Welcome to Better Nation, our new Scottish blog, built on four things its editors share: a love of ideas, an essential optimism, an anoraky obsession with politics, and a particular interest in the nation of Scotland – as it has been, as it stands now, and its future prospects.The title comes from Dennis Lee, famously quoted by Alasdair Gray (and attributed to Gray on the walls of Holyrood itself): “Work as if you lived in the early days of a better nation”. The three of us believe devolution has been a pretty successful endeavour thus far, but that the current constitutional arrangements are unlikely to be the final settled will of the Scottish people.
As a result, it is already a better nation than it was when the Vigil camped out under Calton Hill, but even the most cursory glance around Scotland shows continued poverty, movement away from sustainability, a business sector hardly thriving, a nervous public sector, stretched voluntary organisations and shortcomings in our democracy.
Better Nation is a very healthy sign of the new Scottish ideas-blogosphere - two Green-aligned (but SNP friendly) and one PhD student interested in autonomous movements, turning their pub and phone discussions into a very useful and thoughtful platform for Scottish self-determinist issues. Greens in Scotland are an interesting force - advocates of independence, but critical of the SNP's mainstream economic, energy and infrastructure policies. This will be a space to watch.