referendum

Alex Salmond. He’s not gone away, you know.

  A week is famously a long time in politics.  Alex Salmond  who resigned following the defeat of the Yes campaign in Scotland’s independence referendum, had been leader of the Scottish National Party for nearly a quarter of a century.  That’s an eternity in politics – as I can testify from personal experience.   I … Continue reading →

From Sunday Herald, 16/6/13 I don’t know about the Scottish cringe, but I found Thursday’s Edinburgh Question Time toe-curling. It was a nightmare version of the referendum campaign, complete with an omni-rant from George Galloway, the Respect MP, forming a devil’s alliance with the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage – a demented glove-puppet – to claim, … Continue reading →

Independence – it’s whatever you want it to be.

Sunday Herald 3/2/13     The Scottish Electoral Commissioner, John McCormick, caused a parliamentary row last week by suggesting that both the Unionists and Nationalists should get together and make a “joint statement” on what a yes vote would mean in practice. You might as well try to get the Professor Richard Dawkins and Cardinal … Continue reading →

It’s an OUT OUT referendum on Euorpe.

    This isn’t an in out referendum on Europe, but an out out referendum.  The PM says he will try to negotiate a new deal with Europe and put that to the people in a referendum.  But he must know that the kind of package of repatriated powers that he is seeking, or rather … Continue reading →

Are the Liberal Democrats more nationalist than Alex Salmond? Discuss.

   First there was one option, now there is a whole raft of them. No sooner had Alex Salmond and David Cameron struck the Edinburgh Agreement, and opened the way for a single question referendum on independence for Scotland, when along come the Liberal Democrats with plans for a full-scale federal restructuring of Britain. The … Continue reading →

The Bastards Are Back. How the Tories are all eurosceptic now.

It was just like old times. Wednesday’s Tory back-bench rebellion over Britain’s contribution to the European budget took me back twenty years to Maastricht, John Major and the eurosceptic tormentors that the former Tory PM called “the b****rds”. One of them, Teresa Gorman, the Conservative MP for Billericay, even wrote a book entitled “Bastards” about … Continue reading →

The status quo isn’t what it used to be.

 The status quo isn’t what it used to be. In the old days, you knew where you stood when you voted No to constitutional change. You would be voting for things as they are – whatever arrangement happens to apply at the time of voting. Not any more. This weekend it is impossible to say … Continue reading →

Pandagate. Those independence scare stories in full.

But they will never take…our pandas! I don’t know where the Mirror got the story that, because they were gifts to the UK not Scotland, we would lose Sunshine and Sweetie if Scotland voted for independence. The paper cited government sources.   But apart from being straight wrong – the pandas were lent to Edinburgh Zoo, … Continue reading →

Independence. It’s all in the mind.

In first ordinary philosophy seminars students used to debate the question of whether we can rely on the evidence of our senses to give us an accurate account of the real world. Is this a real table before me, or am I just dreaming or imagining a table? I’ve been having similar problems with the … Continue reading →

2011. Why I think independence is inevitable.

  Spare a thought for Iain Gray this festive season He was by no means a bad politician – as his party discovered when they looked to replace him.  But the abiding image of the 2011 Scottish parliamentary election campaign has to be Labour’s Scottish leader seeking refuge in a “Subway” sandwich bar after being … Continue reading →