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[2013] Iain Banks: the final interview
Iain Banks: the final interview

Iain Banks died last Sunday, just before the publication of his final novel The Quarry.

Last month he talked to Stuart Kelly about writing, politics and all the things still left to do . . .

I was saying last year that if we don't get it in 2014 we'll get it in my lifetime and now it turns out my lifetime might not extend as far as the first referendum and that just seems wrong – a Scotland still shackled to a rightwing England, especially with the rise of the bizarrely named Ukip (I think they'll find their acronym should be EIP actually) – I won't be sorry to be missing that.

I won't miss waiting for the next financial disaster because we haven't dealt with the underlying causes of the last one.

Nor will I be disappointed not to experience the results of the proto-fascism that's rearing its grisly head right now.

It's the utter idiocy, the sheer wrong-headedness of the response that beggars belief. I mean, your society's broken, so who should we blame?

Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it?

No let's blame the people with no power and no money and these immigrants who don't even have the vote, yeah it must be their fucking fault.

So I might escape having to witness even greater catastrophe.
 


On the whole, Trump has never been viewed more negatively on matters of truth. A Quinnipiac University poll this week found that 60 per cent of Americans think he is dishonest, a new high. Time ran a cover story on Trump with the headline “Is truth dead?” The Wall Street Journal editorial board, long Trump-friendly, accused him of damaging his presidency with a “seemingly endless stream of exaggerations, evidence-free accusations, implausible denials and other falsehoods.”

Yet Trump has also managed a remarkable feat: maintaining a reputation among millions of Americans as a man of rare honesty at the same time as he launches an unprecedented daily barrage of Oval Office lies.
 
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