Issue 118
Jul – Aug 2020
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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 […]
Stephen Smellie charts a way out of the crisis in both short- and medium-terms Thousands have died in care homes in a fragmented service delivery model designed to generate a market, where operators’ desire to make profit rather than provide quality care is the driving force and where public accountability is weak and regulation light. […]
Megan Gordon reports that a bad situation is getting worse – so much more funding is needed Imagine that you have a partner who constantly belittles you and your children. Or, who controls where you go, who you speak to and what you wear. Imagine that they humiliate you, and that sometimes they are violent. […]
With so much still unknown, Bill Ramsay says the rush to return to school is ill-advised and dangerous When considering Scottish education at this time, it must be borne in mind that the tension between health and economic factors, what I will call the ‘Covid calculus’, is constantly changing. As the ‘Covid calculus’ changes so […]
William Craig surveys the arguments and evidence on a topical subject The enormous upheaval caused by the pandemic has forced us to look at our society as never before and to ask questions about how we interact with each other. Of all the questions, the most overarching one is this: how do we deliver fundamental […]
Gordon Morgan lays out a 22-point plan to bring about a decisive change Across the world, CO2 emissions are falling due to the pandemic with lockdowns, restrictions on aircraft, car use and limitations on world trade. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates emissions will fall by 8% in 2020 and energy use fall by 6%. […]
Lubnaa Joomun reveals some seemingly positive changes but wonders whether they will be permanent Only four years ago, immigration was one of the most topical crises in the British press – one that had Britain at breaking point. Since then the world has met a crisis in the COVID-19 pandemic. With the world turned upside […]
Comment: Four Separate Issues Arising from COVID-19 Response Councils in Scotland have been at the forefront in dealing with COVID-19 humanitarian community response, reinforcing public health messaging and ensuring continued safety and well-being of our most vulnerable. Prior to the pandemic, they were already struggling financially with overall revenue funding having fallen by 7% in […]
Frances Curran recounts her personal and political experience of coming up against ‘male privilege’ Attitudes towards women’s oppression and sexism have become better understood and have advanced positively in the socialist and union movements since the 1980s when I first became involved in politics. This shift has grown in tandem with changes in attitudes in […]
Heather Farley and Saffron Roberts say there should be a non-gendered type of ideal leadership Abuse of power by leading men has dominated the headlines in Scotland over recent years. Yet, compared to England’s leading men, with Johnson’s ‘letterbox’ comments and Cummings’s Durham trips, you’d be forgiven for thinking Scotland was, relatively speaking, progressive. Yet […]
Jonathan Deans explains the how and why of an unregulated business that gets away with murder What do the movement of heavy commercial vehicles in Kent, court fees for proving the validity of a will, and the definition of ‘commercial pornography’ have in common? They are the subject of draft statutory instruments sitting before Parliament […]
Ahead of the Holyrood 2021 elections, Colin Fox argues all that is solid just might melt into air With less than a year to go until the Holyrood elections, the opinion polls appear to suggest the result is a foregone conclusion. The SNP is at 52% support, according to a May 2020 YouGov poll and […]
Kenny MacAskill considers the case of Kansas to give a handle on those feeling left behind but not left It’s never wise to forget your electoral base, or worse to treat it with contempt. But it’s all too easily done, and it comes at a high cost. That came to mind reading Thomas Franks’ 2004 […]
Nigel Flanagan tells the tale of the subject of the film and the means by which is was made Sat in a room in Hurricane Films in Liverpool, we had come together to talk about making a film about a union leader and who it could be. Our discussion moved onto the film about Thatcher […]
By celebration and critique, Gregor Gall commemorates the contribution of Neil Davidson Socialists in Scotland lost one of their finest thinkers with the untimely death of Neil Davidson (9 October 1957 – 3 May 2020). Neil was a very rare thing in this modern age of intellectuals being housed in universities. He was not just […]
Midnight Traveller (2020) – Director: Hassan Fazili, Editor: Emelie Mahdahvian Reviewed by Jackie Bergson Increasingly soaring refugee numbers within recent years elicited a tranche of thematic documentaries by filmmakers moved to reveal some of the stories behind them. Midnight Traveller (2020) is a particularly personal, involved account which documents its filmmakers’ need to flee from […]
Murray Armstrong The Fight for Scottish Democracy: Rebellion and Reform in 1820, Pluto Press, 2020, 9780745341330, pp228 Reviewed by Sean Sheehan The Fight for Scottish Democracy is a strictly historical account though it begins with a scene that would not be out of place in a lurid Victorian novel: two women in the dead of […]
Kenny MacAskill Radical Scotland: Uncovering Scotland’s Radical History – from the French Revolutionary era to the 1820 Rising, Biteback, 2020, 9781785905704, pp352 Reviewed by Gordon Leggate This year marks the two hundredth anniversary of the 1820 Radical Rising, a perhaps lesser known period in Scottish history. On 1 April, proclamations were posted across many towns […]
Twelve weeks into lockdown, and our through-the-looking-glass ‘new normal’ becomes ever more bizarre. While everyone’s lives seem identical from one week to the next, like some never-ending Groundhog Day, other things appear to change dramatically on a day-to-day basis. UK government policy, for example, carries on being made up ‘on the hoof’. One minute, free […]