As Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP see increasingly solid pro-independence majorities in successive polls, their case for an independent Scotland has gone missing: a book review.
Inequality
Young, gifted and scarred…
As much as a third (32%) of the Scottish workforce isn’t working in the lockdown but it’s the young who are the hardest hit and faces the bleakest future – unless we adopt New Deal-style measures to prevent a “lost generation” being scarred for life.
Poverty and coronavirus in Edinburgh: solutions in shared humanity
Edinburgh Poverty Commission is an independent group working to define the steps required to end poverty in the capital. It has been listening to people and organisations in the city over the past few weeks to hear at first hand the profound impacts of the Covid-19 emergency on people living in poverty, now and in the future, and issues its interim report today.
Better recovery after new divides
‘As the inequalities in our economic system are laid bare by this crisis, rather than returning to business as usual, countries such as the UK would be well-served to instead build back better by creating a wellbeing economy.’
Fairer, greener, more equal but how?
The Scottish Government has yet another new group of economic advisers (on the recovery): it should think more about practical delivery of any new policy ideas, says FAI.
Another Johnson untruth on poverty
‘Boris Johnson’s bold claim about child poverty needs some careful consideration – it is a very partial truth that completely misrepresents wider realities.’
Drugs, poverty and entertainment Pt 2
Cool Britannia Danny Boyle’s film of Trainspotting was the pitch-perfect opening salvo for Tony Blair’s Cool Britannia. A post-ideological antidote to the conscience-pricking social realism of such politically-driven directors as Peter Watkins and Ken Loach, its purpose was not to evoke sympathy for those enslaved to a drug habit; rather, it was to cash in […]
Drugs, poverty and entertainment
Why are there so many deaths from drugs in Scotland? We know all the standard answers but maybe, too, the creative sector has a part to play? Part One of two
Gig economy – on film, in life
Ken Loach’s new film shows how: ‘All of us – the public who rely on the services of the gig economy just as much as the politicians who proclaim its virtues – need to wake up to the reality that, in this instance, “flexibility” is just another word for exploitation.’
Scottish children’s mental health crisis
Poverty, neglect, abuse are among factors behind a mental health crisis among our children & young people. A new skills award offers some hope amidst the accelerating catastrophe.