I started this blog in August 2014, in the final days of the Independence campaign. [2014-15 posts are here] I'd raised my political head above the dyke at last. It was intended to be a commentary on
the lead-up to independence. My tag line, ‘…the long road to social justice…’ was, perhaps too
prophetic.
We rejected independence on a 45|55 percentage margin. However we’d voted on the 18th of September, the road would have been long and challenging and maybe we were naive to think we could roll over the combined might and mouth of Unionism in one bound. Ah, lessons learned. Time has passed and the landscape has changed. We’re here now, still here, and there’s a road.
We rejected independence on a 45|55 percentage margin. However we’d voted on the 18th of September, the road would have been long and challenging and maybe we were naive to think we could roll over the combined might and mouth of Unionism in one bound. Ah, lessons learned. Time has passed and the landscape has changed. We’re here now, still here, and there’s a road.
I’d
like to think this blog, like the continuing YES movement is still a place for
hope and enthusiasm. It's still a place for reminding ourselves there's no going
back. For me YES is an idea, an opportunity and a living possibility. The
groundswell of popular excitement was our greatest strength before the 18th. It
is that now, afterwards.
The
threat we faced in the run-up to the Referendum was having our own negativity
awakened by the voices of NO. Their bleak, hopeless blank picture of tomorrow was
a millstone around our necks. Our weakness was only the one they projected: a
limp sense of incapacity. The too wee, too poor, too stupid nightmare. NO
believed it because they seemed to want us to crawl back into it.
After the last-minute mystery box, our gift from Gordon. (Remember, ‘gift’ is
German for ‘poison’). He offered us free tickets to the Last-Chance
Saloon and enough of us took the gamble. We’re in it now. But now, Gordon, Dave, Nick and Ed, even Nige and his sundry hangers have moved aside to the uncannily deceitful Brexit bunch. And we’re all still here, together but no better.
Their
task, in the back-rooms and corridors, is to create an exit plan to fit their rag-bag of promises. As if they’d fill some empty wagons from their gravy-train
with just enough juice to placate North, South, East and West and keep us quiet once more. In this fiasco, it
is, for them more than us, the Last-Chance Saloon. The die is cast, the clock is
ticking. We’re still waiting.
I've resurrected this
blog about the long road away from all their self interest and, frankly, deluded incompetence. I want it to lead to an independent Scotland soon. If it leads ultimately to a socially just UK, so much the better. Wherever it goes, it’s about hope for people
in a fair society, a fairer world, where politics and business have rediscovered
honour.
Principles,
inspiration and vision continue to live in each one of us. They don’t shrivel when others decide to take us along on a different path. They go on growing. So nurture them, speak out and face the future.
As for the tired and sleekit selfishness of the Westminster establishment, don't let them spread their fear. Don't let them send us back to their dark place.
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All the 2014-15 articles are archived here. Click the ARCHIVE link above anywhere else to look back at them.
As for the tired and sleekit selfishness of the Westminster establishment, don't let them spread their fear. Don't let them send us back to their dark place.
<HR>
All the 2014-15 articles are archived here. Click the ARCHIVE link above anywhere else to look back at them.
