Journalist, author, broadcaster
In 1936, Robert Merton published a seminal paper entitled “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action” in the American Sociological Review . Seemingly minor events, the then 26-year-old argued, can have profound, unanticipated implications. The “law of unintended consequences” was born. Mohammed Bouazizi was the same age as Merton when he provided the digital age’s most […]
Is there an alternative to robber baron chairman asset stripping your club? I spoke to an innovative new venture through in Paisley, to turn local club St Mirren into a Community Interest Company. This feature originally appeared in February 2012 edition of the excellent When Saturday Comes: Billed as a ‘national day of action’, November […]
My thoughts on what Scottish Independence campaign – and independence itself – might mean for Northern Ireland, from Scotsman January 11. ‘Do you want Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom?’ Doubtless it’s the kind of phrasing David Cameron had in mind when he demanded a ‘fair, clear and decisive question’ on Scottish independence […]
I spent ten days or so in Cairo at the start of this month. Here’s the first of a few articles I wrote while I was there, a news piece on the elections for the Scotsman. EGYPT’S ultra-conservative Islamist party plans to push for a stricter religious code after claiming strong gains in the first […]
From Irish Times comment pages, November 16. OPINION: SCOTLAND’S “SECRET shame” is anything but a clandestine affair these days. Between Uefa’s clampdown on repugnant chanting at Rangers and Celtic’s European nights and First Minister Alex Salmond’s pledge to “eradicate” bigotry, sectarianism in Scotland has never received so much attention. Speaking at the Scottish National Party’s conference […]
My article on joblessness among young Zambians, which was commissioned for the Guardian development journalism competition 2011. Dickson Kakoma has been sober for 10 months – ever since the night he almost lost his family, and his life. “I went drinking with a friend. He was driving us home when we started arguing. I grabbed […]
What Michael D’s victory in last week’s presidential election could – could – mean for Irish emigrants. From this week’s Irish Post. Last week, Michael D Higgins won by a landslide a vote for Ireland’s next president. Capturing 40 per cent of ballots cast, the Labour man comfortably topped the poll, with his nearest rival […]
The nascent ‘occupy’ movement currently spreading around the Western world is often traduced for lacking a clear, identifiable goal or a soundbite-sized rallying point. Indeed at one point during the Occupy Edinburgh demo in St Andrew’s Square Saturday afternoon – while a Mohawked punk in leathers was excoriating the coalition government in London – I […]
A couple of months back I was short-listed for the Guardian’s International Development Competition for a feature I wrote on attempts to improve farming practices in Malawi. As a consequence of this, I’m heading to Zambia on Sunday for a week to research a piece on youth unemployment for the paper. I’m going with an […]
This review of D.M. Leeson’s fascinating The Black and Tans: British Police and Auxiliaries in the Irish War of Independence appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, September 2. The Black and Tans ‘have gone down in history as the British equivalent of the Turkish bashi-bazouks or the German Freikorps.’ A 10,000-strong police force scrambled from […]