Left voices, unfiltered, unedited, Ungagged.
It was January 2020 and I had travelled from China back to Scotland to spend a couple of weeks with my family. I’m a teacher so my time off coincides with Chinese festivals rather than Western holidays. We were having a belated Christmas and New Year, as has become normal for us in recent years. […]
The news that an unknown virus which caused breathing and respiratory problems was spreading rapidly in Wuhan at the end of last year caused little alarm at first, and people could be forgiven for paying it no attention. The other news stories of January and February 2020 included the assassination of one of Iran’s leading generals by the US and the horrific Australian bush fires. In the UK, Labour had suffered its worst […]
A look at the Citizens’ Assembly of Scotland provides us with the hope and the proof that Scotland desires change, and that we can and must come out of this crisis with a decisive move to the economic left. Over the past few weeks we have seen the very worst and the very best of […]
Here in China, COVID-19 has changed the conversation about journalism. We need a similar shift in attitudes back in the UK. #BuildBackBetter In December, several hospitals in Wuhan began receiving patients with pneumonia of an unknown etiology. From Decemebr 27th to 30th it was becoming clear that a mystery virus was circulating in the city. […]
Available FREE on iTunes and Podbean Or Stream via our player, here: In this episode Neil Scott talks about his fears during the Northern Irish Troubles, Nathália Urban reviews an extraordinary book by The SNP founder on Brazil, Debra Torrance dares not mention Coronavirus and Richie Venton talks about the recent decision (overturned) by Glasgow City Council […]
When Narendra Modi’s BJP came out of last year’s Indian general election with an even larger parliamentary majority after 5 years of incumbency (despite the economic shambles of demonetisation, failed tax reforms and continuing high unemployment), he looked unconquerable. The opposition was shattered, and he had a full mandate to reshape the country from its […]
Amsterdam. October 2018 Gert hobbled the short distance from his large mahogany desk to the door of his workshop, the familiar sound […]
India: the world’s largest democracy. A nuclear-armed power that harbors the oldest language still in active use in the world today. An anachronistic country struggling to walk a tightrope between its history and its dreams. The subcontinent has long captured the imaginations and fetishes of spiritually-inclined white folks in North America and Europe, and not […]
Opposition to Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom has existed, in one for, or another, since its founding in 1707, often with anti-imperialist sentiment at its heart. The SNP were founded to campaign against it in 1934 and grew with the collapse of empire in the 1950s, and 60s, but only in the 1970s did […]
OK…. I’m up for predictions. Predictions in the short term, and regarding the UK and Scotland first. One, more or all of the upcoming predictions may end up wrong, but regardless of that, there will be no revolution in the UK. Power will still remain with corporations and the land owning class who by way […]