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Showing posts with label Brookings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brookings. Show all posts

Friday 11 April 2014

The media discovers the nuclear negotiating issues at last - “It’s the nukes, stupid!”

The media, as ever well behind the curve on the essence of the independence debate, has suddenly discovered that defence, the nuclear deterrent and negotiation are the big issues, and that they had it wrong all along! Flushed with their new insight, they now claim that everybody else had it wrong too, and nobody else had considered the egregious fact of WMD as  important until they did.

Having spent a couple of weeks touting the risible idea that the Scottish Government would use the nuclear deterrent and the removal of Trident from Faslane “as a bargaining chip”, they are now lost in admiration at themselves for discovering that such a proposition is nonsense.

What brought them to such Damascean conclusions? Why, Lord George Robertson’s ravings at Brookings! The Wee Laird o’ Islay at least broke in to the somnolent consciousness of the media. Thanks for that, George.

Here’s the breathtaking conclusion of Kate Devlin in the Herald, based on, God help us, David Mundell’s realisation that negotiations on Trident – as touted by his colleagues and London press – is a non-starter with the SNP -

His comments are the first insight into how talks to break up the UK could progress.”

Is that a fact, Kate? The first insight only if you ignore the blindingly obvious, and the many detailed analyses, including my own of the issue, especially during the great SNP conference debate of 2012 on NATO.

But, hey, I’m only one old Scottish voter, without the massive research resources and expertise of a national news paper …

Thursday 11 April 2013

Brookings: Scotland as a Good Global Citizen – Alex Salmond lecture and Q&A

My YouTube audios clips of the Brookings lecture by the First Minister were an attempt to get the audio up fast in YouTube format in manageable chunks. However, in the process, I had a glitch at the 2.5m mark on Part 4.

Here is the full Brookings site link to Scotland as a Good Global Citizen.

I have also used the embed code supplied by Brookings. The section referred to above occurs around the 1hr 10m mark for those who want to fill the gap in the YouTube video.