Here's a chance to meet the hitherto unknown British correspondent of The economist and author of the article.
Her name is Rosie Blau. She's a mum, a former Booker Prize judge, (she read 138 books for the judging), she used to be literature editor at the FT, she's a graduate of both Cambridge and Harvard, she's worked as a columnist, arts and news editor, above all else she appears to be a terribly, jolly nice gel.
"Scotland seems to be err broadly fine"
Rosie has been interviewed by Joel Budd, the Britain editor at The Economist. The interview deserves a couple of plays to get those lovely coy moments from Rosie that reveal her true ignorance about Scotland. The usual clichés are trotted out. The Oil is running out. Renewable energy is no future because we'd need to subsidize it. Our Banks are shot, Small countries are in danger. Oh and according to Rosie, Nationalists go about saying, "We've got oil, we're going to be so rich, we're going to have this oil wealth for ourselves."
There is the rather off the cuff concession from Rosie that, "Oil and Gas, would have at one point certainly funded an Independent Scotland." That deserves a bit more investigation.
Rosie's original article drew over 2000 comments on the Economist. This is the first time the author has been identified. It struck me as odd that the author wasn't named. Rosie's background is in the arts and literature, not Economics. I feel her piece is clichéd and trots out the usual lazy stereotypes when London deigns to comment on Scotland.
I've removed the paragraph which contained the economist office number. It's freely available online. If anyone was offended, particularly those poor souls in the Unionist parties, then please accept my utmost apologies, if I caused you to weep for humanity.
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2 comments:
This is basically just an air headed person with little idea about what she is talking about letting loose against Independence, producing (or enticing someone else to produce) a quite pathetic but laughable front page for an allegedly respected magazine and then trying to play the middle ground in an interview afterward.
I loved the desperation of that economist map, it means that the mouse in the room is in fact the union and its supporters.
However the 'debate' on Independence isn't furthered by this rubbish, but then I won't expect progress to come from adherents to the union, whether well informed (which isn't actually possible) or poorly informed, which is invariably the case.
The Economist may as well have asked someone from a random London Burger King their opinion.
So, my initial thought that this was typical of the kind of shite you hear at middle class dinner parties in the South East from folk who know hee-haw about Scotland is vindicated... thankyou...
Why the hell did no one else manage to identify the rather massive fly in the ointment that was the qualifications (or rather lack of them) required to write such an article... "ooh ooh It's the economist and that must mean it's by economic experts, so bow before their brilliance..."
harrumph!
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