Stephen Bird (Page 9)

This piece tries to capture my thoughts over a four week visit to family in Canada over July. It covers conversations with family, their friends and in some cases complete strangers. Long story short; my parents divorced when I was a toddler and just 5 years ago, at the age of 60, I discovered that I have two brothers and a sister in Canada. Fortunately, we all get on well and over the last few weeks, the Boss and I have been visiting them for a family wedding in Calgary with stops along the way. But I wanted to take the time to have aRead More →

Well, that’s another referendum out of the road, and yet another on the horizon. As a movement we now have some serious thinking to do before the starting gun s fired for #indyref2 and we will need to come up with pretty good answers to win. One question which we did not convince the electorate about last time round was currency and it will be much harder this time to argue for a shared currency. A rUK which comprises, or at least faces being only England & Wales, will be much harder to convince on the merits of a shared currency. It may well alsoRead More →

There is an old cliché which we all fall back on some times, about having won the debate and lost the vote. Especially true in Council Chambers across Scotland where after the 2012 elections unionists cobbled together all manner of coalitions which had one aim; to stop Independence and the SNP. But in the run up to, and on, polling day this year, one thing which became increasingly obvious was that although we lost the vote on September 18 2014, the debate is virtually over. Nothing made this more obvious than the sheer hostility unionists displayed over even flying the Saltire, even more so SNPRead More →

Debt. It’s been a fairly topical subject in recent weeks. With The Hootsmon, revealing on March 10 that Scotland currently would have a “black hole of £15 billion”. And  on March 24 revealed that it would have been only £10 billion on March 24 if we had voted YES instead of NO on Black Thursday! So, that means according to the voice of Unionism, that Scotland has lost another £5 billion (£5,000,000,000) by staying with the “delights” of London’s Tory austerity agenda in just 18 months. But, debt, real or imagined, has been on my mind for another reason as well! I had a conversationRead More →

Over the years there have been many predictions of dirty campaigns, some justified some not but we are, I suspect, now in a very dirty campaign which will last till May 17, and for a very simple reason; Labour in Scotland are genuinely frightened that they face complete oblivion. Labour once had three legs to their power base. It seems strange now to even say Labour once had a power base. The first leg was, of course, Westminster. Well, we sorted that out last year in no uncertain manner, and Labour have become poorer not only financially, but their whole psyche has been rocked. TheRead More →

As the Festive Season falls away into memory, thoughts start to turn to the forthcoming campaign season once again. The Campaign Committees have been pulled together, draft plans and timings are the topic of much heated discussions and the polls continue to look good for May 2016. Happy days would seem to lie ahead. But for those of us who are fortunate enough to be in Local Government, it’s a bit early to put the hangover cures away because we now have to start wrestling with three major issues. We are firmly between the budget cuts rock and the hard place of reducing services. TheRead More →

In the poem “New Colossus” Emma Lazarus penned lines which have become to so many the very epitome of what the USA stands for. Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning toRead More →

I’m sure that you all know the feeling when someone tries to insult you but in your eyes actually compliment you. When you’re accused of putting Scotland first (Ed, are we still allowed to say Scotland?), and you proudly plead guilty. When you’re accused of being stuck to your principles and you have no excuse, yes you are guilty of saying what you mean and please m’lud I also mean what I say! That’s roughly how I’ve been feeling over the last few months! And the reason is the accusation that we are somehow now a “one party state”. Note that none of our unionistRead More →

I was taught by a former Sales Manager that God gave us two eyes, two ears and only one mouth. And that we should learn to use them in proportion. “When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know; but when you listen, you may learn something new.” She was talking about learning what our customers really wanted but I was reminded of these wise words often as I watched the comedy which is the Labour Leadership elections play out. Strangely enough, it was thinking about the referendum campaign which first formed the link. There is ample evidence that the Unionist forces hadRead More →