Issue 124
Jul – Aug 2022
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Non-death of neo-liberalism and ‘new’ Labour returns This is an editorial of two parts. The first parts deals with the strange non-death of neo-liberalism and the second with the changing class alignments and voting patterns, especially in terms of Labour. So, nothing much about the new SNP Scottish Government or independence as nothing much has […]
Mary Church and Niamh McNulty lay out what the conference needs to do and what will be done in Glasgow to push it toward that. Glasgow is to play host to COP26 – otherwise known as the 26th conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – at a critical […]
Peter Henderson surveys the dangers of freeports and wonders whether the SNP’s ‘greenports’ policy can square the circle. The latest UK Government proposals to regenerate the economy are freeports while the Scottish Government’s alternative has been labelled ‘greenports’, incorporating aspects of its Fair Work and Net Zero agendas. The freeport concept is, of course, not […]
Annie Morgan takes the Scottish Government to task for not sinking the proposal to profit from environmental destruction. Scottish Enterprise, owner of the land, recently withdrew from the potential planning application by the Lomond Banks, a subsidiary of theme park operator, Flamingo Land, after Lomond Banks submitted a request for an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) […]
Gordon Morgan exposes the crazy circumstances in which green energy is unnecessarily made more expensive. Far from encouraging renewable energy in Scotland, Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) and which supports the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority, actively discourages any new generation in Scotland. Moreover, it is consulting on increasing the amount of electricity […]
Assessing and explaining Labour’s new high tide in Wales, Darren Williams points out the continuing challenges. Welsh Labour won an impressive set of results in the Senedd (Welsh Parliament) elections on 6 May, securing exactly half of the institution’s 60 seats – equalling the party’s best previous performance – and ensuring a further five years […]
Roza Salih calls for rebellion against Westminster’s inhumanity and the creation of a Scottish system. It has been 16 years since I first gained notoriety as a teenager with the Glasgow Girls, but all these years later, Britain still has an immigration system deprived of heart and lacking even basic humanity. At just 15, my […]
Henry Maitles recalls the armed battle to save the last of Warsaw’s Jewry against the Nazis. In May 1943, one of the most inspiring events of WWII took place. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising stood no chance of success but was a moral crusade. As the Jewish Fighting Organisation (in Polish, ZOB) announced: ‘All of us […]
Pat Kelly analyses the roots of the bigotry and sets out what now must be done to rid us of it. There was nothing new about Rangers fans engaging in hooliganism, thuggery and violence after they had been presented with the Scottish League trophy in May. And there was nothing new about the same fans […]
Calum Rosie argues that only deep-seated, radical action can address this scourge in our society. It has recently been announced that Scotland is, yet again, the ‘drug death capital’ of the world, with over double the number of drug-related deaths than any other European country. This is a damning statistic, but for anyone living in […]
Andrew Watterson asks who judged who to jab and why in Scotland, and with what effect. Vaccination policies to protect various groups in the population in Scotland – including its workforce from Covid and its variants – have raised many questions over the last twelve months. These involve medical, scientific, public health, political and legal […]
David Betteridge recalls how men and women were made on the Clyde into fighting fortresses. Where did the statesmen and women of the yards come from? Where did they acquire the necessary skills, values and knowledge? These are questions worth finding answers to, and adapting to our own times, because these were the statesmen and […]
Adam Charlton recalls a genocidal episode of internal colonialism from Britain’s past. When we think of the British Empire, we think of distant territories separated from the British mainland by vast expanses of sea. As such, we think of Britain’s colonial policies as directed at people in far off regions like Bengal and Kenya. In […]
Kailash Kutwaroo says independence opens up progressive policy positions for Scotland on the world stage. Should an independent Scotland leave the NATO military alliance? It’s possibly not the most pressing issue for the Scottish independence movement at present, when compared to the more demanding issues such as how Independence can be achieved, the timing of […]
Chris Sutherland makes an impassioned plea to develop a radical agenda for independence. On the eve of the 1916 Easter Rising, Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington, the wife of the pacifist, Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, asked James Connolly: ‘Tell me, Jim, have you ever any hope of anything on the other side?’ Both her husband and Connolly were to lose […]
Nigel Flanagan calls for a radical shake-up in how unions mobilise to gain collective bargaining rights from employers. Whilst union decline continues, the chances of organising a union recovery in membership and density appears to get worse. In the wake of the catastrophic failure to gain union recognition at US Amazon plant in Alabama in […]
Nadine Labaki, director, Capernaum (2018) Reviewed by Jackie Bergson Capernaum is a devastatingly captivating drama which overflows with ingenuity and social realism. From the outset, in casting non-actor, Zain Al Rafeea, to play the main role of Zain El Hajj, the filmmakers gifted their audiences with an outstanding, heart-and-soul character. Real-life Syrian child refugee, Zain, […]
David Bleiman, This Kilt of Many Colours, Dempsey and Windle, 2021, 9781913329457, £8.00, pp50. Reviewed by David McKinstry This Kilt of Many Colours is a poetry pamphlet which explores cultural identity, memory and the tensions between alienation and assimilation and how they shape individual and group identity. It is written from the perspective of a […]
Fotheringham, B., Sherry, D. and Bryce, C. (eds.) Breaking up the British State: Scotland, Independence & Socialism (Bookmarks, 2021, 436pp, £12) and Stott. P. and Taaffe, P. Scotland & the National Question: A Marxist Approach (SPS Publications, 2020, 145pp, £8) Reviewed by Murray Armstrong Two books address the same two questions: why should socialists support […]
Berkowitz, E. Dangerous Ideas: A Brief History of Censorship in the West from the Ancients to Fake News, Westbourne Press, 2021, pp384, £20 (hb), 978-1908906427. Reviewed by Sean Sheehan A history of censorship is a history of the world and the author of Dangerous Ideas wisely adds the word ‘brief’ to his book’s subtitle. That […]
Two political poems by David Bleiman Get Brexit, Donne? The grass grew green again over the rust and richer dust, where leaders’ lies congealed. That turf was turned for further use, a people buried in the mass, ashen, making their piece of the continent. The grass grew tall and this time would be tended well, […]
The problem with having to file copy over a week in advance of publication day means that sometimes what I write in this column can be superseded by events. So, I have to choose between voicing outdated opinions or making wild speculative predictions. Or both. So, I’m going with the wildly speculative this time around. […]