Maggie Chapman looks back on not just a quantitative but also qualitative shift for the Scottish Greens. The Holyrood 2021 election reflected a number of trends that we have seen in previous elections, but gives significant hope for workers’ rights, a just transition, a second referendum and the left in Scottish politics. The first trend […]
Chris Stephens says the populace is behind the SNP’s prospectus for a socially just independent Scotland. Seven days after Scotland went to the polls to elect the most diverse parliament in its history and on the morning that new and re-elected MSPs were being sworn in, Home Office removals officers were carrying out a dawn […]
Surveying the political landscape, Linda Somerville asks: what will it mean for workers and the working-class? Hailed by the media as the most important election yet for the Scottish Parliament, the 6 May plebiscite will, indeed, go down in history. Holding a national election while mainland Scotland was still living under significant restrictions was certainly […]
Kenny MacAskill looks back at Alba’s debut campaign and forward to its future. Sometimes in politics, as in life, the concept can be correct but circumstances and timing are wrong. And so, it was to prove for Alba in the Holyrood election. That an SNP vote on the list would be wasted and let in […]
Dave Watson is the secretary of the Socialist Health Association Scotland. There are plenty of new faces in the Scottish Parliament, but will they make any difference to the nation’s health? Even a pandemic that has killed more than 10,000 people in Scotland and has driven 25,000 to the mental health helpline did not put […]
Iain Ferguson shows why the case for a publicly-owned and controlled care service is unanswerable. On 19 April 2021, BBC Scotland published the Covid-19 deaths by care home in Scotland, based on Crown Office figures. They made grim and tragic reading. Of the 10,000+ Covid-related deaths, around a third – at least 3,400 – occurred […]
Regina Serpa argues the SNP promise of ‘a safe, warm, affordable home’ for all is possible with a pro-independence majority. Skimming the headlines for post-election autopsies, I find only a handful of political analyses that criticise the 2021 Scottish elections as ‘boring’ or ‘zombie’-like, which might be surprising given the lack of campaigning due to […]
Jane Carolan lays out an alternative approach to that offered by the SNP Scottish Government. In the election, employments rights were on the Scottish political agenda. Several party manifestos maintained the policy of Scotland as a country of ‘Fair Work’ and made promises on how that Fair Work agenda could be maintained or even reinforced. […]
David Spaven assesses the likelihood of the future of decent, environmentally transport getting better. Transport is rarely a key factor in national elections in the UK. One has to go back to 1964 – when the Beeching programme of rail cuts was only just getting underway – to find a campaign in which transport was […]
Mike Danson eyes the prospect of cross-party cooperation for a boldly ‘building back better’. As I wrote in Scottish Left Review (Jan/Feb 2021), there is a remarkable degree of consensus across Scotland, its Scottish Government Commissions, STUC, Commonweal, Business for Scotland, the Wellbeing Alliance, think tanks and visionaries as to how we should be planning […]