I just wanted to thank everyone who has stuck with this “stack”. as I think we now call these publications, since it began at the end of 2022. And all those who have joined since. We’re up to 4,000 which is wonderful.
I hope you think it’s worth it. I’ve published 202 columns of varying length in that time which is getting on for two a week. I’d hoped to do more podcasts but there have been technical and copyright issues there which I wont’t bore you with. I’m not very technical as you may have realised but we’re getting there. I’ve finally got on top of the copy editing issues I had at the start. And I apologise to those who may have contacted me without response.
It’s been an incredible two years in politics. When I started, I hadn’t intended to write quite so much about Scotland but it’s been non stop since Nicola Sturgeon suddenly resigned back in February 2023.
I was actually on holiday in Tenerife when she made her shock announcement. I ended up doing wall to wall interviews, on TV and radio, from my phone. I always seem to be on leave when things break, like the death of Alex Salmond. But there aren’t really vacations in this job - just events. Those two events have book ended a remarkable transition in UK politics. The threat of the break up of Britain, which has been hanging over the Union for two decades has suddenly lifted.
Having been a liberal-left, one-time supporter of Scottish home rule, a number of people have asked me why I’ve become more “right wing” in the last couple of years. I don’t actually think these terms mean anything much any more. They relate to the politics of the 20th Century and are largely redundant.
I mean, is it right wing to think that women are defined by their biological sex? Is assisted dying left wing? Is Scottish independence left or right? So many issues today cut across the old capital-labour dichotomy that underpinned the old politics. Is Keir Starmer is more left than Boris Johnson who raised taxation and immigration to unprecedented levels and also promoted Ed Miliband’s climate policies before he did?
I’ve been writing about climate change since the Rio Summit in 1990 but that doesn’t mean I endorse the current approach to decarbonisation and Net Zero - as you may have noticed. I think the way any and all debate about how to achieve the transition has been attacked as “climate change denial” has left us in a very dangerous place.
The demonisation of the oil and gas industry (which we will need king after Net Zero); the reckless attempts by the SNP-Green coalition to scrap a million gas boilers by 2030 at a cost of £33 billion; the attempt to force people to buy electric cars which only wealthy people with detached homes can afford to buy - these policies have undermined public support for Net Zero. Even the SNP belatedly realised this - so it is depressing that Ed Miliband has doubled down on them.
I hope in 2025 we can have a more sensible debate about the transition to green energy - one which isn’t conducted by zealots on both sides. Mind you, with the evolution of Twitter/X that may be a triumph of hope over experience. It is amusing to witness how Elon Musk, who used to be the darling of environmentalists because he made electric cars that actually worked, is now regarded as the devil’s disciple.
Anyway enough of all that. I hope you have a great Christmas, Winterval or Festive Break (delete as applicable). Let’s meet up in the year 2025.
Neither left nor right but still a contrarian, Iain, and long may you continue to follow Christopher Hitchens’ advice. “Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake.”
Keep up the good work, Iain.
And snap, I was in another Canary Island - Lanzarote - when Sturgeon resigned. I’m proud to say the women who wouldn’t wheesht, of whom I’m one, did for her in the end! Hooray!