Tommy Ball has been involved in progressive politics for over a decade. From Scottish National Party activist to Executive Committee member of the Scottish Socialist Party, he has pounded the streets and tenements of Glasgow and beyond delivering leaflets, speaking at pro-Independence events, and standing – generally unsuccessfully – for election in the Socialist interest. His writing has been featured in newspapers such as The National and periodicals like the Scottish Socialist Voice.

Educated at Portsmouth, which is not called the Sorbonne of the South Coast, he is an uncompromising Socialist. His main interest is in foreign affairs, and he has travelled widely in the former Eastern Bloc, including many of the post-Soviet republics and all of the former Yugoslav republics, where he hopes he has learned much about the right and wrong ways to do Socialism and the wrong way to do independence.

He does not understand why a border on a small island is a bad thing when it means Britain holding onto Scotland, but a good thing when it means Britain holding onto northern Ireland.

He has lived in Ireland, Scotland and England, is a biologist by training and a chemist to trade. He tweets at T_Socialist and blogs – angrily and infrequently – at www.tommyballgovan.blogspot.com.