WHAT does a “domestic extremist” look like? Someone wearing a red baseball cap emblazoned with slogans claiming to make their country “great again”? A far-right thug who uses the threat of violence in an attempt to intimidate anyone who looks different from them? Or members of a community peacefully waving home-made placards, campaigning to protect themselves from pollution?
THIS week’s return to business for the Scottish Parliament was an opportunity to address the hopes of people in every community across the country. Making Scotland a fairer, progressive, more democratic country is something there’s broad agreement on but it’s an agenda that has needs a far bolder approach at Holyrood.
MY summer holiday this year began with one last work commitment – I had accepted an invitation to speak at the Féile an Phobail – the West Belfast Festival – about independence, Brexit, and the connections between the Irish and Scottish situations in this unprecedented context. It’s pretty unarguable that both countries’ interests are being trampled on by the UK Government’s reckless approach.
THIS summer’s weather has been extraordinary, not just in Scotland but around the world. It has been accompanied by the usual slew of online articles about how to get to sleep in the warm weather (has anyone actually managed to fit a pillow in the freezer?) and the importance of staying hydrated.
IT’S been a bad week for the UK Government. I mean bad, even compared with all the other bad weeks.
AMID the hubbub of a cabinet reshuffle, a minister-in-waiting scandal and a shelved education bill, the growing threat facing Scotland’s environment has been somewhat overlooked this week.
IF the SNP’s Growth Commission was supposed to do anything, it was to provoke debate. Debate is certainly needed about a new proposition for independence, because the one thing every 2014 Yes voter should be able to agree on is that what we don’t need is simply a re-run of an argument that failed to win a majority then, in circumstances which have already changed dramatically. That would be a recipe for a second and perhaps even final defeat.
COUPLES starting their lives together, whether married or not, often face tough financial decisions, over issues like where to call home.
IN the wake of the Commonwealth Games and with the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in London, there has been another round of speculation about the organisation’s future, and debate about its past.
AN enduring memory from my teenage years was hearing for the first time, in documentaries to mark the 20th anniversary of his assassination, some of the speeches of Martin Luther King.
