Author Archives: Jimmy Burns

The phrase Direct Rule has a certain resonance  for a British and US media sensitised by the not so distant memories of Northern Ireland where the British government sent in the army to try and maintain law and order at the height of the Troubles. Its use to describe the next stage of the Catalan crisis may be convenient short hand but it is not  a phrase that the jurisprudential Spanish prime-minister  Mariano Rajoy has opted to use. Instead the phrase has been Article 155, as incomprehensible  on a first …

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  Last night’s prime time show in the Catalan parliament served as a reminder of the seemingly  dangerously uncompromising nature of the current Spanish crisis, even if  it  seems to have  temporarily pulled back from the brink. If there were highlights  from recent episodes of this seemingly  enduring melodrama  to  be drawn from previous episodes I would identify the following:   The unnerving site in early September of a small majority –less than the two-thirds required by the Catalan Statutes of Autonomy- of pro-independence  deputies  in the Catalan parliament bulldozing …

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  Vengo de visitar  la capital escocesa de Edimburgo, una ciudad elegante, relajada y acogedora del patrimonio mundial, que me ha dejado impresionado  por la tranquilidad y el civismo del proceso politico  de Escocia en comparación con el desastre que ha llegado a caracterizar la cuestión catalana en España. En el impresionante e histórico castillo de Edimburgo, una de las atracciones turísticas más populares de Escocia, perdura una sensación de identidad cultural que es británica y escocesa. Visitándolo recordé el lema “Mejor juntos”, que los unionistas usaron con éxito para …

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I was in the Scottish capital Edinburgh, an elegant, relaxed ,  welcoming world heritage city, earlier this  week  and was struck by the peacefulness and civility of Scotland’s devolutionary process compared to the shambles that has come to characterize the Catalan  issue  in Spain. In the impressively  located and historic Edinburgh Castle, one of Scotland’s most popular tourist attractions,  there endures a sense of cultural identity that is both British and Scot. Visiting it I was reminded of the  “Better together”, slogan which unionists  used successfully to win the ‘no’ …

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Few images circulating globally from earlier yesterday (October 1)  seemed to risk being  more damaging to the Spanish government’s attempts to woo over a majority  of Catalans to its concept of a lawful constitutional democracy than that  of helmeted Civil Guard officers using a hammer to break a window and a lock cutter to break open a door at  a sports centre near Gerona. Tougher tactics  have been used before by British and other European  police including Catalonia’s own force the  Mossos D’Escuadra to deal with violent protestors, criminals, and …

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