Month: August 2026

Swinney Wants This Election to Count as a Mandate for a Second Referendum. Westminster Has Already Said No. I Think Both Sides Are Bluffing More Than Either Wants to Admit.

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Swinney Wants This Election to Count as a Mandate for a Second Referendum. Westminster Has Already Said No. I Think Both Sides Are Bluffing More Than Either Wants to Admit. – A collision course everyone can see coming, between a Holyrood majority built from multiple parties and a Westminster government that has repeatedly ruled out exactly what that majority is asking for.

The Generational Divide on Independence Just Keeps Growing, and I Do Not Think Either Side of the Debate Has a Genuinely Good Answer for What That Means Twenty Years From Now

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The Generational Divide on Independence Just Keeps Growing, and I Do Not Think Either Side of the Debate Has a Genuinely Good Answer for What That Means Twenty Years From Now – Voters under forty back independence by a wide margin. Voters over sixty-five oppose it by an equally wide one. That gap is not narrowing.

Anas Sarwar Ran an Entire Campaign Refusing to Talk About Independence, and It Actually Worked. I Am Still Working Out Whether That Should Worry Nationalists More Than It Currently Seems To.

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Anas Sarwar Ran an Entire Campaign Refusing to Talk About Independence, and It Actually Worked. I Am Still Working Out Whether That Should Worry Nationalists More Than It Currently Seems To. – Scottish Labour’s genuine recovery this year came from a deliberate strategic bet that voters wanted competence over constitutional debate. The bet paid off, at least this time.

Reform UK Just Won Seats at Holyrood for the First Time Ever, and I Do Not Think Scottish Politics Has Fully Processed What That Actually Means Yet

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Reform UK Just Won Seats at Holyrood for the First Time Ever, and I Do Not Think Scottish Politics Has Fully Processed What That Actually Means Yet – A party built almost entirely around English electoral grievances just broke into a parliament built almost entirely around a different constitutional question altogether.

Holyrood Just Elected Its Most Pro-Independence Parliament Ever, and the SNP Still Cannot Quite Celebrate Properly

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Holyrood Just Elected Its Most Pro-Independence Parliament Ever, and the SNP Still Cannot Quite Celebrate Properly – A record nationalist majority in seats. A first minister still one seat short of the number that actually matters most to him.

Our Bar Hosted a Genuinely Chaotic Benefit Night for a Coworker’s Medical Bills, and I Have Complicated Feelings About Why That Was Necessary in the First Place

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Our Bar Hosted a Genuinely Chaotic Benefit Night for a Coworker’s Medical Bills, and I Have Complicated Feelings About Why That Was Necessary in the First Place – We raised more money in one night than I expected. I am still angry that raising it was ever necessary at all.

I Wrote a Genuinely Angry Piece About Wage Theft Today and My Editor Sent It Back Asking Me to Make It ‘Less Personal,’ Which I Am Still Turning Over

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I Wrote a Genuinely Angry Piece About Wage Theft Today and My Editor Sent It Back Asking Me to Make It ‘Less Personal,’ Which I Am Still Turning Over – The wage theft happened to me directly. Removing the personal stake felt, at first, like being asked to lie about why the piece existed at all.

I Sat in on a Tenants Union Meeting Last Night for the First Time and Left With a Considerably More Complicated View of My Own Landlord

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I Sat in on a Tenants Union Meeting Last Night for the First Time and Left With a Considerably More Complicated View of My Own Landlord – I went in expecting a fairly simple story about a bad landlord. What I actually heard was messier, and more useful, than that.

A Regular at the Bar Told Me Tonight He Lost His Job to Automation Last Week, and I Did Not Know What to Actually Say to Him

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A Regular at the Bar Told Me Tonight He Lost His Job to Automation Last Week, and I Did Not Know What to Actually Say to Him – Twenty-two years at the same warehouse. Replaced, essentially, in a single afternoon. I poured him a drink and listened, because that was the only thing I actually had to offer.

Our Bar Tried a Tip-Pooling Experiment for a Month and the Actual Results Surprised Nearly Everyone Involved

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Our Bar Tried a Tip-Pooling Experiment for a Month and the Actual Results Surprised Nearly Everyone Involved – We voted on it as a staff, ran it for thirty days, and the outcome didn’t split cleanly along the lines any of us expected going in.