Lloyd, J. Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot: The Great Mistake of Scottish Independence, Polity, 2020, £20, pp211, 1509542663 Reviewed by Colin Fox John Lloyd is a contributing editor for the Financial Times and describes himself as a ‘first generation British neo-con’. Born in Anstruther in 1946 and the son of a hairdresser, he went to […]
Thompson, E. William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary, Merlin Press, 2020, pp642, 978-0-85036-680-8, £25 Reviewed by Sean Sheehan Those who cherish the notion that left-wing radicals, given time, will metamorphose into ultra-conservatives like themselves tend to be peeved by people like Tony Benn and Jeremy Corbyn for so obviously contradicting their mantra. If William Morris’s thought […]
Musto, M. (ed.) The Marx Revival: Key Concepts and New Interpretations, Cambridge University Press, 2020, £75, pp408, 9781316338902 Reviewed by Sean Sheehan The focus of this book is announced in the title, The Marx Revival: Key Concepts and New Interpretations, and its essays by 22 contributors are symptomatic of renewed interest in a thinker who […]
Gessen, M. Surviving Autocracy, Riverhead Books/Penguin Random House, 2020, 978059318893, £21.45 In the allegedly free late 1960s, I completed my doctorate on the profound influence of Russian novelist, Dostoevsky, on the young Canadian-American writer, Saul Bellow. In retrospect, I now feel that, in part, the thesis was driven by a desire that this mutual level […]
Culture and creativity during Covid: teaching and learning at home David McKinstry is a teacher – see his biographical details below – who has also been engaged in home schooling of his son, Gabriel, during lock down. Gabriel, like many pupils, was finding it hard to adjust to the new style of learning. In attempt […]
Normally, writing the September edition of this column would be a flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants affair as I would be having to file my copy in the middle of the Edinburgh Fringe. Obviously not this year. Due to Covid19, this year’s Fringe was cancelled months ago as the whole thing was considered to be a health hazard. Of […]
Is the left now coming up for air? The left is in one of its classic dilemmas. On the one hand, while the Tories are in office with a substantial majority, the sheen is certainly coming off them – even if Labour has done little to bring this about. And yet, on the other hand, […]
Mary MacCallum Sullivan starts with an apology to SLR: I wish I’d met you earlier I regret the delay. I have now read – very thoroughly – two issues, so please consider me repentant. In the last issue, the editorial pointed to the big issues presented by the pandemic, three of which were what the […]
Prem Sikka dissects the Westminster governments series of economic and financial initiatives On 30 January 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared Covid-19 to be ‘a public health emergency of international concern’. This provided ample warning and time for the Westminster government to manage the economic consequences of the pandemic. Its response has been chaotic […]
Roz Foyer reports on what’s been happening in Scotland’s workplaces The STUC supports the Fair Work Convention’s vision that by 2025 people in Scotland should have a world-leading working life where fair work drives success, wellbeing and prosperity for individuals, businesses, organisations and society. The Convention’s Fair Work Framework (FWF) goes on to define Fair […]