This is from my National column this morning:
I strongly suspect no-one writes for The National with the aim of getting rich. This is not an appeal for a pay rise on my part. My aim is, instead, to point out something else.
That is, that I believe everyone associated with The National is here for one very good reason. We believe in what this paper has to say.
We believe in Scottish independence. We believe in this paper's stance on Gaza.
We believe in this paper's desire to hold Scottish politicians, whoever they are, to account. We want to talk about what matters.
I believe we do this based on a simple, mutual understanding, which is that we think a better world is possible for the people of Scotland. We are, therefore, “for” something. We work, we write, we edit, we photograph, we make social media, we agonise and we sweat tears, all because it is our hope that at the end of the day there will be something to show for all this.
And, as I then note:
What I see all around me, in Scotland, in the UK, in the United States and beyond, is politics which is, at best, “against” something and, at worst, based on hate. Labour, like the Tories before them, seem to hate the young; the vulnerable; those with disabilities; people who are without work through no fault of their own; homeless people; children in poverty and their parents; hard-up pensioners; migrants; civil servants and all public-sector employees; anyone who has the temerity to ask for a pay rise; people who raise their voice; anyone who protests, someone who thinks that the future of our planet matters; and a great many others besides.
There is a choice:
This is not a moment for sitting on the side. This is not a moment when waiting to make up your mind is an option. This is a moment when you have to decide whose side you are on, which voices you wish to hear, and what causes you wish to promote.
This is a moment to reject the politics of division, and the politics of hate. This is a moment to be for things.
Your choice.
I have made mine.
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“I have made mine.”
Me too & it ain’t retirement.
Agreed…working on book plans – yes, that is plural, and more than two at that – this morning.
Ideas are frothing.
Good post. Very good. “Ideas are frothing” – welcome to my pinball machine mind!
What we are not changing, we are choosing. Passivity in the face of this wanton destruction of all that is good, all that is kind, all that makes us who we are, is no longer an option.
I made my choice a long time ago. In my book, people are either on my side or in my way. I suggest they choose wisely.
Hi Richard,
I followed your link to the Gaza story in The National, and the photo there put me in mind of the painting ‘L’Egnime’ (The Riddle) by Gustav Doré, which I saw at the Musée d’Orsay last week. Painted all in shades of grey it depicts Paris burning during the Franco-Prussian war. It is a powerful work to which I responded with some emotion, reflecting as it does the current state of the world, with so much war and destruction, in Gaza, Ukraine, and elsewhere.
I link to the Wiki page here, which has a link to the painting itself (The Enigma (Doré) – Wikipedia).
What gets me is not just the burning city, but the deeply imploring look on the face of the winged figure (thought to represent Paris, or the French nation), which seems to ask the question that comes to my mind all too frequently these days: “Why?”.
What an age we live in! What can we/I do about it, though? It feels like we are utterly powerless in the face of implacable forces that will not be stopped.
Searching desperately for optimism, I settled for looking at how Paris is now, and clearly recovery is possible. These forces can be overcome, it seems, but it takes effort!
Thank you
Why, indeed?
I listened this morning to Nicky Campbell’s phone-in, on the two-child cap. It was full of righteous insistence by contributors that “if you can’t afford a third child, don’t have one”.
Allow me to tease out what this proposition means, because it is a very odd proposition. A two-child cap; but why two? I doubt if its defenders actually know why the cap is two. If the logic of the position is affordability, it applies to one child, and indeed ‘a fortiori’, to none at all. So the logic of an earnings driven cap is actually, if you can’t afford children, don’t have any.
The proposition of a child cap, cannot therefore arbitrarily select “two”; that is logically incoherent. It works best when zero children are allowed. Try that as a political policy, please. I would be interested in determining how many people would wish to put their name to such a policy, and stand behind it.
If the logic of a two child cap is flawed, and supporters have sufficient wit to see the flaw; what does the two child cap actually mean? I suspect its proponents do not know what they mean; but let us suppose there is a coherent reason.
The logic may be that there is overpopulation, and therefore the responsible position to take is to have a maximum of two children (not one or none), because that is prima facie (at first, crude glance) the replacement rate of population. But a two child cap, on population, statistical terms (with populations you can’t avoid the maths), a two child xap doesn’t replace the population. In population statistical terms, the replacement rate in the UK is 2.1 children per woman (that is just a base fact). That means some women (quite a lot, given the number of one and zero children families) have to produce more than two children, just to replace the population. So the two-child cap just doesn’t work.
Of course I left something out; immigration. That allows the ‘native’ or ‘indigenous’ population to run a population reducing low birthrate model, and still be able to function. That will not work either, as an argument. I guarantee that the supporters of a two-child cap possesses a significant number of supporters who are against immigration.
The problem is that the native population of England has a birthrate of 1.44 per woman, and Scotland 1.3; Scotland is just a little further along what is, effectively the indigenous population extinction curve than England, but both are rapidly running out of young people to service an ageing population or a thriving economy, except through immigration. The ironies of the hopeless intellectual confusion in Britain are rife. The proponents of a child-cap policy really have to work out exactly what they think having children is ‘for’. Is it just a way of producing labour for a market, through a self-funding mechanism?
In China, the 1.2Bn+ and fast growing population (in the 1960s/70s), led the Chinese Government to apply a draconian one-child cap policy; the penalties were severe, including removing a second child from their parents. What we have to note about this policy is that in China (then poor) it didn’t work (but it did lead to a skewing toward male children outnumbering female children) in the population. What then stopped population growth in China (which has now asserted itself in the 21st century). The answer is (relative) prosperity. The more Western in living standards China has become correlates with a drastic drop in the birthrate – just as in the West, and notably the UK. China is now faced with the opposite dilemma; a falling poplation, and falling too fast. So what has China done. Abolished the one child cap, and is now providing benefits to induce the Chinese to have more children.
Some serious thought is required about the population issue; but you will not find anything edifying in the ideas around a birth-rate cap.
Much to agree with
Any Labour MPs willing to choose?
Time to remember who you are supposed to work for – the people of the UK (not your donors and minders, not Nigel Fa***e, and NOT MORGAN MCSWEENEY!)
Don’t be bought off with promises and pledges from the PM. He is PM because of being a serial promise breaker. He cannot and should not be trusted. He will lie to you, using weasel words with wriggle room.
Here’s a novel idea – think for yourself and do what is RIGHT!
Well, blow me as they say – this is just the sort of conversation I’ve just been having in our local park this morning with the bloke who runs the boating lake and the miniature railway.
We have different opinions as to what is wrong.
But there is more common ground on what it could be like. Start there and work your way back.
So, agreed wholeheartedly.
Believe in Scotland is working for a Scottish Citizens’ Convention, “with a goal of ‘Creating a Better Scotland’ and a focus on a transition to a ‘Wellbeing Economic Approach’ “.
I have chosen to Believe in Scotland.
Me, too.
And me.
As a National subscriber I wholeheartedly agree. I didn’t vote in the 2014 referendum – Alex Salmond’s argument as to Scotland walking back into the EU as a breakway from an existing member state was delusional – but I can’t wait to vote Yes in Indyref2 when it comes, and it will, and so will all of my middle-class pals in Edinburgh who either abstained or voted No last time out, all because of the EU angle.
If I ask my young relatives whether they feel British, they look at me like I’m nuts, like I’ve asked if they’re Martian or something. Emotionally this “Union” is over. Still, the increasingly useless Guardian wrings its hands once more over the “threat” to the Union:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/22/uk-risks-falling-apart-keir-starmer-mend-it-move-forward
Thanks
The Guardian and Martin Kettle think Pat McFadden has the answer? They are quite obviously asking the wrong questions. The British State is constitutionally incapable, and unfit to recognise that on fundamental issues like Brexit, freedom of movement, immigration and economics, energy policy, social policy (WFA, two-child cap, drugs as primarily a health issue rather than only a criminal issue, transport policy, housing policy – and on, and on, and on); there are different real, tangible economic, political and social policy expectations and responses required for Scotland to thrive, than English political culture and its focus groups are ever likely to accept. In Scotland the British State has now been found-out, and is found wanting. The gulf between cannot be bridged by flag-waving Unionist waffle; and zero functional action.
As Richard himself often says – much to agree with.
It’s time to stand up for what’s right, treat people kindly, and stay grounded. If we do that, we’re already helping to build the kind of world where love and justice lead the way.
If you don’t know what you stand for you could fall for anything.
I just don’t get it. Never have. What’s wrong with caring, kindness and compassion!? That is what it means to be human. No doubt my ignorance and naivety but I’ve never really understood the ultimate goal, the objective of those that foster hatred and division.
Me neither
I have experienced too much of casual abstract hatred and the politics of spite as a blow in living in Northern Ireland not to have come to a conclusion as to its motives, for my survival if nothing else. I think such spite is how those of weak character choose to express their emotional grief whether that grief is a result of actual, perceived or inherited trauma and injustice. Those of stronger character will choose to use the pain to learn empathy and practise compassion.
I didnt vote for independence not because I don’t love Scotland or want the best for our country but because I didn’t have enough information to make this decision. Even now I dont feel informed enough to know if this would work for us. ( best sources to research would be appreciated) I want to live in a country, in a world where we choose to design an economy whose goal is to give every member of society a chance to enjoy a great education, a rewarding job and a decent career. We can choose ways to spend our money in ways that does good for people and things we most care about. We all deserve to feel fullfilled and valued. It all comes back to caring Richard which you mention frequently in your posts. We need a society that is run in ways which attempt to at least consider our emotional as well as our financial wellbeing.
The arguments are all in The National, often.
Look at the Scottish Currency Group and Scotonomics.
And read How to Start a New Country by Robin McAlpine – a detailed guide book about necessary steps – with contributions by Richard Murphy among others. It can be done; it just needs the will and energy.
I am always proud to have contributed to that one.