What Alasdair MacIntyre got right
Like those aforementioned Frenchmen, he was a powerful critic of the rational Enlightenment. And like them, his thought was strongly shaped by Marxism, and its critique of liberal political assumptions. But unlike them he decided that it was not enough to be suspicious of all ideologies. The task was to reconstruct meaning, amid the chaos and nihilism of modern thought.
This bold proposal is set out in his book of 1981, After Virtue.
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New Statesman
5 days ago
- New Statesman
Daniela Gabor: 'Nobody is defending free markets any more'
Photographed by Zula Rabikowwska for the New Statesman The past century of economic history is often told as a series of dates presented as seismic turning points: 1929, 1945, 1979… The financial crisis of 2008 will no doubt be added to the list of watersheds in which the old world died and a new one was born. But if that year definitively signalled the death of the globalised, neoliberal paradigm, it's less clear what has emerged to replace it. 'I went to a two-day workshop at Princeton University discussing central planning,' the Romanian economist Daniela Gabor told me. 'That already tells you how the political winds are blowing, when central planning is being discussed in Princeton.' The first time we spoke, Gabor was working in New Jersey at the storied Institute for Advanced Study (IAS). 'Have you seen Oppenheimer?' she asked. 'Remember there's a little pond where Einstein and Oppenheimer speak about the end of the world?' That's the IAS. Gabor grew up in Transylvania during the dying days of Nicolae Ceauşescu's regime, which was soon followed by a chaotic transition to capitalism. The experience was enough to give anyone an appreciation for the importance of economics. She is a dynamic speaker, talking at full-speed, almost without taking a breath. She's part of an informal wave of progressive, female economists challenging free-market conceptions that includes Isabella Weber, Mariana Mazzucato and Stephanie Kelton. Today, as a professor of economics at Soas, University of London, her politics are firmly on the left. But this hasn't always been the case. 'When I was a kid, I was a monarchist,' she said. When Romania's royal family were turfed out by the invading Soviets after the Second World War, some, including Gabor, pined for a regal restoration that never came. 'Then I discovered Marxism. Most people grow out of their Marxism. I grew out of my monarchism.' She is a prophet, as well as a strident critic, of a new political economy developing across advanced economies: a more statist, more interventionist, less globalised system that began to take shape under Joe Biden, and has survived his ousting. 'There is a resurgence of thinking that says: 'We should care about goods, about where they're produced, and who produces them,'' Gabor told me over Zoom last year, when the US was still in its Biden-Harris era. Hundreds of billions had been lavished on enticing manufacturing jobs back to Rust Belt states through the Inflation Reduction Act. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe The EU responded in kind, relaxing state aid restrictions and establishing the Green Deal Industrial Plan. More recently, Germany eschewed its attachment to austerity to invest billions in infrastructure, energy and rearmament. Under Boris Johnson, Britain edged towards a 'red Tory' interventionism, with the nationalisation of the Sheffield Forgemasters steelworks, investment in the renewable grid and promises to leverage public procurement to support domestic manufacturing with post-Brexit 'buy British' pledges. The statist turn is cross-party. Under Labour, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has talked up a putative policy of 'securonomics', declaring 'globalisation is over'. The new National Wealth Fund, state-owned GB Energy, nationalised steel and railways and increased levels of public capital investment are the hallmarks of this fledgling agenda. But Gabor is unconvinced of its potential as an alternative to the model that failed in 2008: 'Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock' – a US investment company that manages $11trn in assets, or around three times the UK's GDP – 'he sat down with Keir Starmer in a meeting about 'rebuilding Britain'. The whole agenda confirmed what I say about a Global North version of the Wall Street consensus. If you are a state or government that wants to transform the economy, and you think you don't have the money because you've chosen an institutional set-up where you can't produce public money, or where you're afraid of fiscal spending, or afraid to tax, then private finance will come along and say they'll do it all for you.' Gabor is critical of this approach. Labour's willingness to use private financing vehicles could lead to a repeat of the disastrous private finance initiatives of the New Labour era, which saddled the public sector with decades of interest repayments that would have been lower if capital investments had remained on the state's ledger. Rather than producing endless carrots to persuade the private sector to align with political priorities such as job creation, regional investment or the green transition, Gabor says that governments should be unafraid of using sticks to discipline capital as part of a new, green dirigisme. She claims 'governments in Europe have capitulated' to a statist policy model that intervenes on behalf of capital – not to alter or transform it, much less to create the 'big green state' she recommends, but rather to entrench the current balance of power. And yet, despite its apparent deficiencies, the shift in economic policymaking has no doubt been pronounced. Industrial policy is back in vogue. Globalisation-scepticism has set in. There's a new reaffirmation of national industry and national production. There's a rejigging of programmes in the think tanks that once denied there was a problem with import dependency, and that promoted a service-orientated workforce geared towards a digitised knowledge economy (with factory jobs lost to cheaper, globalised supply chains). Resilience is now being prioritised over efficiency; 'reshoring' is the new buzzword for producers in uncertain geopolitical times. 'There's an understanding,' Gabor said, 'at least among the elite in Europe and in the US, that the great success story of the last two decades is China, and that they manufactured the shit out of everything, including clean tech. And if you want to play the geopolitical game, you basically do the same.' In order to counter China, the West is beginning to adopt the communist state's strategies: targeted protectionism, supply-side interventions, public investment and industrial subsidies. The Western consensus around free and open markets, limited government intervention and the private sector's ultimate preferability when it comes to the allocation of capital is over. The 2008 crisis precipitated the downfall of a growth model; 'Nobody is defending free markets any more,' Gabor said. Since then, the structures of the global economic system have only survived on life support: emergency bank nationalisations; monetary and fiscal stimulus; and the pumping of vast amounts of liquidity into the financial sector through central banks' quantitative easing programmes. The very system that once bemoaned big government was rescued by it. The old, limping model was further knocked by Covid and the imperatives of reaching net zero. What some have heralded as a 'post-neoliberal era' has come about because of 'a combination of these three or four' factors, said Gabor: the financial crisis, Covid-19, China and climate change. The Biden project was, she says, 'a domestic political game of 'let's make the Democratic Party electable again'.' It was 'about presenting a programme of job creation' to the US working class. We spoke for the second time in 2025, and it was by then clear that Bidenism as a progressive response to Trumpian national-populism had failed. Gabor had told me in our earlier conversation that Bidenism's job-creation prospects were limited, and she was right: the green spending splurge didn't create widespread prosperity. And yet, minus Bidenism's positioning of net zero as a catalyst for industrial revival, Trump's return is less a rupture and more a haphazard development of previous trends. 'There are important lines of continuity,' Gabor told me, this time from her offices at Soas. 'Both Republican and Democrat administrations are attempting to try to deal with this significant hegemonic threat from Beijing. There's a chaotic view of what Trump is doing that says: 'This guy is crazy, he just puts up tariffs, then he changes his mind, and the bond market disciplines him until he caves.' But to me, there is another reading, which is of structural continuities and a geopolitical logic of the necessity of transformation. And when Republican ideology meets with Maga, what we get is the idea that we can transform the productive and consumption structures of the US economy by means of massive changes in price signals – transformative tariffs.' Where Bidenism, Gabor said, engaged in 'de-risking' – 'basically bribing or subsidising structural transformation and trying to bring back manufacturing and industrial capacity in a partnership with private capital' – Trump is instead attempting a similar industrial revival via tariff policy. In both cases, a half-century of bien pensant market dogma is over. But is this 'post-neoliberalism'? What should we call a broad-based, renewed market-scepticism, this scattered reconfiguration of the state as a prime economic actor? The moniker 'modern supply-side' – the phrase used by Biden's top team – was always going to be limited by its wonkish undertones. That specific Democratic project died at the ballot box, to be replaced by something much harsher, much darker. Some have suggeted we should call this new age one of 'productivism' – the phrase of the Turkish economist Dani Rodrik, who has advocated for an economy 'rooted in production, work and localism, instead of finance, consumerism and globalism'. But if Western governments are trying to mimic China's economic success, they are delivering only a poor, diluted imitation. Our cumbersome, diffuse state apparatus and pluralist societies obviate urgent, top-down, executive actions. Western governments are constrained, limited and stiff. By contrast, the Chinese Communist Party has authoritarian powers that allow it to act decisively, with speed and agility, without being impeded by property rights, judicial reviews, a free press, party-political opposition, lengthy consultations or pesky, Nimbyish campaign groups. 'I like talking about discipline,' Gabor said. 'The biggest problem we have now is around how to discipline private capital. The politics behind the revival of the state is based around short-term electoral-cycle politics. And it's difficult to imagine a radical reorganisation of macrofinancial conditions or significant nationalisations in four years… Discipline to me is important because without it, the state is not going to get the kind of outcomes that it wants.' This kind of 'disciplinarian' approach seems at odds with Gabor's liberal-progressivism; she even plays in what she calls an 'anarchist football club in Bristol'. 'I love them. They're great friends. But they always make fun of me because the ethics and moral principles for the club are that it's about participation, not winning. And in the Romanian system we had a very significant emphasis on meritocracy and competition. It was violently competitive for kids like me… Command economies aren't necessarily lacking in competitiveness or incentives for innovation and hard work… [Under socialism] the Romanian state did some really impressive planning in the sense that it went from an agrarian society that was completely ripped apart by the Second World War into a country that had a very complex and advanced chemicals industry, building refineries, and having really significant technological capabilities.' We were in the foothills of a conversation about the benefits of socialist dictatorship, which Gabor doesn't advocate. Yet she believes managing a green transition within the confines of democratic politics to be 'very, very difficult'. Central is the restoration of the state as a transformative, democratic agent rather than a technocratic-managerial one. 'I think the state is back,' she said. Something fundamental has shifted when every politician, of every persuasion, is promising radical change. 'People say we live in the age of post-neoliberalism, and everybody has transformation as the ultimate horizon of political ambition, including Labour. And yet instead we are seeing a status quo of trying to deliver transformation through mobilising institutional capital… It's giant private funds like BlackRock investing in public assets and infrastructure.' What is the alternative? How can a cash-strapped Treasury pay for a transformative agenda without private capital, particularly when jittery bond markets can bring down spendthrift governments even more quickly than restive electorates? 'After 2008, and during Covid, we had central banks that weren't intimidated by bond vigilantes,' replied Gabor. 'We had central banks that acted as buyers of last resort on sovereign debt. Where did this disappear?' It is unlikely that Keir Starmer will take heed. Reform has come closest to calling for the Bank of England to be brought back under political control – not to buy bonds to fund public investment, but to reduce the interest paid to commercial depositors and free up government spending, with fiscal and monetary policy working in tandem. This is yet another harbinger of the confluence of left and right towards production-focused interventionism – exemplified by Trumpism. 'Trump has an ambitious vision,' Daniela Gabor told me, 'albeit an authoritarian vision, but nonetheless… He knows the kinds of transformations that are necessary and knows you need political guts to go through with it. Starmer is the opposite. He has no vision, no ambition. He goes whichever way the wind blows.' It's a damning indictment. But vision or no vision, the inflection point is here. Broad, structural changes are in motion, and Western governments will be compelled to respond. [See also: The politics of murder] Related
Scotsman
05-08-2025
- Scotsman
Readers' letters: We must not return to the days of Mary Whitehouse
A reader says freedom of expression should be defended, even if it might offend some people Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Speaking as someone who is usually in agreement with Susan Dalgety, it's also necessary to agree with her when she admits to being at risk of 'sounding like Mary Whitehouse' (Scotsman, 2 August) when criticising Channel 4's recent documentary on Tia Billinger – aka 'Bonnie Blue'. Such a broadcast might well make Ms Dalgety's 'skin crawl', but in a liberal democracy freedom of expression (within reason) must be respected even if it might offend some of us. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Those taking part in the event Ms Dalgety describes were all consenting adults participating in an entirely legal activity. Thankfully, we are not living in Franco's Spain or the repressive Roman Catholic Ireland of the 1930s-1980s as portrayed in Edna O'Brian's novels, once banned by Irish censors. Mary Whitehouse, as president of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, was a vigorous campaigner against what she perceived to be excessive sex, violence and bad language on screen and stage (Picture: Les Lee/Daily Express/) Radical feminists might wish to reflect on the irony that those countries which prohibit pornography (such as Iran and Afghanistan) are the very same states where women are most oppressed and are denied human rights. By objecting to this Bonnie Blue documentary, Susan Dalgety unwittingly aligns herself not only with Mrs Whitehouse's campaign to 'clean up' television, but also President Ronald Reagan's failed attempt to close down America's adult entertainment industry back in the 1980s. Martin O'Gorman, Edinburgh Spanish Inquisition Jenny Lindsay (Scotsman, 2 August) quite correctly criticises John Swinney's reference to Scotland as 'the birthplace of the Enlightenment" when he and his government and his acolytes, have spent years introducing and enacting laws to strangle freedom of thought and expression in Scotland. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad I'd add to Ms Lindsay's list ot taboo subjects any hint of challenge to the current diktats on measures to live with climate change, as Christine Jardine points out in her article, 'Milliband's moving to end North Sea oil too quickly' (Scotsman, 4 August). Also that successive governments' policies on housing the increasing number of asylum seekers entering the country illegally have driven so many people to protest in public, often for the first time in their lives, and are dismissed as being members of 'the far right'. As Ms Lindsay notes, in the context of gender issues and Israel/Palestine, 'perfectly ordinary viewpoints are twisted erroneously by people seeming incapable of critically analysing anything other than cereal packets'. The 1998 romcom Sliding Doors had a running trope: 'No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition.' Little did we think when we laughed then that we'd be living through a modern version of the Inquisition in 2025. Lovina Roe, Perth, Perth & Kinross Bank balance I agree with the granting of consent to Berwick Bank wind farm. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Two correspondents to your letters page (2 August) mention an estimate of 31,000 bird deaths over the wind farm's 30-year life span. This is about 1,033 a year, averaging 2.83 bird deaths a day. For perspective, estimates of the number of garden birds killed by domestic cats in the UK each year are in a range of 40 to 70 million. The Mammal Society's study in 2003 estimated UK cats kill 55 million birds annually. That's an average of 150,684 bird deaths a day. The Civil Aviation Authority's 2017 report on 'Wildlife hazard management at aerodromes' shows that where deterrence fails to reduce the risk of birds to aircraft, birds will be shot. So human desires to have cats and to fly in aircraft have priority over the lives of birds. SSE Renewables said on 31 July that Berwick Bank has secured two connection points, at Dunbar and Blyth in Northumberland, to the UK electricity grid, and the trade association Renewable UK said on 31 July 'the approval of Berwick Bank Offshore Wind Farm is a pivotal milestone for Britain's energy transition'. Berwick Bank wind farm will benefit people in Scotland and England, and I think many of your correspondents and readers will agree with that. E Campbell, Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire Sheer madness I recently read in horror that the Berwick Bank wind farm array had been provisionally approved despite the number of complaints and the fact that it will kill thousands of seabirds, (some breeds of which are in decline), due to the relative proximity of the array to their breeding sites. I can also only assume that the decision-maker have not seen, or totally ignored the figures being produced on the Octopus Energy 'UK's Wasted Windpower tracker' site which not only shows that as I write, to date this year more than £716m in wind power has been wasted but also that the nearby Seagreen array (also owned by SSE) has been closed down 71 per cent of the time because the grid cannot handle the amount of energy generated in higher wind situations. Although producing nothing, SSE is paid millions of pounds in 'constraints payments' which are added to every electrical bill. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It is widely accepted that Scotland has a major issue with the amount of energy it can handle from its wind farms and that this issue will take years to resolve. In the interim adding another extremely large array. which will only increase energy bills and kill thousands of seabirds when it is operating, is sheer madness. Ralph Bebbington, Crediton, Devon Not so green In an open letter to John Swinney, signed by 18 environmental and civic groups including Friends of the Earth and Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, he was asked to stop the increasing level of plastic pollution in Scotland (Scotsman, 4 August). It is quite ironic that just days before, permission was given for the world's largest wind farm consisting of 307 turbines at Berwick Bank. These turbines will have plastic components: plastic coating on the copper wires and the turbine blades are made of polymer composite materials – plastics within which fibres or particles are embedded as reinforcement. These blades cannot be recycled but end up in landfill. With 100,000 tons of turbine blades disposed of annually in the UK and 329,000 wind turbines globally there is a huge environmental problem that Friends of the Earth etc dare not mention. Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian Pope for peace Pope Leo XVI celebrated his three months in office with a youth mass on the theme of peace (Scotsman, 4 August). He's fast making a reputation of being a peacemaking Pope. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Quietly, he's negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine, having twice met with Vlodomir Zelensky and phoned Vladimir Putin. As a long-serving member of the Augustinian fraternity, his watch words are unity and peace. One of his first acts as Pope, was to visit the fraternity, which he had led prior to becoming Pope, assuring his former colleagues that 'they were still his brothers'. In contrast to his predecessor, the charismatic Pope Francis, Pope Leo has been described as an introvert, who is very much a team player. Much of his papacy is spent listening and, as he said to the young people, patiently and tirelessly, trying to resolve conflict by, not fearsome weapons, but long-term negotiation, a quality, much needed in our war-torn world. We are blessed to have such a Pope. Ian Petrie, Edinburgh Dual purpose Rachel Amery (Scotsman, 4 August) writes about the dualling of the A1. Yes, a need not just for those that use the A1 from Alnwick to Dunbar which is the only part not a dual carriageway at present, but for the whole transport industry which over uses the M74 and A66. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad What she fails to highlight is that it was Conservative Ian Lang. as Scottish Secretary, who stopped the programme to dual the A1 between Newcastle and Edinburgh in the early 1990s. Robert Anderson, Dunning, Perth & Kinross Don't be fooled The latest misguided ruse of Robert IG Scott (Letters, 2 August), with the aim of having Holyrood abolished in favour of direct rule from Westminster, is to promote a unionist cabal offering 'radical changes' in order to defeat the SNP. While recent polling has shown consistent support for independence at around 50 per cent or greater, one suspects that the polling levels of support would be significantly higher if the BBC and much of the media in Scotland were not seemingly preoccupied with seeking stories to denigrate the Scottish Government and the SNP. What is certain is that a clear majority, possibly approaching the 75 per cent of the devolution referendum, think that the people of Scotland should be able to determine their own future (even if individually some might not yet be ready to vote for independence in a referendum). Those who still think that Scotland should remain in a dysfunctional Union and believe that they represent the majority view of the people of Scotland should be prepared to back that belief in a democratic manner and support calls for a constitutional referendum should Scotland, in 2026, again elect a majority of MSPs supporting independence. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad With Brexit, Covid, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing slaughter in Gaza there have been significant changes in the UK and around the world. Those who would deny the people of Scotland from having a second constitutional referendum at the earliest realistic date of 2028 (14 years after 2014 and double the period available to the UK citizens of Northern Ireland) seek not only to deny democracy but to deny human evolution. Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian Write to The Scotsman
Scotsman
04-08-2025
- Scotsman
John Swinney's 'robust debate' claims ring entirely hollow in the face of Edinburgh festival deplatforming
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... He continued by expressing a desire 'that Scotland – the birthplace of the Enlightenment – remains a country of robust debate and inquiry'. As someone formerly of the arts in Scotland, routinely asked by outsiders 'why has Scotland gone mad?' I refute Swinney's claim that we are. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Under Nicola Sturgeon's pursuit of gender self-ID, supported by a complicit arts culture, neither inquiry nor debate were permitted. Any questioning of the SNP's proposal to change the meaning of the words 'woman' and 'man' in Scottish law would have you deplatformed from your local poetry open mic session quicker than you could say 'Isla Bryson'. A juggler performs for tourists on Royal Mile during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Picture: JeffDespite agreement with much in Swinney's speech – the importance of healing divisions, of defending freedom of expression – it rang hollow. Enlightenment values have long left a majority of Scotland's artistic and literary institutions, with the cultural atmosphere so censorious and difficult to navigate that many, myself included, have stopped trying to. It would be false and unfair to say this atmosphere is supported by every creative writer and artist. But, with only a few exceptions, they're very quiet. The general consensus appears to be that where an issue is difficult – whether gender self-ID or Israel/Palestine – we must accept the most authoritarian take possible from activists, and allow any dissenting voices against the self-identifying 'progressive' side to be pilloried, mocked and economically sabotaged. On Saturday, Swinney's own event at Edinburgh's Stand comedy club was disrupted by such activists. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad How else to explain the silence from Scotland's artists to the no-platforming of two Jewish comedians at the Fringe this week? Rachel Creeger and Philip Simon had their shows cancelled at Whistlebinkies over supposed 'safety' concerns raised by staff. Creeger's show, Ultimate Jewish Mother, is not political (not that it should matter). Her only 'crime' appears to be her race, and the fact that, due to rising anti-Semitism (can anyone seriously deny this?) she needs extra security. Simon faced a double-cancellation, with his show at Banshee Labyrinth also deplatformed due to comments on social media supporting Israel's right to exist, attending a vigil for the Israeli hostages, and pleading we not forget what happened on October 7. Such heinous acts, according to Banshee Labyrinth, mean his "views and actions align with the rhetoric and symbology of groups associated with humanitarian violations', which, presumably, they imagine Simon will enact upon his Fringe audience. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It's ludicrous. But on certain issues, with Israel/Palestine and the 'gender wars' being the most obvious, perfectly ordinary viewpoints are twisted erroneously by people seemingly incapable of critically analysing anything other than cereal packets. High on the undoubted virtue of having an important cause (ending war) or a ridiculous one, successfully reframed as righteous – redefining 'woman' to include 'some men if they say so' – such activists can be frighteningly relentless. An arts world lacking courage has no chance against them. The Edinburgh International Book Festival (EIBF) soldiers on, despite the antics of Fossil Free Books (FFB) last year. FFB are a group of activist-writers who sabotaged the EIBF's sponsorship from Baillie Gifford by threatening disruption to events. Baillie Gifford holds a tiny number of investments in fossil industries and Israeli-owned businesses and was therefore, to these activist-writers – some of whom are invitees to this year's festival – not sufficiently pure to accept sponsorship from. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The 2025 programme – now with increased funding from Scottish taxpayers via Creative Scotland – features many great writers, but not a single 'gender-critical' feminist. This despite many successful books having been written on a subject clearly of public interest, with the most obvious being The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht anthology, a Sunday Times bestseller, many of whose authors live in the capital. Space has been made, of course, for such women's literary detractors. Another undeniable success story in Scottish non-fiction, who you won't find at EIBF either, is cultural commentator Darren McGarvey, whose debut Poverty Safari won the Orwell Prize in 2018. Follow-up The Social Distance Between Us was published to great acclaim, and his third title, The Trauma Industrial Complex, hits next week. He has a Bafta-award winning BBC series under his belt, and is an active campaigner on social justice issues surrounding class, addiction and poverty. I took private pelters from some for platforming McGarvey in my former events series circa 2016. It was clear McGarvey's class, his directness and, yes, his then-common willingness to have online arguments, were more important to some writers and gatekeepers than his undeniable talents and important subject matter. While we disagree frequently, and the issues we write on differ, I know of many in Scotland's literary world who, if they'd had their way, would have denied McGarvey a literary career. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad So, to recap: we've an artist class dominated by those with – at best – a partial belief in freedom of speech; a festival running scared of an important political issue in Scotland; venues whose 'values' don't seem to 'align' with platforming Jews, and a seeming reluctance to address the issue of class despite endless hectoring about 'inclusivity' and 'diversity.' There's barely any discussion in the arts about this; that job's been left to opinion columnists and occasional essayists. Defensiveness abounds, excuses given, personal 'hurt' prioritised over robust conversation. Not very enlightened. Swinney said: 'When we come together to protect and support our creative industries, we create a virtuous circle that will benefit us for years.'
