It’s difficult to connect this week’s technocratic wrangles over ‘indexation’ to a clear vision of devolution’s ultimate purpose. The handful of experts who truly understand it tend to major on the ‘how’ and not the ‘why’, and for good reasons.
Conceived in the late 1960s as a means to an end – halting the rise of Welsh and Scottish nationalism – there is no grand narrative underpinning the most important constitutional process of our times. Devolution was nobody’s dream, but a pragmatic compromise driven by electoral expedience and the need to appear to do something.
The meaning of devolution is unsettled and up for grabs. This podcast explores the difficulty of making a cohesive story out of Scottish devolution, and the competing narratives and perspectives brought to the question by writers, historians, parliamentarians and constitutional experts.
It emerges from a research workshop held at the University of Stirling by lecturer Scott Hames to examine the idea of ‘cultural devolution’ – the notion that writers and artists made Holyrood possible – and revisits a side of the story which is less about taxation powers than the management of national feeling.
With thanks to BBC Scotland, the Scottish Political Archive, Billy Kay and Stuart Platt for use of archival audio. Other recordings from ‘Narrating Scottish Devolution’ research workshops held at the University of Stirling, supported by the British Academy. Recording, editing and production assistance from Peter Geoghegan, with support from the Stirling Centre for Scottish Studies.
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