Unionist parties - Labour, Conservatives and Reform - propose belonging on the basis of compliance with a uniquely British culture and superior moral values. There is precious little substance to any of this and fewer people are interested in being included in the UK's derisory offer of citizenship.

UK unionism is bad at imagining community, because it isn’t invested in the public and civic sphere within which a community might coalesce. In its place it offers post-imperial melancholia, supremacist fantasies and monarchy, the latter increasingly embarrassing.

Born and bred in Co. Down, I’ve always been struck by how the Union’s most vociferous defenders have done most to undermine it. They have made it a hopeless, unwelcoming, loveless Union.

In the link, 'storms out of work' is in quotations marks. This doesn't appear in the report. It's not a quote attributed to anyone. It is therefore a deliberate embellishment that suggests the colleague left, perhaps, in a fit of pique, rather than after sober reflection on their circumstances.

I think it might have coincided with repatriation of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Huge public opposition to war combined with impromptu acts to honour the dead, drew an official response that was determined to make sure public remembrance didn’t turn to anger and resentment at war.

Elspeth King interviewed by BBC Arts Correspondent Pauline McLean on Good Morning Scotland.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Same. I've live in NI all my life (57). My vote plays no role in the formation of the government and at a constituency level, I've never been represented by anyone I voted for. Not at parliamentary, assembly or even council level. But it's rude to mention it.