The Scottish Independence Podcast

For our first For A' That episode for 2 weeks we were joined by Stewart Kirkpatrick, who is the head of digital at Yes Scotland (he was speaking in a personal capacity).

Three non-economists spoke about the currency debate. Andrew wondered if there are more than just economic concerns that come into play when the matter is discussed. Stewart hoped that the UK govt will see sense when the time comes and I went off on one.

How did you feel about George Osborne coming north and trying to give the natives a good slap-down? We discussed what effects, benefits and possible drawbacks there were to the move.

On the subject of threats, did the campaign all get too nasty this week? We had an interesting chat with Stewart about the determination of the official campaign to stay positive and its motivation for that.

Finally, the rise of UKIP. What does it all mean for the UK, for England and for the independence debate in Scotland?

LINKS

https://twitter.com/mgreenwell
https://twitter.com/PeatWorrier

FIFTY episodes!

Yes, I know it says 24 up there but if you count For A' That and the couple of little specials, this one makes fifty.

That being the case I'd like to say thanks to all the guests, the people who have helped to promote it, the people who tune in every week and those who put it on FB and tweet it and whatever the latest new-fangled thing is. The help is much appreciated.

Also thanks to those of you who have donated a little to help us out with the costs that come up from time to time. If you'd like to help out with that then the button is up on the right of my blog page (link below).

Anyway, for this 50th episode I was joined by Stuart Braithwaite who is the guitarist from the band Mogwai, who I am sure most of you have heard of.

We talked about what convinced Stuart of the need for independence, that little song they wrote regarding Thatcher, and much more. Stuart talked about his discomfort with the mud-slinging and negativity in the debate.

Did The Proclaimers open things up for Scottish mainstream musicians to sing in their own accents?

Have the Yes campaign been too nicey nicey so far? Would getting a bit more aggressive help?

I also took the opportunity to vent a little about Bono and Geldof and we discussed how scary the lurch towards UKIP is.

Finally we got on to what artists and musicians and so on can contribute to the debate.

Hope you enjoy…

LINKS
https://twitter.com/plasmatron
https://twitter.com/mgreenwell
https://twitter.com/mogwaiband
http://mogwai.sandbag.uk.com/lesrevenants/
http://michaelgreenwell.wordpress.com

This episode is, as I was informed by probably incorrect social commentators, what the kids used to call a "mash-up" about fifteen years ago.BJKX5rSCEAA3MmY.jpg large

There is a bit of campaigning around the subject of International Worker's Day itself, musical breaks from Dick Gaughan, David Rovics and others.

There are also pieces from Noam Chomsky, Christina McKelvie MSP, Cat Boyd, Kevin Williamson, Doug Daniel and Angus Robertson MP.

I won't say anymore.

Hope you enjoy...

LINKS
https://twitter.com/mgreenwell
https://twitter.com/williamsonkev
https://twitter.com/drovics
http://www.dickgaughan.co.uk/
https://twitter.com/MorayMP
https://twitter.com/ChristinaSNP
https://twitter.com/kittycatboyd
http://www.chomsky.info/

For episode 23 of The Scottish Independence Podcast I spoke with Jonathon Shafi. He is a co-founder of the Radical Indy group and a contributor to different sites, including Bella Caledonia.

We talked about the opportunities that the left see in Independence, more specifically, how an Independent Scotland could not only improve things for the people that lived there, but also be a beacon to other nations.

We got on to what sometimes seems a confused position from some on the left, on the responsibility groups in one nation have towards one another and how best they could support each other.

And of course we obviously got on to the Radical Indy group itself and how it got started, how it organises and how in some ways it dovetails with the official Yes campaign and in other ways no.

LINKS
https://twitter.com/Jonathon_Shafi
http://radicalindependence.org/
https://twitter.com/Radical_Indy
https://twitter.com/mgreenwell
http://michaelgreenwell.wordpress.com

For episode 22 of the For A' That podcast Andrew and I were joined by New Statesman contributor James Maxwell and Huffington Post blogger and Labour Party member Andrew Smith.

The Labour party was the focus of a large part of the discussion. More specifically, the couple of interviews that Johann Lamont did this week and her speech at the conference. This became a more general discussion on some of the woes of that party in the post-devolution era.

We also discussed their new Truth Team and what that says about politics in this country. Some of us felt this had a kind of Orwellian overtone to it, others felt it represented the Americanisation of politics in Scotland and the UK and is reminiscent of American style attack ads.

Devo-somethings were also a topic. With the three Better Together parties now all backing some form of further devolution, will they be able to come up with a unified plan. Furthermore, would further devolution damage or in fact strengthen the SNP's hand.

Back on Labour, is the idea of more devolution causing a problem between the Westminster party and the Holyrood one?

LINKS

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/andrew-smith/
http://www.newstatesman.com/writers/james_maxwell
https://twitter.com/andrew_graeme
https://twitter.com/PeatWorrier
https://twitter.com/jamesmaxwell86
lallandspeatworrier.blogspot.co.uk
http://michaelgreenwell.wordpress.com
https://twitter.com/mgreenwell

Just a couple of nice bits for you that I never managed to wedge into the podcasts somehow.

Reuploading this as it was taken down as we had to rejig our spreaker account and there wasn't enough space for this episode at the time.

For episode 22 of The Scottish Independence Podcast, I spoke with Nighet Nasim Riaz who is a PhD student, SNP activist, member of Women for Indy and avid people-watcher.

We spoke about her PhD and about what convinced her, as someone who had lived in England prior to coming to Scotland, of the case for Indy.

We also spoke about the work that Women For Indy have been doing around the country and what effects we hope it might have. The recent SNP conference, which she attended, was another topic of discussion as was what attracted her to join that party.

The debate going on in the Asian community was a small topic. Is it any different from the debate among other people in the country, and if so, why should it be?

Finally, the effect of having mostly male panels on political talk shows came up.

A couple of more general announcements, the April Fools episode seemed to go down rather well with almost 1400 of you having a listen to that so thanks again to all the contributors and we hope everyone that heard it enjoyed it.

If you are feeling generous and would like to make a little donation to the podcast you can do that through the donate button on the top right of this page or over at Andrew's page.

LINKS
https://twitter.com/nnriaz
https://twitter.com/WomenForIndy
https://twitter.com/mgreenwell
http://womenforindependence.org/
http://michaelgreenwell.wordpress.com/

I regret to announce that due to outside pressures, the Scottish Independence and For A' That podcasts can no longer continue.

This isn't a decision that has been reached lightly and we put together a final episode to explain our reasoning.

Thanks for all the help you gave us while the project continued and we are happy you were able to enjoy some our output before the situation became untenable.

CONTRIBUTORS
https://twitter.com/mgreenwell
https://twitter.com/PeatWorrier
https://twitter.com/carolynleckie
https://twitter.com/ReidFoundation
https://twitter.com/Gallacticos87
https://twitter.com/DouglasDaniel
https://twitter.com/DrRMcKinlay
http://idaandkeith.blogspot.co.uk/

For the 20th episode of the For A' That podcast, Andrew and I were joined by Caron Lindsay from the Liberal Democrats and Douglas McLellan, who is possibly the most right-wing member of the Green Party.

I was also joined by six new additions which prevented me from making an answer decently at one point, but there you go.

On the menu this week were immigration policy and how things might be different in that regard. Foreign policy was also up for discussion again, and it got a bit heated.

Ruth Davidson's recent conversion to the cause of further devolution came up - what was behind this volte-face?

If the better together parties came up with a semi-plausible/believable devolution plan, how would this affect the debate?

Do the SNP have a tendency to centralisation? This and some of their other motivations and policy pronouncements came under scrutiny.

Douglas also took the opportunity to explain why he ended up in the same party as Patrick Harvie.

Finally, Caron had an 80s party to go to, so that explains the introductory song.