Submitted by the People’s Health Movement (PHM) Scotland ahead of their People’s Health Assembly on 10th June, this article was written by its Steering Committee: Tony Robertson, Mark Langdon, Sue Laughlin, Eva Gallova, Neil Quinn, Giulia Loffreda and Toby Pepperrell. The combination of the climate emergency and a crushing cost of living crisis have often […]
Quan Nguyen finds that some wear the label ‘New Scots’ as a badge of honour, but for others it’s less appealing. Last summer, at the ‘Progress to Yes’ conference in Aberdeen, I visited a workshop where a panellist introduced himself earnestly as a New Scot. A young white man, an EU immigrant from a Nordic […]
Iryna Zamuruieva reflects on the devastation wrought upon her native land, and the roots in language and culture that can sustain a deep sense of resistance and resilience. We’ve seen many images of the Russian war against Ukraine: there is pain and loss on scales that are difficult to comprehend. A year into the full-scale […]
Sean Sheehan reviews Promised Lands: The British and the Ottoman Middle East, by Jonathan Parry (Princeton 2022). Promised Lands begins with a bombardment in 1799 against a town in what is now Israel, an opening salvo in the history of British involvement in parts of the Ottoman Empire. The intention of the bombardment was not […]
‘At least Liz the Lettuce waited until she had been elected party leader before she pressed the self-destruct button’. I’m currently working in Australia, but even here we felt the shockwaves of Nicola Sturgeon’s departure. As we enter the post-Sturgeon era of Scottish politics, many are still in the dark as to why the First […]
Henry Maitles remembers the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. This picture, showing Bundist survivors of the Holocaust on the May Day 1945 demo in the ruins of Warsaw, is both poignant and uplifting. The Bund was the largest grouping of Jewish socialists in the lands of the Russian Empire from 1900 until the Holocaust. It was targeted […]
This special online issue, supplementing the printed issue 133, features articles submitted to the magazine during its change in editorial staff, between November 2022 and February 2023. Contributors agreed for them to be printed to coincide with the online publication of the printed March-April issue, despite the delay. A New Phase of Politics in Scotland […]
Editorial introduction to this special online-only issue comprising articles submitted for the Jan-Feb issue of the Scottish Left Review. They say absolute power corrupts absolutely. If so, the limits of devolution mean Scotland’s First Ministers can only be corrupted so far. But within the SNP, concentrated power surely had something to do with the resignation […]
Stuart Fairweather surveys three groups campaigning for social transformation in Scotland: ‘In between the action of the unions, largely but not exclusively focused on wages, and the ideologically contoured world of ‘self-help’, a new political space is emerging.’ How do we build momentum for change? How do we create the conditions for meaningful action on […]
Clare Peden reports on one union’s campaign for an economy in the hands of workers not profiteers. In September last year, hundreds of trade unionists and campaigners gathered to stage a protest at the Glasgow headquarters of Scottish Power, one of the UK’s energy giants. Spearheaded by Unite’s ‘Unite for a Workers’ Economy’ campaign, it […]