Larry's Lunchette

In 2001, a UK-wide partnership was created, specifically to promote social enterprise and social entrepreneurship; it was called UnLtd and Senscot was the Scottish end. Personally involved in ‘structuring’ Scotland UnLtd, we fought, over many months, to establish its independence – but Whitehall wouldn’t budge on subsidiarity to London. Social enterprise in the London bubble is a ‘hybrid’ concept – with exaggerated emphasis on becoming ‘investment ready’ – i.e. able to repay loan finance. They call it ‘social’ investment – but it’s almost entirely the realm of the commercial banking sector. It became too ‘vague’- too remote from Scottish practice; Senscot severed contact with UnLtd in 2014.

England has 50 million voters – Scotland five million; why would they include SNP in televised election debates? For as long as we’re locked into ‘British’ broadcasting, it will inevitably be dominated by English culture. When I listen to Radio 4, I find it quaintly charming that some people still speak like that – but it’s a different world. I doubt whether ‘The Archers’ will feature when we do our own broadcasting.

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I mentioned recently that I now avoid the Spectator because of its decline from ‘clever cheeky’, to ‘strident bigotry’.  I enjoyed this New Statesman piece by Gavin Jacobson – arguing that this ‘repositioning’, reflects the right-wing press in general: a drift from the middle ground, to reinforcing partisan grievances on the fringe.   Jacobson is clear, that he doesn’t consider the Spectator as fascist – its ‘star columnists’ don’t incite political violence against those they demean; instead they provide ‘a slow transfusion of bigotry’ to the emerging English nationalism.  The intellectual collapse of the right hasn’t reduced their capacity to poison.

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This ‘Mainly Macro’ blog, argues that Labour’s manifesto spending promises are more sustainable than the Tory ones.  Prof. Simon Wren-Lewis says he writes for non-economists, but some of it is beyond me.  More than ever before in my lifetime – the two parties offer a very different UK.

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Devastating piece in the Sunday National by The Ferret’s Rob Edwards; Norwegian fish farmer Mowi has been officially reprimanded following the death, over three months, of 700,000 diseased salmon.  Apart from the cruelty of this – the reputation of Scotland’s West Coast fishers is being trashed irresponsibly.

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Shelter says that 88% of Scots agree, that everyone should have a legal right to a safe secure home.  Of course, making a new law will not build houses – but it will help build a national sense of injustice, that so many of our people don’t have access to this basic need.

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Four years after Sheku Bayoh died in the custody of Fife police – Scottish Govt. has announced a full public inquiry into the circumstances – including whether race played a part.  The years of delay in this matter is unacceptable; the public needs to know our police force is accountable.

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I have an intuition, that this passage from the Hindu teacher Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897-1981) contains an important insight I can’t quite grasp.

“There is only one mistake you are making: you take the inner for the outer and the outer for the inner. What is in you, you take to be outside you and what is outside, you take to be in you. The mind and feelings are external, but you take them to be intimate. You believe the world to be objective, while it is entirely a projection of your psyche. That is the basic confusion, and you have to think yourself out of it.”

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