Issue 132
Nov – Dec 2022
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Tories are in a continued crisis but still the attacks continue … but before we get to that, there is the small matter of the monarchy and a republic to deal with and which the cover for this issue flags up. So, we have a once in a lifetime opportunity – a historical moment, if […]
Tommy Sheppard lays out the case against the monarchy. I’m not sure which is the more depressing: that the UK has just reaffirmed the hereditary right of kings or that a majority of its citizens demonstrably agree with that situation. Despite this, as we begin the new Caroline era, a grown-up debate about the future […]
Bill Bonnar examines the feting of the monarchs but sees the prospect of change ahead. As socialists, we were dreading it. Not the passing of the queen but rather how it would be marked and we were not disappointed. Ten days of carefully manufactured mass hysteria; not only to mark the passing of the queen […]
Is it now time to stand tall And abandon the royal bowing and scraping? If nothing else think of the money You will be saving? The cost of sixteen royals Equals thirteen thousand nurses Without putting us in the red Hospitals we all dread But that being said, Who would you choose Prince Andrew Or […]
Gregor Gall surveys the options we can choose from and who might help to deliver it. The death of the queen and the accession of a new king have provided the best opportunity in many generations to develop and deepen the case for a republic in any and all parts of Britain. This far exceeds […]
Republic explains the facts behind the lies and statistics. UK tourism is a major part of the UK economy, worth around £127bn a year. UK residents traveling within the UK and visitors from overseas spend billions on hotel bookings, visitor attractions, restaurants, theatre tickets etc. Overseas visitors alone add £28.4bn to the British economy. There […]
Pat Rafferty says workers are winning and on the march again. The last two years have demonstrated who really matters in our society – and it’s not the rich and powerful. It’s cleaners, carers, paramedics, nurses, supermarket workers, cleansing workers, taxi and bus drivers, delivery workers, teachers and school support staff, and postal workers – […]
Mary Senior reports on the on-going battle in universities for pay and pension justice. This summer of unrest, strikes and union ballots is par for the course for the University and College Union (UCU), given our members in universities have been fighting back against punitive pension cuts, stagnating pay and inequality for some years. In […]
Katie Gallogly-Nelson lays out what a just transition must mean to the wider array of workers. While the temperature is projected to increase by only decimals of a degree, global warming’s impacts are already catastrophic and irreversible, wiping out ecosystems, communities and ways of life. While many of us in Scotland imagine these impacts to […]
Stephen Smellie argues we cannot contemplate backtracking on fighting the climate crisis. In the current cost-of-living crisis, it is to be expected that unions, and their members, will be distracted from focusing on last year’s big issue – climate change – as they struggle to negotiate pay deals that at least keep inflation in sight. […]
Stephen Low recommends that the Scottish Government rips it up and starts again. The Scottish Government has broken new ground with the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill. Never in the field of parliamentary scrutiny has a piece of legislation been so panned by so many so completely. The Bill was published by Humza Yousaf, Cabinet […]
Chris Yuill says the solutions to the health inequalities that still stalk Scotland lie in economic and social change. Walk across the Wellington Suspension Bridge over the River Dee in Aberdeen from Torry to Ferryhill and something worrying happens. Average life expectancy drops by about ten years for men and just under six for women. […]
Nick MacWilliam reports on the abuse of human rights in Colombia and the prospects for change. In April 2021, Colombians launched the largest protests the country had seen in decades. Led by unions, social movements and students, the so-called ‘National Strike’ mobilisations grouped together a litany of mass grievances with the hard-right government of President […]
Alf Baird tells a woeful tale of incompetence, arrogance and worse on the high and low seas. [Manichaeism is a religion which believes there is a struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness where light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the […]
David McKinstry casts his poetic eye across the decades of the Elizabeth II’s ‘reign’ over us. The 1980s were covered by him in his poems in Issue 123 (May/June 2021), the 2010s in ‘The Brexit Boat’ published in Issue 131 (Sept/Oct 2022) and the 2020s were also covered in Issue 125 (Sept/Oct 2021) and in […]
Patrick Phillips looks at the social aspects of anthropology and architecture of a lost village in Scotland. On maps today, ruins are simply known as shielings. Without roofs, they cannot be considered as bothies either. A shieling is defined as ‘a mountain hut used as a shelter by shepherds‘, or from another perspective, ‘a summer […]
Kevin Macdonald, director, The Mauritanian, 2021 (with writers: Rory Haines, Michael Bronner and Sohrab Noshirvani) Reviewed by Jackie Bergson. The Mauritanian is based upon the testimonies of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who, suspected of terrorism, was arrested by Mauritanian police in November 2001. Consequently, he was questioned by the FBI, then imprisoned in solitary confinement in […]
Ralph Guentzel, The Quest for a Feasible Utopia: Historical variants of democratic socialism and their contemporary implications, Nomos, 2022, pp238 Reviewed by Dexter Govan. With a bleak winter approaching, it can be difficult to imagine a bright future. And yet, for centuries through grim times as well as prosperous ones, socialists have theorised about what […]
’Mon the Workers’. Celebrating 125 Years of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, ed. Daniel Gray with photography by Alan McCredie, Luath Press Edinburgh, 2022, pp271, 978-1-80425-033-4 Reviewed by Jenni Gunn ‘Mon the Workers hascome at an important flash point for the workers movement. ‘Hot Strike Summer’ is leading into the new ‘Winter of Discontent’ as […]
Catherine Flynn (ed.) The Cambridge Centenary Ulysses: The 1922 Text with Essays and Notes, Cambridge, 2022, £30, pp988, 9781316515945 and Sam Slote, Marc Mamigonian and John Turner, Annotations to James Joyce’s Ulysses, Oxford, 2022, £125, pp1424, 0198864582 Reviewed by Sean Sheehan. A hundred years have passed since Sylvia Beach, the owner of the Shakespeare and […]
Roger Seifert, UNITE History Volume 2 (1932-1945): The Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU): No Turning Back: The Road to War and Welfare, Liverpool University Press, 2022, ppxii+165, £6.99 (e-book), 9781802076981. Reviewed by Dave Sherry 2022 marks the centenary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union – a predecessor and constituent part of UNITE, Britain […]
Eileen Turnbull, A Very British Conspiracy – The Shrewsbury 24 and the Campaign for Justice, Verso, 2022, £16.99, pp384, 9781804290149 Reviewed by Stephen Smellie Every now and then you read a book that you immediately want to tell other people about, that you believe is important and that what you have learned from reading it […]
A week is a long time in politics, as the old cliche goes. We never know what could be just around the corner, and I have very bad form in that regard. My previous two columns in July and September have failed to predict Boris Johnson’s resignation and the death of the Queen. Thankfully, Liz […]