Author: Speymouth

This Tory government is detestable

Speymouth October 9, 2022

The Tories, whose relatively few supporters in Scotland spend their time on social media telling us how much they hate the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon – whom they usually refer to by some infantile insulting nick name – and (irony of ironies) ‘nationalism’, are this weekend clutching their collective pearls at the…

Under what circumstances, if at all, would the SNP government move to open defiance of Westminster?

Speymouth October 7, 2022

Question 4: Under what circumstances, if at all, would the SNP government move to open defiance of Westminster? On Twitter you meet all sorts: English nationalists fixated on Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights. Scottish nationalists dreaming of the proclamation of the Provision Government in 1916 or the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet declaring in 1990 […] Source

Preparing to win the next UK General Election

Speymouth October 6, 2022

It is safe to say now that the Conservative party has made a catastrophic mistake by choosing Liz Truss as its leader and as Prime Minister. After just four weeks in office – during two of which there was no government business due to the royal commournathon, Truss has taken the…

Lessons From the Edinburgh Agreement that Westminster Forgot

Speymouth October 6, 2022

  NEXT WEEK the Supreme Court will adjudicate on the Scottish Parliament’s right to hold an independence referendum. The case comes almost exactly ten years after the signing of the Edinburgh Agreement, setting out the basis for a referendum on Scottish independence.  Prime Minister David Cameron and the then Scottish…

Dying to be British

Speymouth October 5, 2022

This Conservative government is literally killing us. I wish that was just rhetorical hyperbole, but sadly it’s a stark and cruel truth. Researchers based in Glasgow have calculated that due to the Tory austerity policies which slashed billions of pounds from social security payments and public services that between 2012-2019, almost…

Stronger Things

Speymouth October 4, 2022

Continuing his guest-residency Gordon Guthrie reflects on the British crisis, the SNP’s lack of strategy and future choices. Question 1: Which election is the referendum? next Holyrood?, Special Holyrood?, next Westminster? And what is the referendum-election question? should Scotland be independent or does Scotland have the right to an indyref? To describe the SNP’s current […] Source

Rats in a sack

Speymouth October 3, 2022

It’s all going so terribly well isn’t it? Liz Truss is living down to expectations that she would prove to be the next Worst Prime Minister in living memory, and is doing so in spectacular style. It must be clear by now to even the most obtuse “But what about the…

Navigating Through for Scotland

Speymouth October 3, 2022

This is the first of a mini-series, one a day all week, asking questions about where we are and what next for the constitution. We are living in uncertain times. The UK is in the midst of an institutional crisis. Before New Labour, Robin Cook established his chops with his speech on the Scott Report. […] Source

70 Years on: The Art of UK Nuclear Testing

Speymouth October 3, 2022

On October 3rd 1952, the UK conducted its first nuclear tests in Australia. Seventy years on, Scottish CND is commemorating with indigenous artists and activists to explore what that has meant for them, along with some of the veterans who have also been affected. They are hosting a webinar, to provide information on the consequences […] Source