Sunday 14 September 2014

Q: Are we not (Scots)Men? A: We are Devo (Max)



This Thursday I am to vote in a referendum that decides if Scotland becomes an independent country or not.  Patriotic sentiment has nothing to do with this as I did not live here until I was 26.

Oil changes everything doesn’t it?  A Scottish campaign to separate from the UK has run for decades, but the discovery of North Sea Oil did much to make it realistic.  It means a division into two countries of more or less equal wealth, unlike other independence campaigns within Europe.  France could easily lose Corsica behind the sofa and not even notice.  However, Spain would be economically doomed without the Basque Country and Catalonia.

It’s the European front where Scotland has its biggest gamble.  I’ve never voted for the Conservative Party in my life, but I’ll concede that they have always been better at handling the EU than Labour.  Not any more – the Conservative fear of losing votes to the UKIP will lead to a referendum that may withdraw the UK from the EU.  Scotland has the will to be stay in the EU if treated separately, but the Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy will do all he can to block Scotland’s membership, as he has his own interests to protect.  The UK only ever joined the EU because Charles de Gaulle died; maybe Scotland has a similar wait.

Seeing as EU students have free tuition at Scottish universities, as well as opportunities through the Erasmus+ programme, much of my livelihood depends on Scotland being in the European Union.  Being British is something I can dispense with, but European is a tougher link to break.

On Friday morning, what I want to hear from all political parties is what the next step actually is.  Because of the way the Better Together/No Thanks campaign has been run, nobody knows what a Scotland run by anyone other than the Scottish Nationalist Party or the Greens would look like.  I’ve already put Labour’s canvassers on the spot about this one – that their party could well be running Scotland in 2016; what are the policies?  Much of the Yes campaign has been based on social reform, but the SNP have no real ideas there.  Alex Salmond seems a media-capable leader but I’m amazed the likes of Nicola Sturgeon are trusted with as much as selling ice creams at the beach.  A Labour Party that is no longer scared of floating voters in marginal West Midlands seats may find the courage to propose a few things.  I won’t hold my breath; in Glasgow, the Labour party has been phoning it in for years.  The Liberal Democrats may have something planned already.  The Conservatives have nothing to lose by showing their hand.

I still can’t hear the term “Devo” without picturing grown men with synthesisers wearing overalls with inverted flowerpots as hats.  “Devo Max” – giving further devolved powers to Scotland – should be the result of a “No” vote.  I would then be very interested to see what happens in the north and west of England, which have just as much reason to be tired of London rule as Scotland or Wales have.  Independence may be beyond their reach, unless they want to frack for shale gas.  However, studies are growing ever more critical of the lack of autonomy for the English provinces, and even Michael Heseltine agrees that the over-centralisation of power in London is counter-productive.  I can speculate that Britain’s local government reform in the 1970s would have been better off being like the French one - creating regional assemblies along German or US lines rather than fooling around with county boundaries.

My final doubt, as tempted to vote for independence as I am, is the monarchy.  I don’t call it the “English royal family” as others do (it’s a line of German princes with some Scots aristocrats married in), but it is a mediaeval relic that any new, bold society would be better off without.  The fact that it is to be kept no matter what shows that the only thing that is radical about independence is independence itself.

Wednesday 3 September 2014

Comment éviter les spoilers au cinéma sans mourir durant l'essai

La semaine passée, j'ai regardé le film "Deux jours, une nuit" avec un groupe d'amis. C'est un film sérieux mais pas ennuyeux, et je peux le recommander à tous. En plus, j'ai trouvé le film facile à comprendre sans faire trop d'attention aux sous-titres, ce qui est quelque chose de très rare pour moi avec le cinéma français moderne. (L'anglais est ma langue maternelle.)

Si vous l'avez déjà regardé, ou si vous n'en avez pas l'intention, continuez à lire mon texte. Sinon, arrêtez de lire ce que j'ai écrit ici ! L'ironie ici est, dans un article où je critique les spoilers, il faut vous en donner un !

La BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) est un organisme britannique pour la censure et la restriction du cinéma. Elle a approuvé ce film pour les majeurs et pour les adolescents de plus de quinze ans - un certificat "15" - mais sa mission est aussi de donner les raisons d'une telle certification.

Normalement, c'est le sexe, la violence, des mots gros.. Visible à tous, au début de ce film, il y a le certificat avec les mots "contient une tentative de suicide" ! Je suis d'avis qu'une telle divulgation ruine le droit du réalisateur à raconter une histoire à sa façon. En plus, on est adultes mais le système nous traite encore comme des enfants.