Good news that ScotGov is to declare a housing crisis. Communities are being squeezed by second homes, short term lets and unequal land ownership.
However it is bizarre that reserve powers will be blamed. So many competences in this area are devolved, eg equipping councils to ensure planning oversight of property usage, introducing a land value tax and so forth.
@simonvarwell We've been trying to buy a house for three years (JFC). No doubt in my mind that 100% of the problems we had for the first 18 months could have been solved by councils preventing second homes and AirB&Bs. Even since then it's been waiting for the market to settle a bit after the second-home covid boom, twinned with the fact that all the places we want to move (roughly the areas we're from) are outrageously expensive owing to....you guessed it, second homes and holiday lets!
@simonvarwell Aw thank you, didn't mean this to come across as quite such a trauma dump though, sorry - more to say through example I agree with your assessment that ScotGov blaming Westminster for this situation is ridiculous (but very convenient for the SNP's landlord contingent)
@simonvarwell Yeah, IMO the incoherence within the SNP has become increasingly obvious as the unifying force of the independence campaign has dissipated - showing the large swathes of nats invested in the same systems of wealth as anybody else. I always have hopes for the Greens, but I struggle to seperate Scottish Labour from Keith; wish they would just leave rUK Labour and try to develop a progressive indy party (oh wait, like the Greens). Long and short, no idea who to vote for now eh 😅
@simonvarwell Oh yeah I definitely would vote Green if I thought they could actually win here. But we've been quite a swinging seat recently and I think it'll basically come down to having to support whoever keeps the Tories out.
Today is 87 years since Antonio Gramsci died at the hands of the Italian Fascists.
Gramsci, a founder and leader of the Italian Communist Party, was imprisoned by Mussolini’s regime in 1926. During his imprisonment he wrote extensively about history, politics and society.
His work on the role of culture, ideology, and the consent rulers obtain from those they rule has been influential in understanding how groups gain and maintain power.
The circumstances leading to the fascism of Gramsci's time are starkly comparable with the current rising tides of fascism; it terrifies me on a daily basis.
Nonetheless, Gramsci was optimistic about how people, together, can create change: 'when the individual can associate himself with all the other individuals who want the same changes ... the individual can be multiplied an impressive number of times and can obtain a change which is far more radical than at first sight seemed possible.'
One thing the articles I've seen aren't highlighting is: he won by default as there was no opposition; there was no vote whereby we could have rejected him.
I strongly hope, and cautiously believe, he doesn’t actually represent the student body at UofE. Any other students at Edinburgh, how can we oppose this?
My first thought is that if a candidate is nominated unopposed, the student body should be able to vote on whether we accept or reject them as the rector - rather than them just becoming it by default? If an unopposed candidate is rejected, the nominations period would open again.
Does any kind sharing soul have a digital copy of all 7 pages of Gramsci's 'Observations on Folklore' (as assembled by Felice Platone) in English translation?
Usually found in Selections from Cultural Writings, ed by David Forgacs and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Lawrence and Wishart, 1985.
I'm after the exact thing for comparison with Cirese. Cheers!
Pretty bad on the A9 headed south going up Drumochter - we sat queued in falling snow for about thirty mins before turning our little car around for fear it wouldn't have snow clearance if we waited much longer. Traffic sitting on the road for miles, back past Dalwhinnie. Forty minutes later, the season's most hard-earned gingerbread latte. Stay safe out there folks!
@simonvarwell Thanks! Yeah, we thought we'd be ok going relatively early before today's snow - Drumochter had other plans. Back in Aviemore with a room booked now. Stay safe!
I made a fondue for dinner tonight. Four cheeses (Emmental, Gruyere, Comte and Gouda) and a bucketload of Grüner Veltliner.
I now have the cheese sweats, and will experience nightmares to rival a Stanley Kubrick film adaptation of a Kafka novel scored by Boards of Canada, but boy was that tasty.
Been working on this hat the past couple of days - it's not a Christmas present, but I'm hoping to give it to my partner before we go away for Christmas... tomorrow 😅