Fay Young

Category: Politics

  • Backstage Gossip: blurring the lines

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    Have you heard the one about Miles Jupp at the Underbelly? Or Johnny Vegas at The Stand? Perhaps you picked up a word or two about Frankie Boyle challenging Jerry Sadowitz to a standup in the street (he wasn’t joking)?

  • Dare we learn how the other half lives?

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    While the Chilcot report validates public outrage at the UK’s disastrous decision to invade Iraq thirteen years ago, the full consequences of Brexit have still to unfold. How will the future judge our self-inflicted constitutional crisis of 2016?

  • Shoulder to shoulder: head to head

    Shoulder to shoulder: head to head

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    On foot, squeezed into cars, standing in vans, riding pillion, pedalling on cycles, swarming citywards by every road and route, London came yesterday morning doggedly and cheerfully to work. Plucky Londoners. It sounds very familiar. I can almost hear the voice of Boris undermining the effect of a public transport strike any 21st century day of the…

  • Scotland needs jesters

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    I looked a Gift Horse in the mouth. Or, to be more accurate, I joined the tourists in Trafalgar Square snapping pictures of the latest sculpture occupying the Fourth Plinth. After a day in the Houses of Parliament the Tory ‘long term economic plan’ sprang to mind as I admired the skeleton; bronze bones stark and…

  • Ad neverendum?

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    I loiter in the garden and find myself longing for this election campaign to end. And I’m not alone. Over the last few days I’ve been meeting people – politicians, academics and ordinary voters like me – desperate to see the end of #GE2015, as the Twitter hashtags identify this unseemly mess.

  • Can democracy deliver in time for climate change?

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    Is the NHS equipped to deal with floods, gales and heatwaves of extreme weather?  A deadly serious question is posed in a quiet corner of the Houses of Parliament.  While the media fulminates in a flash storm conjured by David Cameron during Prime Ministers Questions, the Environmental Audit Select Committee contemplates a more fearful threat than Ed…

  • Malcolm Rifkind uncoiled and undone

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    Malcolm Rifkind sits on the sofa facing me. In his crisp shirt sleeves, he is the picture of casual composure, a study in carefully controlled ease nicely captured by the cameraman. And not a word out of place on the tape recording.

  • Year of the Goat: lucky for some?

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    Welcome to the year of the Goat.  What will it bring? With Chinese New Year celebrations underway I find myself thinking of Alex Salmond and how a skilful politician can turn almost any date to good advantage.

  • Time to end the social injustice of the council tax freeze

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    Perhaps I should be grateful to John Swinney. Since 2007 Scotland’s Finance Secretary has spent £500 million on freezing council taxes. “By the end of the current Parliamentary term, [Band D] households will have saved £1,200 since the freeze was introduced in 2007.” So says the SNP press release which conveniently skates over the cost…

  • What sort of Scotland?

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    Should Scotland be an Independent Country?  If we were asked that question in a school or college exam and we gave only the positive case for creating a new nation we would surely not expect to pass.  Yet we are being asked to vote YES on the basis of only the most optimistic forecasts –…

  • Aye we can – but why?

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    “When Scotland is told you cannae dae that,  you know what our answer’s gonnae be.  We’re just, like, saying, ‘Aye we can.’” There was an almost touching naivety about that smiling young face to camera on the news last night.  Or it would be touching if it wasn’t such a chillingly simplistic rejection of all…

  • Cry the divided country

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    If you are visiting this blog post for the second time you will notice that I have changed the heading. If you have just arrived, I should explain that the original heading said In a state of hysteria Scotland risks making an irreversible decision based on the fever of the moment. I apologise for careless…