Politics
No country for old men
Labour Hame editor Duncan Hothersall is worried that ideological purity should be the test for becoming a Labour candidate. ‘All of the voices on the left should have a place in the Labour Party if…
Home Office ‘target culture’ from Blair to May
‘For me, the surprise is more in the way the media and parliamentary system has reacted to ‘target-gate’. We have had almost two decades of opposition parties, select communities and the media grilling governments on…
Stains on our democracy
‘The name Immigration Removal Centre sounds harmless enough; just a pragmatic facility for holding people briefly on their way to another place. Don’t be fooled by the name. These places share the most punitive attributes…
Scotland, Northern Ireland and Brexit
“With the UK taking Scotland in a direction that most of the public do not support, the alienation of Scotland from the rest of the UK should be of great concern – however it appears…
Beware: hostile environment
‘With hindsight there was a poignant contrast between the generous spirit in the hall and the fearful politics brewing in the real world outside’. Fay Young on positive community activism and a general election result…
March for our lives: letter from Boston
“The opposition will call you snowflakes. But do you know what in Massachusetts we call thousands upon thousands of snowflakes rising on a wind of change? We call that a blizzard!” Jackie Kemp reports from…
Football Act shown the red card
‘When the dust settles, there should be reflection on the fact that creating new broad criminal offences in society without political or legal consensus is extremely problematic. Further targeting of one group in society for…
Revealed: ongoing costs of flawed BTP merger
‘The BTP merger isn’t what it said on the tin and, if anything, now looks like a threat to both the future of Scottish policing and railway policing on both sides of the border.’
The charmed inner circle of Official Scotland
‘Official Scotland is a relatively small world and many of the key players meet and socialise on a regular basis. Cronyism with a Scottish accent is no more acceptable than the public school/Oxbridge variety…it exhibits…
Clear water on Brexit from Corbyn…
‘Corbyn’s speech is most important for its opening up a clear policy divide – 20 months after the Brexit vote – between Labour and Tories. That should make for an opposition starting to hold the…
The case for an independent review of the BTP merger
“It (review of timetable for BTP merger) needs to be independent, transparent and at arm’s length from government. Oversight by a board that is co-chaired by senior civil servants and reports to Scottish Ministers doesn’t…
Police Scotland: a government intervention too far
‘As 2018 begins, policing in Scotland is in crisis: no chief constable, a justice minister facing political and legal challenges over his behaviour and a national police authority forced to re-establish its reputation and define…