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 anything to learn from places like Scotland?
In Issue 56 we launch a year-long look at other small countries and regions which have similarities to Scotland to explore if there are lessons Scotland can learn – and to try to do something to bridge the political isolation that Scotland suffers in international terms. In this issue we have an analysis of the state of politics in Iceland by party group chairman for the Movement, a member of the Icelandic Parliament, activist and poet Birgitta Jónsdóttir. We also have an overview of left politics in Holland by Tiny Kox, Senator for the Socialist Party in the First Chamber of the Dutch States-General. In each issue of the Scottish Left Review in 2010 we will include at least one similar article from countries around the world. Also Margaret and Jim Cuthbert on how PFI criticisms have turned out to be correct and that mistakes are being repeated by the current Scottish Government; Tom Nairn on the Scottish nation as an expression of trends embracing the whole globe; Daniel Gray on the popular response to his study of Scots volunteers in the Spanish Civil War; Carole Ewart on UN Human Rights Treaties and public expenditure priorities; Jim Phillips examines the devolution campaign and asks What now? It’s time to shake off forty years of establishment manipulation says Andy Anderson. For pdf click here |
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In her email sending us her article on the state of politics in Iceland, Birgitta Jónsdóttir signs off ‘love and rage’. This is a greeting from a country which took to the streets banging pots and pans to demand that the neoliberal government which had crashed the country while enriching its bankers was removed. It is a country where the replacement government were stopped from meekly submitting to the will of Britain, the IMF and the other usual neoliberal bully boys when one in four members of the voting public signed a petition calling for a debt repayment plan to be put to a referendum. The Icelanders then said a resounding ‘no’. |
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A small country with a political elite far too close to a corrupt financial establishment? Birgitta Jónsdóttir's explanation of events in Iceland should be read closely by Scots |
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Tiny Kox argues that a fear of moving away from the neoliberal consensus left Holland with a 'coalition of losers' as a Government and a centre-right consensus that doesn't properly reflect the views of the Dutch |
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In an extensive piece of research, Margaret and Jim Cuthbert discover not only that many of the criticisms of PFI have turned out to be correct but that the mistakes are being repeated by the current Scottish Government |
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Tom Nairn argues that the political return of the Scottish nation is a perfectly comprehensible expression of trends embracing the whole globe ...The faces pass, the individuals, how there can be such difference we do not know but what we do know is that an absolute instinct loves it different, the world, the dialectic, the packed coaches whistling at daybreak through the patched countries.' Edwin Morgan, 'Differences', 1994 |
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Daniel Gray examines the significance of the popular response to the publication of his well-received study of Scots volunteers in the Spanish Civil War |
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UN Human Rights Treaties can be used to establish public expenditure priorities, argues Carol Ewart |
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Jim Phillips shows how demands for control of the Scottish economy drove the devolution campaign. What now? |
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It's time to shake off forty years of establishment manipulation says Andy Anderson |
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The State in Capitalist Society by Ralph Miliband reviewed G Morgan Hamish Henderson: A Biography, Volume Two. Poetry Becomes People (1952- 2002) reviewed Donny O'Rourke |
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"Princes and priests soon saw an enemy in the press. Type was in their opinion the most serious form that lead could take.... The rich classes - otherwise the conspiring classes - shut out as far as they could all knowledge of their doings, alleging that their object was to prevent the dissemination of 'heresy and immorality'". George Jacob Holyoake |
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