Politics has always been deeply personal for Sandra Webster. A single mother-of-three who cares for two autistic sons, one with chronic renal failure and another with cerebral palsy, she cut her teeth in the long-running community-led campaign to save the children’s ward at the Royal Alexandria Hospital in Paisley. Just before the campaign started in…
As a young schoolkid in primary three, David McClemont was given a homework exercise where he had to show he could use various words in a sentence. “One of the words was ‘witch’ and so I wrote ‘Maggie Thatcher is a witch’,” he recalls. “My teacher must have been quite left-wing, because I don’t remember…
Jim Bollan is proud of the number of times he has been hauled before the watchdog for councillors’ conduct. Most recently, the veteran socialist councillor was brought before the Standards Commission to answer 37 allegations brought by the CEO of West Dunbartonshire Council after he made public details of a hushed-up internal probe into corruption…
Six months into the pandemic, as the public health crisis and its gross mishandling in London hardened public opinion in support of Scottish independence, Shetland made a rare appearance in UK headlines. The islands’ local authority had just voted to formally explore options for achieving “financial and political self-determination”, a move seized upon by unionist…
Benn Rapson’s face is instantly recognisable to many Glasgow students. Just over a year ago, he was elected as president of the students’ union at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland’s third-largest university, with around three-quarters of the 1,123 votes – a testament to his frenetic campaigning over his five years of involvement in the student…
Elections have consequences. The independence movement shouldn’t leave it to Boris and Nicola to decide what they will be.
Bohdan Starosta previews an election which sees Scotland and its national movement facing an uncertain future.
Jack Ferguson reviews the results of the Netherlands’ recent election, and asks what space there is for the left in a political environment dominated by the right
Tejas Mukerji debunks the Alba Party’s claims to be a radical new force in the independence struggle, and explains why the left must quickly organise to confront their politics of reaction.
Tejas Mukerji argues against the notion that the Salmond scandal has led the Scottish left to fall victim to the same “derangement” that swept through American and British liberals in the aftermath of Trump and Brexit.
