Failure does not beget anything

Alasdair Duke

A common response to Brexit, Trump, and the gradual re-emergence of fascist views, has been the idea of “political failure”. Whether you call them “the elite”, “the establishment” or “the political class”, the prevailing thrust of articles, tweets and intelligent-sounding conversations has been that something that was once powerful has failed. Anger is the keyword, and politicians are held to have caused this anger by ignoring or marginalising huge swathes of the electorate.

There is some truth in it. But two niggling concerns have led me to my keyboard to try to move the debate forwards.

Firstly, the re-emergence of openly held right wing views is what large sections of the elite have long wanted.

A Cynics View of the EU Referendum

Chris Napier

I don’t give a shit about the EU referendum campaign.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from apathetic about the EU or Britain/Scotland’s place within it, but the debate provided by both official campaigns seems to be grey haired white men in suits arguing about which course of action is best for the City while attempting to appeal to a sense of British nationalism.

Neither tactic enthuses me. However there is more to the EU referendum than the mainstream campaigns.