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Liberated: What did the British ever do for the English? (from The Times) 17

Posted on June 08, 2012 by

It’s been months since we freed an interesting piece of writing from behind a paywall, but this opinion column from today’s Times deserves to be read by anyone with an interest in the nationalist cause, and we can’t claim to be experiencing any great guilt about depriving News International of 0.0000001p in order to bring you it.

It’s an analysis of Ed Miliband’s bizarre “Englishness” speech yesterday (which gets odder and odder the more you examine it), and aside from making the lazy, clumsy but common error of asserting that Labour can’t win in England alone it’s a thoughtful and interesting piece highlighting the contradictions between Miliband’s assertions and depictions of Englishness and his Unionism. Read it below.

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Tags:
Category media, uk politics

If we had a hammer 4

Posted on January 14, 2012 by

…we would give it to Ian Bell, for he’s hit the nail so hard on the head in today’s Herald that he must surely have broken his own. As we’ve said before, we don’t make a habit of reproducing stuff from behind newspaper paywalls, because as journalists ourselves in our day jobs we support the idea of paying for quality journalism, and at just 75p a week a Herald online subscription is very fairly priced, unlike some.

But Bell’s piece today (which also indirectly addresses the hysterical, hypocritical faux-outrage over Joan McAlpine’s “anti-Scottish” comments) is more important than that, and deserves a nationwide audience who can be directed to it time and again over the next two and a half years. Read it below, and then please consider whether for Scotland’s sake you can afford NOT to support one of its few remaining outlets of decent, honest and reasonably balanced writing about politics.

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Tags:
Category analysis, media, scottish politics, uk politics

Briton Of The Year 3

Posted on December 27, 2011 by

…according to today’s edition of The Times, is Alex Salmond. If you were wondering:

“We are fully aware of the irony of awarding this title to someone who does not believe in the idea of Britain itself.”

You can read the full story below.

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Category media, uk politics

Scotland’s secret constitution 5

Posted on December 12, 2011 by

We don’t intend to make a habit of punching holes in the Herald’s new paywall for people to have a free keek through, but an opinion column in today’s edition deserves a much wider audience, including those among us who live in places it’s not possible to buy the paper at all. It’s a piece by W. Elliot Bulmer, author and the research director of the Constitutional Commission, and it’s about the little-known draft document drawn up by the SNP for the written constitution of an independent Scotland. (Almost alone among democracies, the UK has no formal codified constitution.)

It’s an absolutely fascinating read, both in purely technical terms and political ones, and if you’ve already used up your free preview on the site you can see it below.

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Tags:
Category media, scottish politics

The atomic clock 0

Posted on November 22, 2011 by

If Tom Harris’ bid for the leadership of Scottish Labour is indeed some form of elaborate practical joke, you have to applaud his comic timing. On the very day that the media covers the announcement that Scotland is to host the world’s biggest offshore wind farm, providing clean renewable energy for almost half the Scottish population from a single installation (and destroying the UK government’s recent assertions that uncertainty over the independence referendum is deterring investment in the country), Harris has chosen to go public with a call for the building of more nuclear power stations in Scotland, insisting that “renewables cannot meet all our energy requirements”. We’re sure it’ll be a votewinner.

The story appears behind the Times paywall, but you can see it by clicking below.

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Category media

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    • Alf Baird on A Stitch In Timing: ““a devolved administration” That’s what the colonizer calls it. To the colonized it is always a colonial administration.” Feb 6, 13:47
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