Sir Tom Devine: ‘I’ve always thought England would destroy the Union’
Sir Tom Devine is Scotland’s most distinguished historian since Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), but unlike the latter at least by reputation he likes a joke. Shown to an alcove reserved for us in La Lanterna, his favourite restaurant in central Glasgow, he tells the waiters that he is on day release from Barlinnie, Scotland’s most distinguished jail. He keeps it up, enjoying the initial puzzlement.
Seated, he says he’s between two large meals, so won’t have much. “She who must be obeyed” his wife, Catherine had so decreed. The meal to come is with his large family of children and grandchildren; the gluttony past was yesterday’s magnificent dinner of whisky-kippered salmon, beetroot, salsify and lemon, Dunlop (Ayrshire) cheese, bread and butter pudding, roast beets, leek porridge and rhubarb pie with cream sent to him by the Sir Walter Scott society. Covid-19, which also must be obeyed,
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There are about 3,100 churches in Alberta and pretty much the only ones we hear about are the two that have repeatedly defied public health orders.
First, there was Edmonton-area GraceLife Church. Its pastor, James Coates, was eventually arrested and jailed for refusing to adhere to COVID-19 health measures. The measures required that no more than 15 per cent of the building’s capacity be filled with people and everyone is to be masked. Eventually, authorities were forced to put up an unscalable fence around the Spruce Grove building to prevent the defiance from taking place. Neighbours of the church say they were being verbally accosted by the parishioners.
I was still half-asleep as I stepped out to the end of our driveway to retrieve our empty recycling bin, when a strange conversation began.
An older (than me) gentleman was walking by, stopped, and began to talk. He was pleasant, so I thought the polite thing would be to have a chat. (It’s the kind of thing we retired old fogeys do.)
I thought we’d talk about the lovely weather, and we did, briefly.
But then he began to tell me about what ails and has been ailing the world.
I quickly woke up (in the old sense of “woke”).
A backbench MP who gets things done May 9, 2021
Liberal MP John McKay doesn’t give a damn whether he’s in cabinet or not. But he does give a damn.
In an extraordinary 24-year career riding Parliament’s backbenches and chairing committees in government and opposition, McKay has steered legislation through Parliament to make sure Canada’s foreign aid goes to poor people, helped shape reforms to Parliament giving more voice to individual members and nearly forced a reluctant Conservative government to create a mining, oil and gas ombudsperson with real power to investigate and expose Canadian companies that violate human rights abroad.