Issue 70
May – Jun 2012
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To mark the Golden Jubilee, the Scottish Left Review asks how the Royal Family has managed to persuade everyone that it is somehow 'harmless' which simultaneously acting as a front for the arms industry - with a Kick Up The Tabloids special on the outcome of our Head of State poll
The hysteria surrounding the Royals shows a Britain with just about as much openness and balance about its head of state as Putin’s Russia
Neil Blain looks at the way the media reports the Royal Family and not only fails to find political balance but fails to find even solid news values. Ideology by omission results.
Far from being a bit of ‘harmless fun’, in fact the Royal Family is a crucial institution in promoting British militarism and supporting the UK arms trade. Kaye Stearman examines the royal role in selling guns to dictators.
Paul Leinster argues that while removing the royal family would be no panacea to the UK’s problems it could at least go some way to inspiring a new sense of possibility, equality and pride in the nation
Head of State Special - with exclusive results of our opinion poll...
In every SLR between now and the referendum we’ll pick a policy issue and ask four writers from across the spectrum of constitutional opinion to argue the pros and cons of independence. In this issue we look at Monarchy.
The Jimmy Reid Foundation launched its second report during the local elections (www.reidfoundation.org/library) calling for major reform of local democracy. But Robin McAlpine explains why local democracy is just the start.
Pay day loan companies may advertise themselves as a social service but they are quite the opposite, argues Neil Findlay. It is time that people were offered a real alternative to this legalised loan-sharking.
The SNP’s encouragement of the Pharmaceutical industry’s control over mental illness in Scotland might seem to offer economic hope but it is harming our wellbeing, argues Siobhan Tolland
Bill Wilson looks at the western media reporting of Iran’s development of nuclear technology and finds once again that taking ‘maybes’ as facts and then editing out the ‘maybes’ is ratcheting up the case for war
Andy Anderson concludes his series on economic theory by pointing out that Marx’s prediction that demanding ever-greater profit from the same resources would create constant economic crises has proved true. But what next?
Reviews of Class Struggle - film from the Clyde and Tommy Sheridan: From Hero to Zero? A Political Biography