Orientation Day
Tomorrow is a crucial day for the SNP. It is also a crucial day for quite a few SNP politicians. Here’s why.
Left Strategy
The campaign against the welfare state – know your enemy
The campaign against the welfare state is now in full flow in Scotland. As we gear up to fight it, this is a simple guide to who is in the campaign, how its strategy works and the lexicon through which it is delivered.
Read More »The campaign against the welfare state – know your enemy
We’ve had the debate: universalism won
If Scottish Labour wants to open up a debate on universalism, I welcome it. It’ll be a brief debate and universalism will win. Again.
Is this the end of ‘Scottish’ Labour?
It is hard not to conclude that Johann Lamont has retreated into a fantasy land. Cancelling devolution, retreating into local government and turning to the right to align herself with London Labour might solve her internal squabbles. But what does any of this have to do with Scotland?
83 per cent of people say opinion polls are rubbish
The use of opinion polls by lobby groups is not to gather information but to create false opinions and use those to make politicians think the public is on the side of big money. We need to get wiser about opinion polls or we’re going to start falling for this stuff like they do in the US.
Read More »83 per cent of people say opinion polls are rubbish
This is neoliberal Britain. What option is there other than striking?
Iain MacWhirter’s arguments against industrial action by public sector workers appears to leave them with no option but to be preyed on by the CBI. Surely people must have a right to protect themselves? Surely we all have a responsibility to explain what people should do when we’re telling them what not to do?
Read More »This is neoliberal Britain. What option is there other than striking?
Two Important Media Initiatives
The new issue of the Scottish Left Review is now online. In it are two articles about two different media initiatives in Scotland. Here are the articles
‘Hidden spaces’ – how to privatise Scotland by stealth
The Reform Scotland proposals to merge parts of the public sector into big units is anti-deomcratic and seems intentionally designed to make the public sector especially susceptible to profiteering by the financial sector. We need to be more alert to the real intention of this agenda.
Read More »‘Hidden spaces’ – how to privatise Scotland by stealth
The truth about social conservatives: politically they don’t matter
Putting bishops on your front page and then believing they are important because they are on your front page is simple a delusion of the media. Over and over ‘culture wars’ turn out to be no such thing as Scotland adapts quickly and happily to liberal progress. Why do commentators still predict armageddon for liberal politicians?
Read More »The truth about social conservatives: politically they don’t matter
Why is the SNP rubbing the left’s nose in it?
The right-wing drift of the SNP is turning into a march. The same is true of the left whose drift away from the Party is accelerating. Has the SNP left just resigned itself to becoming like the Westminster Labour Left? Is there now no challenge to the creation of New SNP?