Profile for Shuggy
Latest posts from Shuggy (see all)
Shuggy has posted 2 times (0 in the last month).
On the prospect of a referendum on Scottish independence: initial thoughts
The first is that nothing has happened so far in the debate provoked by Cameron’s high-risk, and previously occluded, plan to play Call My Bluff with the Nationalists in Scotland to disabuse me of my view of referendums. I would suggest that the reason the arguments over the timing and the form of question are [...] more »
On Ireland and the case for Scottish independence
One wonders whether in the future small and medium-sized countries will begin to worry when commentators start using their economies as case-studies: whom the gods of economic history wish to destroy, first they make them examples from which wider lessons should be drawn? Everyone remembers that this was the case with Ireland and its apparent [...] more »
Latest comments from Shuggy (see all)
Shuggy has commented 7 times (0 in the last month).
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Books
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Hearing the Other Voice from the Grave: Why Should we Listen to David Ervine’s Stories?
Ed Moloney’s Voices from the Grave: Two Men’s War in Ireland has received considerable attention in the press and in the public realm since its publication earlier this year. Although the book relates the experiences of the Provisional IRA’s Brendan Hughes and the PUP/UVF’s David Ervine, much of the discussion has focused on Hughes’ stories [...] read our review » -
Help me with the West Wing: Essential viewing or Party Political Broadcast?
Having somehow managed to avoid watching a single episode of the widely praised West Wing TV series I was delighted to discover the entire Box set in my Christmas stocking – and with enough spare time over the holidays to give it a good lash. But with 10 episodes of the first series under my [...] read our review »
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Of the Old North and other Vanished Kingdoms..
I’m currently trawling through Norman Davies’s fabulous new tome – “Vanished Kingdoms” – Five stars in the (London) Telegraph’s review from Ben Wilson: All the nations that have ever lived have left their footsteps in the sand,” writes Norman Davies. “The traces fade with every tide, the echoes grow faint, the images are fractured, the human [...] read our review »
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Comment on Spare us a phoney row about racism, we’ve got enough on
on 14 August 2011 at 10:44 pm
Disagree. You name-check Enoch Powell and say the problem with whites is they’ve become black but this couldn’t possibly be construed as being racist? Bollocks. Have a different issue tho’. Starkey has been getting invited on TV for as long as I can remember for the sole purpose of saying outrageous things – and then when he follows his script, everyone shrieks, “Outrageous!” Bit like going to see Frankie Boyle and then complaining he’s offensive. Rather the issue has to do with the quality of programming. Any show inviting Starkey or Mad Mel on has by definition forfeited any serious claim on our attention.
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Comment on Scottish LibDems hell bent on oblivion.
on 7 June 2011 at 1:28 am
Arguing for two referenda is technically correct, in my view – but share your sense of wonder about the Lib Dems.
I’m not so sure Salmond is enjoying himself as much as he would like us to believe though. I’m wondering if his majority shouldn’t be filed under the category, “Careful what you wish for”?
Why is he, for example, arguing to toss about the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court when the solution to this ‘problem’ is the independence that is supposed to be his party’s raison d’etre?
And why has he picked alcohol abuse and sectarianism as his priorities in government? Just about everyone agrees these are Bad Things but they are also problems that the Scottish Government is unlikely to be able to make much of a dent in, lacking as they do the will to be draconian to the necessary extent. Are they going to restrict alcohol consumption on Scandinavian proportions? Or desegregate schooling in Scotland? Almost certainly not. To me they smell like policies designed by people who are still behaving like they are in opposition and, more importantly, realise that the union will continue in some form or other. Problem is, no one thought to tell the grassroots.
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Comment on Late night Scottish Parliamentary blogburst…
on 6 May 2011 at 10:03 am
The results are extraordinary. I live in the sort of constituency in Glasgow where, according to the Yes 2 AV campaign, voters are ‘disenfranchised’ under FPTP. Just learned my MSP has lost – by seven votes.
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Comment on AV Referendum: Don’t vote – it only encourages them! #meh2av
on 5 May 2011 at 7:03 pm
I left a comment on your own blog and Blogger scoffed it! It had to do with not knowing what the Lib Dems are playing at either.
On referendums, as you know I more or less agree with you although I think you overstate the case. Like it or not, a convention has developed where ‘constitutional’ issues are decided like this. Of course the question is rigged. Again we agree this is intrinsic to the exercise. But I don’t think abstaining is the thing to do because how will your not voting be distinguished from the ‘can’t be arsed’ or the ‘too drunk to make it to the polling booth’ constituency? Voting ‘No’ is a better way of registering your disapproval of the process, I would have thought. It makes it less likely that such an exercise will be repeated in the near future…
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Comment on “All we’re doing is speaking very frankly and bluntly…”
on 5 April 2011 at 1:47 am
So how can you be a fundamentalist non-stamp collector?
By insisting that others should become replicas of your non-stamp-collecting self. I don’t know enough about AC Grayling to say if he’s one of these but as has been pointed out above, there have been movements and states that have taken precisely this position. Mr Grayling could perhaps address this in his arguments but I guess he’s too busy being ‘withering’.
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Comment on AV: Yes, No or Meh? What are we being asked?
on 23 February 2011 at 12:27 am
We’re being asked to decide on a voting system that is used in only one country. It is untested in a European polity. But this doesn’t stop people enthusing about it and confidently predicting what will happen when it’s introduced here? It’s a bit like STV in that respect – a system that is also seldom used. Where on earth do people get their confidence from, is what I’d like to know? We’re getting, by definition, a lot of evidence-free arguments about this.
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Comment on Why referendums should be banned
on 13 December 2010 at 12:41 pm
Could expand on a couple of points you’ve touched on here:
I think there’s one or two countries where there is a mechanism for the legislature to generate referendums but usually it is the prerogative of the government and they only hold them when they think they can win them.
Even when they think they can win them and don’t, they go back and ask again in a sightly different form until they get the answer they want., as was the case with Ireland and the EU.
They are a populist tool used by executives to manufacture consent. Arguably Loius Napoleon III was the prototype here. Without getting into the thesis that Bonapartism was the precusor to fascism, it’s perhaps worth remarking that the German constitution bans referendums for a reason.
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