A reasoned defence Written by Alex Massie18 March 2021 George Orwell reminds us that “to see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle”. And so it does, not least because what is routine or typical or always there soon becomes something easily ignored and because, in other instances, certain obvious truths …
An impassable road Written by Alex Massie11 March 2021 Every election must always be accompanied by excited advertisements that this is the most crucial such contest in living political memory. Most of the time this is mere froth, the kind of barking required to sell tickets to the carnival. This year’s Holyrood election will be …
Budget carrots Written by Alex Massie4 March 2021 Before Rishi Sunak delivered his budget on Wednesday – an event that has lost some of its salience in Scotland since the devolution of income tax responsibilities to Holyrood, but which still produces the climate within which the Scottish government is able to make its own weather …
Excessive caution comes at a price Written by Alex Massie25 February 2021 The problem with experts is not that we have had enough of them but that the damned experts cannot agree with one another. If this were not so, the path forward might be easier at any time and, especially, now. For we are …
On ‘Global Britain’ Written by Alex Massie18 February 2021 Ever since it was first mooted, it has been tempting to greet the government’s oft-proclaimed belief in ‘Global Britain’ with nothing more – or less – than sardonic laughter. Was this not proof of Britain’s delusions? Was there not something simultaneously puffed-up and nostalgic about it? …
Local democracy for local people Written by Alex Massie11 February 2021 Scotland is a paradoxical place at the best of times; a small country which is both heavily-centralised and lumbered with a remarkable number of sub-national levels of government. From time to time, it is suggested these be rationalised to allow for greater clarity or …
Big tech energy Written by Alex Massie4 February 2021 On 5 February 1994, Carl Bildt, then the prime minister of Sweden, wrote to President Bill Clinton to congratulate him on his decision to end the United States’ trade embargo on Vietnam. The true significance of this otherwise commonplace missive was, as Bildt recognised, that it …
Conversations we have not been having Written by Alex Massie28 January 2021 One of the oddities of our present predicament is the extent to which it demonstrates some of the advantages enjoyed by governing parties. This, it turns out, is not actually a great moment in which to be in opposition. The pandemic has stress-tested …
Getting along with Russia Written by Alex Massie 21 January 2021 For the past four years we have become so caught up in our own interminable affairs that we have, I sometimes think, lost the ability to place matters in their proper context. Brexit, for instance, may well prove to be a diminishing experience. It …
A world of wonder Written by Alex Massie14 January 2021 These are gloomy, fretful, times but while it is easy to be swaddled in melancholy just now, there are, despite everything, reasons to be cheerful. The news is not all bleak. To take but one illuminating example, Science reported last week that a major breakthrough in the …