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Dumfries and Galloway
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Author Archives: Stephen Shellard
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us ….
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie usTo see oursels as ithers see us!It wad frae mony a blunder free us,An’ foolish notion:What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,An’ ev’n devotion! From: “To A Louse, On Seeing One … Continue reading
Solid Ground
Sometime during the 1980s, I was lucky enough to hear Dougie MacLean perform at the Dumfries Folk Club, in the rather unglamorous setting of the Cairndale Hotel, ….audience, I am guessing, less than a hundred. I was impressed. I don’t … Continue reading
Not enough pride in Charlie Pride…
Country is a genre dominated by white musicians and rooted in the communities of the deep south where, as Charlie Pride’s career was just starting off, segregation was still openly defended and the old attitudes of prejudice still lingered. Somehow Charlie Pride navigated these alligator swamps without anger, or bitterness. Continue reading
The programme I’d most like Donald Trump to watch.
I am sure that many of us have our own ideas of a particular argument or situation which might prise open the US President’s weird and insular view of the World. He’s currently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, … Continue reading
Posted in Podcasts etc.
Tagged "Chris Packham", "Horizon", climate, habitat, population
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Reading the Entrails of the Election
Tony Blair has been prominent in the voices of those seeking to divine the meaning of the 2019 election, dismissing Labour’s current incarnation as “a brand of quasi-revolutionary socialism [that] never has appealed to traditional Labour voters….The takeover of the … Continue reading
Posted in Brexit
Tagged "Dominic Cummings", "Labour Party", "Tony Blair", electoral reform, SNP
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Leadership in the 2019 Election: the Good, the Bad and the Indifferent
Let me start by putting in a word for Nicola Sturgeon. Were she to concede to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom she would probably make a better hand at the job than the other candidates on offer. Once … Continue reading
Jeremy Corbyn: Honest Broker or Untrustworthy “Old Grandpa”?
The Question Time Leaders Special on the 22nd November in Sheffield may seem like ancient history, but the charge of anti-semitism made against Jeremy Corbyn in the debate has fuelled a widely accepted narrative that fed into Corbyn’s damaging interview … Continue reading
A Second Round with the Champ: Will Boris Hen it?
During the Tory leadership campaign, Boris Johnson was interviewed by Andrew Neil. Neil was obviously determined to thwart Johnson from diverting the event into one of his rhetorical flights. Indeed, at one point, the aspiring party leader interjected: “You’re choleric … Continue reading
Contracts, Manifestos and Constitutional Reform
On Politics Live Brexit [22Nov2019], Party MEP Ben Habib, put in an appearance, waving the Brexit “contract”, the Brexit Party alternative to a manifesto. The Faragists insist that manifestos are untrustworthy and not a set of serious and binding commitments … Continue reading
Posted in Brexit
Tagged "Ben Habib", "Brexit Party", "Holly Rigby", Contract, Labour, Manifesto
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Carruchan 
How Many Political Parties do we Really Need?
“One of the few advantages of the First Past the Post [FPTP] electoral system is that it simplifies the choices set before the electorate by the rather brutal device of limiting the number of parties which have any meaningful chance of winning seats. A proportional system inevitably brings more marginal parties into contention for seats and so has the opposite tendency. ” Continue reading →