shady deals, power plays, flawed characters with a past.
Source Direct: Holyrood’s House of Cards
The prospects for farce were highlighted by Peter Murrell’s evidence yesterday: when Labour MSP Jackie Baillie implied he was being coached off camera, Murrell answered that his eye was distracted by a rogue magpie. You could almost see Malcolm Tucker off camera, stamping his foot with rage.
Source Direct: Two Tribes Go to War
“Findlay’s Devo Max option is wildly ill-conceived, taken from the perspective of his own political commitments to a more egalitarian, democratic and just society. His own Devo Max option is the perfect vehicle for elite interests.”
David Jamieson: ‘Devo Max’ might be the surest route to elite capture
“Like the Catalan movement, Scots may face an allied UK and European apparatus increasingly disrespectful of democracy and focused on the interests of the already institutionally dominant.”
Analysis: Repression in Catalonia is a Spanish tradition – but it has lessons for us as well
The scale of the SQA mess is, I think, acknowledged by everyone. Of course governments get into policy messes all the time – it’s hardly a unique situation. But this government is producing far too many of them far too fast. The care home crisis, Nikegate, the early failures on Covid-19 control, the blended learning […]
