Billy Bragg on the nationalism issue:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/16/scottish-nationalism-british-westminster-class
Was in Scotland last week - commiserations to the people I met on the train up, the train down after the vote, the Aberdeen taxi driver, and those in the pubs who were all voting/had voted yes. It was uplifting to here political discussions and a shared rejection of the Westminster/City of London establishment. Given pretty much the entire media was pro-Yes - 45% voting no is a resounding success and many of those had enlightened views and a hope for proper change and accountable democracy. May be that wouldn't have happened of course, may be Yes was the right decision for the immediate future, with a suitable groundswell of dissatisfaction to build on. I'm clearly not qualified to say. That said though it's interesting the people who were predicting financial armageddon for Scotland were the same people who singularly failed to spot financial meltdown in 2008.
As an aside (related in terms of the media coverage of the referendum) I'd recommend Owen Jones' new book The Establishment - And how they get away with it.
|
