Wrote this for Jacobin: 'The debate over gender has become a fetish for older indy activists who would rather blame woke liberalism for the SNP’s electoral problems than accept that the fight for Scottish sovereignty has, for the time being, been lost.' jacobin.com/2024/05/humza-…

Probably their best bet electorally, and might even work - pretend the last two years never happened! And if it doesn’t work and they lose the next election, Forbes is in a much better position to take over anyway

Lots of focus on whether the radicalism of Labour's proposed employment law changes are being neutered - but the discussion is weirdly abstracting from the specifics and 'watering down' talk is overdone - this is largely the inevitably turning of slogans into govt action. Quick🧵

I don't often say this, but Kenny Farquharson is right: 'Yousaf’s first ministership conveyed a happy truth about modern Scotland, as did Sturgeon’s before him. Who our leaders are matters. What they believe matters. What they represent matters.' thetimes.co.uk/article/2fdc8a…

Brilliant from Adam Ramsay novaramedia.com/2024/04/30/wha…

Good to see some really deep engagement with decades of debate over the extent and limits of Green politics here, cleverly boiled down to “why aren’t there more pictures of Patrick Harvie in an osprey rucksack”

Humza Yousaf’s clumsiness meant he had to jump – but Westminster gave him a push | Rory Scothorne theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Pope Benedict visits Edinburgh in September 2010.

I wish they wouldn’t do this, it makes it so much harder to complain about devolution on our own terms

The fact that this is our national newspaper is by no means unrelated to the current standard of national politics

yeah this all went really well, actually

Wrote this about the end of the SNP-Green deal - an unnecessary capitulation by both Yousaf and Green members to years of desperate pot-stirring from devolution’s old guard, who now have their eyes on full restoration newstatesman.com/politics/scotl…

Wrote this about the end of the SNP-Green deal - an unnecessary capitulation by both Yousaf and Green members to years of desperate pot-stirring from devolution’s old guard, who now have their eyes on full restoration newstatesman.com/politics/scotl…

The end of the Bute House Agreement is a triumph for those who never adjusted to the SNP.

🖊️ Rory Scothorne
newstatesman.com/politics/scotl…

Tempting to believe that whoever advised Yousaf to ditch the Greens did not actually want him to remain First Minister

Plenty of room for the Greens to benefit from this - ending BHA gave purpose and direction to a new reactionary coalition across civil society, and one big Q is whether the latter can turn this into a more established cordon sanitaire to stop any future inclusion of SGP in govt

Wrote this at the start of the BHA, and the obvious thing back then was how important Sturgeon and her popularity was to its likely success; replace those with a jittery, introspective SNP - not wholly Yousaf’s fault - and dysfunction was inevitable newstatesman.com/politics/scotl…

Unbelievable stupidity all round, well done everyone - the worst people in Scotland are delighted

Playwright and screenwriter John Logan (THE AVIATOR, HUGO) will adapt Cormac McCarthy’s BLOOD MERIDIAN for John Hillcoat (THE ROAD) to direct.

Deadline Hollywood — deadline.com/2024/04/john-l…

“English nationalism is absent because there is no need for it. Nationalism flourishes when people feel thwarted. But what England wants, England gets.”