On:
In: Jim Lynch

I was at the SNP Conference in Glasgow on Friday and Saturday last week and met many old friends and made some new ones.  As happened before, I feel the venue is too big, too many offshoots, but then again it is a pleasure to see so many people I do not recognise – once upon a time you would know most, but now we’re getting somewhere we have thousands of members.  It’s great.   Happily, we had no major rows, but then again, we do not wish them, the days when we could have a public dispute are largely gone, our enemies, particularly thoseRead More →

On:
In: Grant Thoms

Every day it seems, another No voter makes the case for why an independent Scotland is right, now. The disillusionment with the Brexit Britain they find themselves in is turning even some of the most ardent Unionists into Independistas.   From either ends of the political spectrum – Paul Mason on the Corbynite left to Allan Massie on the right – there is a sense that the case for Scotland ploughing its own furrow as a modern European democracy is gathering pace.   Whilst there is a growing groupthink that Scotland in Europe is a much more viable position, equally there is a recognition thatRead More →

On:
In: Stephen Bird

It’s perhaps worth bearing in mind that under normal circumstances we would be heading headlong to another General Election at a rate of knots. That many, perhaps most, commentators do not assume so is largely down to the Fixed Term Parliament Act. This was a price the Tories paid to get back into Downing St on the back of the Libdems. But does it really matter? We currently have perhaps the most xenophobic and imperialist Government ever seen in the UK. Theresa May’s collective of zealots will be willing to make people pay any price just to prove that “Brexit means Brexit”. Collapse in sterling?Read More →

On:
In: Guest Blogger

I’ve always known and feared that a day like this would come, when the Government of the UK abandoned all pretence of decency and showed the ugly, snarling face beneath the mask. I’ve always known it was there, layered away, momentarily dormant but virulent in potential, ready to burst forth like a fever from the pores of the host. If you looked carefully you could sometimes spot its outline. In newspapers that had never quite abandoned their “glory days” of cheering on the blackshirts and who still spouted their vile xenophobia, often poorly and gratingly disguised as jocularity. In the rhetoric of the pet politiciansRead More →

On:
In: Kay Ullrich

So goes the old song.  There has been nothing “easy” about living through this past summer after the result of the Referendum on June the 23rd.  To watch the Tories at play in Westminster you might well think nothing much has happened!  In spite of the damage they caused with their “jolly wheeze” of  the Referendum – the great Tory Roadshow continues on its merry way –  checked solely by the magnificent SNP Group at Westminster. It seems that the sainted Theresa – she who reluctantly stepped up to the plate to aid her Country in time of crisis, is not quite so selfless asRead More →

On:
In: Maureen Forbes

The First Minister visited the Nigg Energy Park in the constituency recently and saw the turbines that are bound for the world’s first large scale tidal wind farm. This will also be sited in the Far North; the MeyGen project, a forerunner in marine renewables, will change the way they are viewed around the world. Generating reliable, sustainable and clean energy for the consumer it will also add nearly £300 million to Scotland’s economy as well as providing employment, training opportunities and research developments which will be of global benefit. Work will begin on the placing of the first giant underwater turbines within the nextRead More →

On:
In: Stephen Bird

“When the facts change, I change my mind, what do you do Sir?” John Maynard Keynes is reported to have said.   Let’s just recall the feelings on the morning of September 19 2014. Despair, depression and dejection were the high points as I came to terms with what had happened on the day to be forever known as Black Thursday, I wanted to chuck it all in, move to Spain and live out my remaining years without another canvass pack or leaflet run. Ever. In the following days, tens of thousands of people changed their minds. Some had been out campaigning for a YESRead More →

On:
In: Recommended

The day had come. I had waited 43 years to see this play. Being 13 at the time I was just too young to go see it. It had a lot to live up to. I had heard about it over the years from many who had seen it on the very first tour. I was attending this updated production with my other half who had seen the original production at an S.N.P. conference. Many of the then upcoming actors in the production had gone on to be well known quality actors. Could this new production live up to what had become an iconic memory?Read More →

On:
In: Jim Lynch

The above is an amalgam of two Latin phrases I cobbled up in an idle moment.  Status Quo is “as things were before”, and Quo Vadis is “Whither goest thou?” Sums up Westminster.   Well at least we know where Scotland should be going; Nicola has challenged Party members to start canvassing support for another Independence Referendum.  The Unionists and their media pals – we don’t have many- are carping away about how the Summer Independence campaign has becoming the Autumn one.  It wasn’t a great summer, weatherwise, but we managed to convincingly win another Scottish Parliamentary Election, that’s three in a row, plus theRead More →