The New Year will be here soon, how about we try to have a little bit of empathy for one another, how about we don’t equate trans people with child abusers, just for one day, or forever, and how about we spread that peace, love and joy we talk so much about at this time […]
Democracy
Starmer’s Austerity Brexit
The new Labourite spin is that their own spectacular failure to oppose the inevitable Tory Hard Brexit deal is that the SNP is supporting a ‘no deal Brexit’. This is an absurdity that ought not to require comment, but given the witting and unwitting stupidity that abounds, here’s what’s really happening: Labour are now supporting […]
Aerosols and Arseholes by Val Waldron
We can’t rely on Boris Johnson to do more than he’s done already for the Indy movement. As we approach the Winter Solstice, and find ourselves blessed with some of the magical cold frosty days, we finally get to see the breath of some of the hard-of-understanding-about-distancing, who gasp past you on the crowded city […]
Election 2020: The Storm Before The Storm
2020: The (second) Year Without A Summer Seattle University student AJ sat in her apartment on Seattle’s Broadway stretch on the evening of June 6th. She had heard coverage of protests heating up in the area, but as a counselling student, her studies had to take center stage that day. Sharp noises rose in the […]
Hubble Bubble…..
“If you can imagine a debate raging in a bubble, well there are a few of those fragile things floating around back and forth over the border. List parties, George Galloway, English Nationalism, raving mad back-benchers with a penchant for Covid scepticism, the Withdrawal Act and other hideously cataclysmic Brexit related futures to name but […]
This Is Not Over
There’s another layer above the real and fantasised darkness, and it’s a good one. It involves people working away at the grass roots with and for their community. BBC Radio Scotland’s Kaye Adams lives in a world where it’s fine to introduce her “Rule of 6” call-in with the comment “I know dozens of people […]
Reinstate Richie Venton
I just woke up this morning to this article. My friend Richie Venton, a superb union representative for the union USDAW, and IKEA worker, has been sacked. During lockdown, I phoned Richie about an issue a family member was going through in her work. He didn’t have to give me advice – Richie was representing […]
Within Our Grasp – a response…
Common Weal has published a lengthy document called “Within Our Grasp”, about Independence for Scotland. Although published by them, this document states it isn’t necessarily the policy of Common Weal – but it’s written by the Director of Common Weal, Robin McAlpine! I once had a bit of a debate with both his faither, Tom […]
How to Perpetuate Social Inequalities – An SQA and Scottish Government Guide
Today, learners who studied S.Q.A. National 5, Higher, and Advanced Higher courses during the 2019/2020 academic session received their grades. Yet, for the first time, these results are not down to how students performed in a final one-off exam (itself already a problematic approach), rather gradings are the result of predictions by teachers in high […]
John Hume – Man of Peace.
Rest in peace, as your life was for, and gifted us peace, John Hume. Ungagged are reproducing this extraordinary speech by John Hume as a lesson in how to appeal to politics, and to how to adhere to the principle of non-violence in the face of hate and vicious division. Hume made this speech after […]