A few days ago I wrote optimistically about the prospect of a coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Now that we have a coalition for real, I feel even more cheered. Part of my argument in my earlier post was that there needs to be cultural change in politics. When I listened to […]
Why a Conservative—Lib Dem coalition may not be a bad thing
No doubt, election night was a very disappointing one for me. I was involved in the Liberal Democrat campaign in Dunfermline, and I attended the count. There was disappointment in Dunfermline — but we always expected it to be very difficult to hang on there. So while it was very disappointing to lose in Dunfermline, […]
If Gillian Duffy is a bigot, then Labour is the bigoted party
My first reaction upon reading about Gordon Brown’s “bigoted woman” gaffe was, “but what if she is bigoted?” My second thought was, “this will probably work in Gordon Brown’s favour”. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time the media got a tad over-excited when criticising Gordon Brown, only for it to work in Brown’s […]
Scotland’s well-behaved nationalists
One thing that really stuck me about the leaflets from Ukip and the BNP for the recent European Parliamentary election was the fact that they were stuffed full of cheesy patriotic symbols — Union Flags, Spitfires, Winston Churchills and so on. Any electorate in the world will have a certain contingent who are enticed by […]
European Parliamentary Election literature: small parties
BNP Needless to say, the BNP is a pathetic party of mindless xenophobes with moronic policies. Their election leaflet has come in for a ton of criticism too, and rightly so. My dad picked up on their use of a Spitfire at the very top of the leaflet: The Spitfire was used in a war […]
The history of Scotland’s population
I recently had to write an essay for university about changes in Scotland’s population since 1945. While I was writing that I happened, almost by chance, upon The Registrar General’s Annual Review of Demographic Trends 2004. What’s so special about 2004? It was the 150th anniversary of civil registration (which began in 1855, in case […]
A bit of fun with US politics
I came across another of those political quizzes. This one matches you up with the US Presidential candidates. It’s quite smart. You can choose which topics you’re interested in by distributing 20 points among 14 categories. I gave one point to each category then bumped up a few areas where I feel strongest. It then […]
The meaningless difference between left and right
I hate all blogging awards except for the ones I am nominated for. That means I hate all of them (apart from James Higham’s Blogpower awards!).* One of the biggest problems is that there are just so many of them. The ones I always saw as the most important were the Bloggies — but perhaps […]
Opposition to immigration reaches its logical conclusion
It is probably not a surprise to most people that MigrationWatch are a raving mob of fascist shits. Unlike some, I don’t waggle words like ‘fascist’ around lightly. But here is why I apply it to MigrationWatch and their chair Andrew Green. People who are opposed to immigration like to say that “they take our […]
No sense of irony
Genuine caller on Radio Five Live this morning, in a discussion about good things that are British: “When you move to other countries you find out that all countries have the same problems, like immigration.”