Shocked and saddened
by the personal animus
of a literary critic
The Cafe 2
Power prices
Why not gay marriage?
We have a tradition
of religious liberalism
Barbara Millar
Real doctors
SR’s remarkable growth as an independent magazine is based largely on word of mouth. Here are examples of our journalism:
* SR played a leading role in the successful campaign to save St Margaret of Scotland Hospice
* SR campaigned for greater transparency in Scottish public life and won a landmark judgement from the Scottish information commissioner which has led to a transformation in the information available about executive salaries and pensions in public bodies
* Having discovered elderly people still living in a near-derelict block of flats in Glasgow, sometimes without a water supply, SR campaigned to have them decently re-housed. With the help of Scotland’s housing minister, Alex Neil, we succeeded
* SR continues to campaign – so far without success – to broaden the range of appointments to national organisations beyond a self-perpetuating elite
Unlike many publications SR doesn’t have an online comment facility – we prefer a more considered approach. The Cafe is our readers’ forum. If you would like to contribute to it, please email islay@scottishreview.net
Scottish Labour needs
to turn to the
Glasgow Girls
Andrew McFadyen
Margaret Curran took to the campaign trail in the Glasgow East by-election saying: ‘If you want a job done properly, ask a busy woman’. Her pithy soundbite alluded to the fact that local councillor George Ryan had been Labour’s first-choice candidate. She only entered the running after he pulled out at the last moment.
Curran went on to lose by 326 votes to the SNP’s John Mason. It was the biggest upset in Scottish politics since Labour’s mauling in Govan 20 years earlier. That defeat could have been the end of her political career, but she got up and threw herself into the task of winning the seat back in the general election. If she were a boxer, rather than a politician, we would say she has heart.
She enlisted everyone from the chancellor Alistair Darling, who visited the constituency at her behest, through to the students who spent hours knocking on doors and delivering leaflets for her. Now, she is one of six MPs from the 2010 intake who have been promoted into the shadow cabinet. After just 18 months in the House of Commons, she has shoved aside more experienced, if duller, male colleagues.
Until May, I was part of her backroom team in the Scottish Parliament. It is fair to say she could be a demanding person to work for. She fizzes with energy. Just now her drive and commitment are exactly what Scottish Labour needs. But it won’t be enough in itself. Breathing some life back into the party after last May’s crushing defeat by the SNP is going to be a huge task. A glance at her own constituency helps explain why. Shettleston and Garthamlock were once dotted with coalmines and the industry employed one-in-10 of the male working population. At its peak, Parkhead Forge also provided jobs for 20,000 skilled men. Now, United Biscuits is the largest employer in the constituency with just 800 staff and the official unemployment rate is more than twice the national average.
One of the consequences of deindustrialisation is that trade unions have lost tens of thousands of members and no longer play such a central role in the social life of our communities. In many parts of Scotland, local Labour Party branches have gone the same way as the pits and the steel works. Just a handful of elderly members remain.
Scottish Labour now faces the task of rebuilding with fewer members,
fewer local councillors and, incidentally, fewer professional campaign
staff. The only solution is to start again.
Andrew McFadyen has a PhD in political science from Edinburgh University. He is a freelance journalist and a former adviser to the Scottish Labour Party
