The Bremen Bod Blog

  Edinburgh’s Economy Outperforms London, whoopee doo! Crack open that rare bottle of Glenlivet single malt and if your first name happens to be something like Boyd, Crawford or Sinclair and you work in Edinburgh’s business, financial services or university management sector, then take the rest of the day off and head down to The New Club for lunch.     This statistic being shared as some kind of good news story, should give us at least some cause for concern, mainly because cities don't have micro-economies, nations do. Edinburgh is not some sort of city-state of Sparta or the Free Hanseatic city of Bremen and its wealth does not trickle down to the rest of the nation. The concentration of wealth and capital in big cities and the abandonment of small towns is the exact opposite of what devolution was meant to deliver. For example, the fact that Boyd, Crawford and Sinclair running the banks, businesses and universities in Edinburgh have all manged to accumulate h...

  On Thursday night I arrived home from yet another excellent Morrissey gig in Glasgow, with enough time to quickly stick on some tea and toast. Then settle down to watch the live vote counting coverage from the Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse by-election. I was especially interested in this election because I felt that some of the online abuse and criticism directed towards the Labour candidate, arising from his bumpy interview on Scotland Tonight, a few days earlier, was quite outrageous. Some folks seemed to feel that this was the most offensive thing they'd ever witnessed. Simply because the candidate didn't answer one question especially well, big deal. All this criticism made me wonder if we really do want ordinary people from the actual community as our elected representatives, who look and sound like us? I'd assumed we were all sick and tired of professional, career politicians. I thought that's why people had embraced anti-establishment populists like Trump...