“Relative poverty needs to move down to 18% by 2023-24 to meet this target (and then down to 10% by 2030-31). It goes without saying that there is a long way to go!
young people
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.
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.
A vote revisited
‘The status quo that brought us to Brexit will not get us out of it. While that time has gone, it is clear a new way of talking about the future was sorely needed anyway, even more so two years on. Meanwhile we are presented with an opportunity: in the breaking down of established common sense comes an opportunity to recreate and redefine.’
A leur façon: the French and pop music
‘This further reinforces a sense of opposition to the system, yet while French rap artists address burning social issues, they incorporate French regard for poetry and philosophy to achieve music more lyrical and subtle than that of their American counterparts.’
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 it is to succeed. Even the voices of sad old men.’
Scotland’s ‘addiction to the belt’
‘The fact that young children and adolescents were not only punished for gross disobedience but also minor misdemeanours and errors in schoolwork is, to my mind, unforgivable.’
1968 and the rise of campus radicalism in Scotland
Rory Scothorne explores the emergence of student radicalism in Scotland, arguing that the politicisation of Scottish students during the “1968 era” has left a lasting impression on Scottish politics and culture rather than the prevailing myth about 1968: it didn’t happen here.
Poverty Safari: growing up with ACEs and toxic stress
‘(McGarvey’s) aware that many on the left will see this as a cop out but he’s ready with his reply. Of course, the left must continue to argue and campaign for structural change, he tells us, but no real change can happen unless poor people begin to feel powerful in their own lives.
How business and the media fuel loneliness
‘Given all this why is it that over 9 million adults in the UK say they feel lonely all or most of time? Why has loneliness (often caused by a lack of kindness) come to blight contemporary life for so many people?’