How the UK government rebranded protest as extremism

James Eastwood and his union colleagues got to their office one Tuesday afternoon to find that someone had broken in. The intruder hadn’t taken personal valuables or expensive equipment: all they had done was pull down the pro-Palestine posters in the window. The break-in didn’t come as a huge shock to Eastwood, co-chair of the […] Source

For a Tory Free Scotland

The phrase a ‘Tory Free Scotland’ has been about for ages. It’s not controversial. Everyone knows what it means. It means to annihilate the Conservative Party at an election. Duh. It’s happened several times in my lifetime. In fact the Tories haven’t been elected here since 1955. We know all this. The phrase – or […] Source

Land Reform Or Another Power Grab?

The Scottish government has introduced a Land Reform Bill to encourage community ownership by granting ministers powers to intervene in the sale of estates of more than 1,000 hectares. Sarah-Jane Laing, the chief executive of Scottish Land and Estates, said the new measures were a destructive “full-on attack” on the property rights of owners and […] Source

Scotland is ‘the loser’ from UK Government’s raid on oil and gas

UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the oil and gas industry were the losers from the last budget. But he didn’t go far enough – he should have admitted that Scotland is the loser. Scotland’s economic future is at stake. Failing to manage the transition from oil and gas to renewables effectively would mean a massive […] Source