I should start with a confession. I haven’t pored over coverage of the European Referendum for months. If anything I’ve avoided it. It’s not that I have no interest in the outcome. Quite the reverse. But I’ve no real interest in the debate. Because for the most part, it’s ranged from tedious to downright offensive. […]
Author: chriscreegan
Politics: time to stop the rot
I didn’t know Jo Cox. But I’ve met many MPs over the years and count a number of them, past and present, as personal friends. In the immediate aftermath of her tragic death, I felt the urge to contact those I know well to say that I was thinking of them. And so I understand […]
Je suis Orlando, Je suis LGBT
I went to George Square tonight. Just like any other night on my way from the office to get the train back through to Edinburgh. Except it wasn’t like any other night. Because rather than scuttle by to reach my train home, I stopped for an hour at a vigil for Orlando organised by Free […]
Is there still room for Scottish Labour?
The post-election movie is now on general release in Scotland. The Scottish National Party and the Scottish Conservatives both feature heavily and their leaders play starring roles. Scottish Labour features too but the reviews of its performance make grim reading.
Who spoke for us?
Making policy that protects the most vulnerable without using a sledgehammer to crack a nut can be a challenging business. Combine that with a tenor of policy debate in Scotland which, because of the political landscape, can quickly become binary and you have something of a perfect storm.
On being my fathers’ son
‘You only get one dad.’ I don’t know Ricky Ross. But those were his words to me in a Twitter exchange the week after my adoptive dad died last year. The conversation arose because I had thanked Ricky for his solo concert at Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall a few days earlier. In particular, I mentioned his […]
The road less traveled by
“I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” The final two lines of Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, take me back to a turning point in my life that I had cause to reflect on at the recent Stonewall Scotland Equal at Work conference. I had been […]
A place called home
There’s a neon sign on the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art not far from where I stay. It’s an installation by the artist Martin Creed which reads ‘Everything is going to be alright’. I’m not normally a lover of installation art. But this piece just works. Its sublime message wraps me with reassurance. And over […]
What Ken should have said – and still could
Here’s a thing. I cut my political teeth just over the river from Ken Livingstone’s GLC, as secretary of NALGO at Westminster City Council. It was led at the time by one of his arch enemies, one Lady Shirley Porter. I only met Ken very briefly a couple of times. I didn’t especially warm to […]
An unlikely hero for athletics’ darkest hour
This is apparently athletics’ darkest hour. Lord Coe has responded by acknowledging that the sport faces a long road to redemption. If he’s looking for inspiration to tackle the crisis that has engulfed him within weeks of landing the sport’s top job, he could do worse than take some from Saturday’s Scottish Short Course Cross […]