A private word from the Editor of this site

As our few hundred regular readers will probably know this site was established in early May as an experiment after the General Election had created a situation in which England was being run by the Tories and Scotland was being run by the Nationalists.

At that time there was considerable discussion in Scotland as to where our future as a nation lay. The organisers, backed by a charity and The Scottish Review on-line magazine, decided that it might be interesting to set up a site to act as a forum for discussion on this issue.

In fact it was rather more complicated than that as the original idea was to run a cross party "Scotland Quo Vadis" conference on Iona, but that proved impractical so the idea of the web site evolved.

At the core of the idea for the site was a plan to engender a sense of formality, with participants being required to use their proper names and all crass comments being deleted by monitors.

The site got off to a rather slow start, largely because we were complete amateurs and had no real idea of what we were doing, but we soon had a few dozen people logging on each day and when a good essay was posted this number would climb to a few hundred: for example  Andy Wightman's essays have had around eight hundred hits.

And then in August a strange thing happened. We came across a character called Major Hamilton and asked him to run the site for us for a month whilst we went on holiday.

Now Major Hamilton is a truly extraordinary man who in a matter of days had learnt how to source and paste photographs on the site and seemed to have an almost limitless supply of interesting and informed essays, many of which he posted.

Due almost entirely to him the site took off and today we are on the brink of the site being a useful tool on the Scottish political scene with many politicians being amongst those who regularly view the site, which also acts as an archive.

We have also found that the site is being used to leak news stories.

Today I, the original editor and indeed the notional owner of the site, return to my post though without any of the skills exhibited by Major Hamilton.

So Quo Vadis Quo Vadis?

Our plan had been to close it down after August, but with Major Hamilton's extraordinary vitalisation of the site we are reviewing other options.

We might for example spend a bit of money on the site or we might even ask our charity sponsors to offer to set up Michael Hamilton on his own site if that is what he wants.

He is after all a nationally respected commentator being, I suspect, easily the best known writer of letters to newspapers in Scotland, and our debt of gratitude to him for all he has done for the site is boundless.

Over the next few weeks we will be having discussions with charity trustees and others to decide what to do now.

We would of course welcome your own ideas, either on line or privately to me on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Best wishes,

Maxwell Macleod

Iona - The Cathedral

As some readers may know this site was originally founded using monies bequeathed by the late George Macleod, the founder of the Iona Community, and this writer's Father.

Eighty years ago when George was minister of Govan Old he was nicked named 'The Pope  of Govan', partly because he was keen to see more union between the Protestants and the Catholics.

He was a keen supporter of the Roman Catholics and indeed installed a statue of the Virgin Mary on Iona, in the Cathedral , a building which is available for members of all churches.

He even met the Pope and was well received.

In 1988 when this writer was working for the Iona Community I was responsible for an advert in The Herald promoting  a anti-sectarian cause, but was disgusted to find that the compositors of the print agency I was working with  refused to handle it.

We Scots are still a riven nation, let's not forget it.

I was thinking this yesterday when I receieved a call from the rep of the organiser of  a lorry borne float that was due to drive through Glasgow to celebrate the Pope's visit.

They wanted someone to represet my Father , who died twenty years ago.

My first thought was one of delight. Great family honour, nice to think he is still remembered.

And then last night I started to think of the real George and not the sanitised version that would doubtless be represented.

The real George Macleod was a hard hitting, take no prisoners kind of individual who believed in his own doctrine and was often pretty merciless in getting his own way.

Fair enough. The same might be said of Gordon Brown , Tony Blair, David Cameron.

Fortune favours not only the brave, but the brave who believe in themselves.

Now when the last Pope came to visit Scotland there was an idea floated that he should go to Iona and celebrate Mass.

My Father was asked to comment. " Fine " he said " but only if he invites all Christians to the communion table. If the Pope is going to dither, don't let him dither on Iona."

Of course the remark was not well reported. Poor old George, must be getting old.

Must be getting gaga.

The suggestion then was that that inter communiion would best be achieved by talks and the sort of confrontational position he wanted to take would be negative.

Thirty odd years on we have had a lot of talk, and still the grotesque horror of inter-church rivalry continues and still no inter communiion.

Now I personally have more traffic convictions that religious convictions but I have enough faith in the churches as social organisations to respect them and find myself furious at the lack of pro-activity by those organisations against sectarianism.

If someone really wants to represent George on some lorry then good luck to them.

But if they want to represent him properly then I hope they have him handing out anti-Trident leaflets, and shouting his fury at the notion of a new labour party leadership debate having little to do with radical change, and with a ruddy great sign around his neck saying " Don't dither!"

Lord he was a pain in the neck.  I loved and admired him dearly.

But let's remember him for what he was and not what we would have liked him to be.

And if the Pope wants to celebrate Mass on Iona, or indeed in Bellahouston Park,  let it be to all comers, and don't let him dither there either.

Maxwell Macleod

Editor SQV