This account is now effectively dead, but will remain to prevent anyone else taking my name. Follow me now as @simon_brooke@mastodon.scot
Sep 23, 2018 β’ 11 tweets β’ 4 min read
Two things that I'm thinking about as very serious issues this weekend:
1. Do you remember how quickly the Soviet Bloc collapsed? We're all thinking about life post-#Brexit as sort of muddling through, business as usual, but I think that's unlikely. >>>
If there's no deal, if the borders clog up - both looking virtually certain just now - there will be a sudden, long lasting, critical shortage of fresh food. Britain isn't used to that. I believe there will be civil disorder. >>>
Sep 2, 2018 β’ 11 tweets β’ 5 min read
I commented briefly, and carefully, on this tweet a couple of days ago. But it's been gnawing away at the back of my mind, and I'm going to try again. Thread. >>>
There is, obviously and necessarily, a great deal of sensitivity about comparisons between Zionism and fascism. There is a necessary reluctance to make that comparison. >>>
The #GrowthComission report (yes, I'm struggling to read it, too) says:
"3.88 Maximising frictionless trade and market access with the rest of the UK and with Europe is of critical importance to the performance of the Scottish economy in the short and long term."
This is almost certainly not possible, and absolutely certainly not in our gift. England and Wales (hereinafter #EW) seemed destined for a very hard crash out of the #EU. >>>
May 14, 2018 β’ 23 tweets β’ 9 min read
OK, look, sometimes people mess up. We all have times when we mess up. We all have times when we make two or three bad errors in succession. We're human. #1/23
The @newsundayherald is one of the important institutions of Scotland's news media. Admittedly it's less important now as our new media develops, but it was a big win for #Yes when, in 2014, it nailed our colours to its mast. #2/23
Apr 27, 2018 β’ 20 tweets β’ 3 min read
Does a social system with entrenched privilege systematically breed progressively nastier people? I suspect it does, and I shall argue it. Thread: >>>
I used to believe that the reason the British elite are in general such noxious people was because our system of elite education is so bad; but I've begun to doubt that that's the whole story. >>>
Mar 7, 2018 β’ 4 tweets β’ 1 min read
We're going to face a decade of economic collapse - probably two. The welfare state will go - and because of Barnett consequentials, it will go in Scotland too. Civil dissent will be met with repression. >>>
In those circumstances, secessionism is just another form of civil dissent, like trades unionism, to be crushed. We saw it in the 1980s, we see it today in #Catalunya. >>>
