Guest post: the death agony of Scottish Unionism
This is a guest post by Eddie Truman, an Edinburgh-based activist in the Scottish Socialist Party. THE news, when it came, was scarcely believable; ‘Scottish Conservative Party set to disband’, said the Telegraph. A sensationalist headline perhaps – things are a little more complex than that – but with the Telegraph’s Scottish editor Alan Cochrane’s [...]
George Galloway, Tommy Sheridan: don’t fancy yours much
GEORGE Galloway may be the most famous politician in a party called Respect. But ironically, this is not a commodity that is much on offer to sexually liberated women who sleep with his mates. Thus the former MP is 100% certain that the former MSP could not have visited a swingers’ club in Manchester in [...]
The fall of Tommy Sheridan
THAT Tommy Sheridan was the most charismatic and gifted revolutionary socialist politician of recent decades is beyond serious dispute, and I always used to admire him for that. I still do, I suppose. In a period where the left failed to find a widespread hearing, he alone proved capable of building a substantial electoral base for basic [...]
Labour holds Glasgow North East
LABOUR has held Glasgow North East, quite handsomely in percentage terms, even though the turnout fell to a record low for a Scottish by-election. Full results here. Thankfully, the British National Party did not retain its deposit, although it came close. Even so, the fascists narrowly out-polled the combined far left tally, which was split [...]
Glasgow North East: multiple pile-up in No Mean City
NOW that the Gorbals has been demolished, No Mean City clearly needs a successor, and Glasgow North East fits the bill just nicely. This place is poor; in your face, 40% below the poverty line, smack addicts congregating in the shopping centre, poor. Things have pretty much always been that way, of course. One hundred [...]
The class politics of free school meals
A political opponent of the Scottish Socialist Party once quipped: ‘Elect six Trotskyites to the Scottish parliament, and the most radical thing they can come up with is a demand for free school meals’. That jibe was delivered from the right, as it happens. But it’s exactly the sort of sneering remark one can readily [...]
Tommy Sheridan: perjury inquiry
I’m now back in London following my long weekend in Edinburgh, where more than a little booze was knocked back with the Scottish comrades. Inevitably the pub talk centred on the local political situation, especially this story in the Sunday Herald: STAFF IN the sex club at the centre of the Tommy Sheridan defamation trial [...]
What Tommy Sheridan did next
Now that Tommy Sheridan has lost his seat in the Scottish parliament, he’s going to spend more time with his family, he tells the Edinburgh Evening News. There’s a first time for everything, I suppose. Meanwhile, there is speculation that Solidarity could merge with Respect. Presumably the Scottish section of the Committee for a Workers’ [...]
National Union of Journalists: in dispute with Sheridan and Byrne
When Tommy Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne quit the Scottish Socialist Party three months ago, they also pulled out of the collective agreement under which the SSP’s caseworkers, researchers and parliamentary assistants are employed. The two Solidarity MSPs also withdrew £48,000 from the pooled account that paid the wages. As a result, the jobs are under [...]
