Rob Gibson Reclaiming our Land, 2020, self-published, pp324, 9781527281813 Reviewed by Magnus Davidson This is a book about land reform, providing through it a valuable resource for those looking to better understand the history of the SNP and those interested in parliamentary process. Gibson, with a long history in the SNP, was MSP for the […]
Neil Findlay (ed.) If You Don’t Run, They Can’t Chase You: Stories from the frontline of the fight for social justice, 2021, Luath, pp184, 1910022438 Reviewed by Iain Ferguson October 2021 marked the third anniversary of the historic 48-hour strike for equal pay by 8,000, mainly female, Glasgow council workers, members of UNISON and the […]
Who knows what the fight the UK will have started in Europe by the time this appears in print. After noising up the Irish and trying to stir things up with France, who knows which country the UK will have decided to take on next. Furthermore, as the country lurches from crisis to crisis like […]
Though our cover celebrates reaching issue 125, this should not detract from the major global issue continuing to be the climate emergency
Matthew Crighton reviews some core messages from a climate conference and their relevance to debates in post-election Scotland and at COP26. The idea of a ‘Just Transition’ (JT) has moved from the fringes to centre stage since 2016 when Friends of the Earth Scotland and STUC set up the Just Transition Partnership. Having been a […]
Dave Moxham says it’s not so much the devil is in the detail but the visions are quite different. Up until relatively recently ‘Just Transition’ (JT) was a term used by a relatively narrow group of people in policy circles, unions and environmental campaigners. Over the past few years, the term has become more commonly […]
Maggie Chapman gives a frank and honest view on the Scottish Government and Scottish Greens deal. Some on the left have wondered about the Scottish Green Party’s (SGP) left credentials, but the day SNP and SGP members both accepted the Cooperation Agreement, Andrew Neil, in the Daily Mail, gave a high accolade: ‘Anti-monarchy, anti-Britain, anti-wealth, […]
John Wood reviews two books about the environmental emergency. As the climate crisis comes into sharper relief by the day, it is no exaggeration – if perhaps something we have heard in previous years – for the UN to describe 2021 as ‘make-or-break’ for our planet’s future. Glasgow’s COP26 should focus the minds of global […]
Peter Lomas argues prime ministers hold dangerous amounts of undemocratic and unilateral powers. Questioned, at the G7 July summit, about the problematic status of Northern Ireland in the EU Withdrawal Agreement, Johnson hinted at ‘pragmatic solutions’. So far these have meant the UK government twice breaking the Agreement, in principle and in detail. Next step […]
Stephen Smellie gives personal reflections on UNISON’s newly elected national leadership. Glaswegian Christina McAnea was elected as general secretary of UNISON, the first woman to lead one of the big unions. Leither Gary Smith was elected as GMB general secretary. In UNITE, Sharon Graham was elected as the ‘left’ change candidate. The election of a […]