I recently decided to start The Scottish Independence Podcast. It is a project I had had in mind for some time, and had also discussed a few times with the good people at Bella Caledonia, who I am happy to say have helped out.
There were a number of reasons for starting the project. Firstly, podcasts are growing exponentially in popularity and I tend to work my way through a lot of them. I simply wasn’t able to find any that were regularly discussing the most important decision our nation has had to make for 300 years. In fact, I was/am somewhat dismayed that the Yes campaign haven’t been producing their own, regularly, quickly and reacting to/instigating events.
Furthermore, podcasts provide a great opportunity to let someone have their say without the shouting down and point-scoring so often to be found on the more traditional political forums or broadcast outlets. People can come on podcasts (well, this one certainly) and explain their reasoning, talk about their studies or whatever interests them without having it reduced to the kind of argument that is won by the person who thumps the table the hardest.
I am an independence supporter who is not involved with any party. In these podcasts I hope to provide a chance for people who want to discuss the pre and post referendum situations seriously. I make no secrets that the majority of guests are independence supporters. Supporters of Scottish Independence tend to be under-represented in the mainstream forums (despite and proclamations Ian Davidson may make to the contrary) and I think in a climate where nearly all of the newspapers are avowedly or obviously unionist and the television and radio, whilst making the usual pretence of impartiality, generally seem very hostile to the idea, such a forum is not only a refreshing change, but absolutely necessary.
So this project is an attempt to discuss some of the real choices coming up for Scotland without the jingoism and, frankly, the silliness, that surrounds much of the debate at the moment. Well, to be honest there may be some silliness from time to time but at least we’ll be doing it deliberately.
Finally, the success of this project may depend on what help I can get from others. If you have ideas, if you want to record a piece and send it to me, if you have a guest you can suggest, if you are good at editing little audio mixes, anything, please get in touch and help to make this as good as it can be. If you don’t want to contribute in that way, simply telling some other people about it would also be greatly appreciated.
It is hosted on spreaker and from there you can download it and listen at your leisure, or listen online. This is the link to the show’s blog page and this is the link to the rss feed. It is also available on itunes.
There have been 4 episodes so far and a few more are just waiting to be edited. The first was with Donald Adamson who teaches Political Economy at Cambridge, the second was with Andrew Tickell aka Lallands Peat Worrier, the third is a mix of the speeches from the rally in Edinburgh on Saturday 22nd of September and the fourth is a short episode featuring reaction from James Maxwell to Johann Lamont’s (hopefully) lemmingish speech of the other day.
I hope you enjoy listening, if you want to get in touch you can find my email here.
Michael Greenwell