Seven Days
Stuck in the middle with you
IHAD the privilege of living and studying in America in the mid-1990s. I lived in states at either corner of the country, the “Green Mountain State” of Vermont, home to Bernie Sanders, Murray Bookchin and Ben & Jerry’s, and San Diego, California, which...
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Independent choices
AS is well known, Reform UK are on course to gain significant representation at Holyrood on May 7 this year. Current polling suggests this could range from anything between 14 and 22 seats, making Reform the second or third biggest party. If the...
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Govan 1973: The first act
GOVAN is situated on the Southside of Glasgow. Historically, it was an early Christian settlement and later became renowned for its industry, shipbuilding and radicalism – from rent strikes in the First World War to the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders’ (UCS)...
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The year in review
HERE we are: 2025, a quarter into the 21st century. Even the work of remembering, reflecting, or reviewing feels like an odd thing to do. Not subversive but somehow meaningful in a world where the torrent of crisis, “news”, violence, and corruption...
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ALIVE AND KICKING
WHEN the 2026 TRNSMT line-up was announced, social media was awash with the now annual outrage at how one of Scotland’s biggest music festivals still continues to devalue women and non-binary artists. “I almost want to applaud their commitment to the...
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Enoughis enough
I’VE been wary of technology for as long as I can remember. Think Will Smith in iRobot, but without the street cred or muscles (or A-lister salary). I fought getting a smart speaker until I could no longer find radios in shops, and if my old Nokia...
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A bold step forward
IT was just over a week ago that Scotland experienced a collective feel-good moment after the Scottish men’s football team qualified for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. In the aermath, commentators addressed how Scotland as a nation oscillates between the...
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Stop making sense
THERE’S a persistent idea about Scotland that gets put forward, which is about our inherent disunity. Scotland, the argument goes, is fundamentally fragmented. We are split between Lowlands and Highlands, between the urban and rural, between the east...
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Hitting theheights
AFTER a 13-hour flight to Tokyo, of course the first thing any sane person would do is take a trip up the tallest tower in Japan. “The next stop is Tokyo Skytree Station,” the English-speaking tannoy announces to the packed train carriage. Tokyo’s...
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Ruth Wishart
new oil and gas developments and the current UK Government’s increase of an “ill-considered approach” to the windfall tax and refusal to license any new production and exploration in the North Sea. ‘APART from the practical impact of both Governments’...
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Scotland the and Green surge
ZACK Polanski’s recent election as leader of the Greens in England and Wales was a major moment in UK politics. It has acted as a lightning bolt, offering hope to many who want to see the existing Westminster consensus and rightward drift of UK...
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In bed with Andrew O’Hagan
SOMEWHERE in London, Andrew O’Hagan is tucked in under a duvet, bed-bound with a nasty virus. “I came back from Gothenburg with a virus. It’s not Covid, though, I’ve just discovered,” he says, holding up a negative test to the screen. “It’s actually...
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BODEGA NIGHTS
IT’S a damp Glasgow evening and Lizzie Reid is back home a er a summer spent on the road. For most of the season, the singer-songwriter has been hard at work as a session musician, supporting other artists out on tour. “For the first time ever, it kind...
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David Pratt
at home. That’s when people told me: ‘You should open this up, sell a few tickets, build a community.’ And that’s how the monthly Night Cap Club, free of charge to attend, started. I wanted it to be accessible.” A Childhood Palate LAU’S own journey...
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How to defeat the far right
THE myth of British exceptionalism has collapsed in relation to the far right and fascism. There has been, for too long, a belief that Britain was somehow exempt from such politics and that its institutions and culture were immune. The Scottish version...
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A cultural discovery?
MICHAEL Marra said in an interview once: “For any artist, Dundee is just the perfect place to look at the rest of the world. Charles Mingus had a book called Beneath The Underdog. I always thought they should put that under Dundee on the sign outside...
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A house of wonders
ON Tuesday evening, with the first preview performance of the new drama Small Acts Of Love, a little bit of Scottish theatre history will be made. Glasgow’s great repertory playhouse, the Citizens Theatre, will open its doors to its first audience in...
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The breaking of Britain
BRITAIN is in crisis. Doom and gloom are everywhere. The right sees this as an existential mess where everything they detest can be torn down. Meanwhile, what passes for the centre-left shifts ever rightward to appease the increasingly emboldened...
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THE FOG OF WAR
IT’S a journalist’s nature to want to be in the right place, at the right time. O en, this is a question of luck, or of simply putting the work in until a story comes along. But after around 10 years in journalism in Israel and Palestine – first in...
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Stop the world, Scotland wants to get o
SCOTLAND is the nation that invented everything, except itself. No, we are at an interregnum, an idea from Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks in which “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this...
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Guardian angels
AS we drive through liberated Ukrainian villages and reach Budy, I spot walls pockmarked with shrapnel scars and shot holes. A message scratched onto a gate in Ukrainian pleads “Children here”, a relic from when soldiers held the line against the...
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The Invisible Man
AH, William Wallace. The name rolls o the tongue, doesn’t it? Once again, Scotland’s iconic folk hero is set to hit the headlines as the anniversary of his brutal execution approaches. In any case, there is no danger of Scotland forgetting her tragic...
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Festival of the oppressed
AS artists and audiences prepare for the tremendous carnival of culture that is Edinburgh in August, it is worth considering the significance of the world’s biggest showcase for the arts. The Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), the Edinburgh...
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Possible futures
LAST week saw John Swinney lay out his “renewed strategy for independence” with a three-point plan about how to move things forward. It was, perhaps inevitably, met with a mixture of derision, glee and (some) positivity. Let’s unpack what he said and...
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No stone unturned
TO some, Fife is that place you travel through just beyond the Forth Rail Bridge or the Queensferry Crossing. It’s the county that sits north of Edinburgh and south of Perth, surrounded by the North Sea and the Firth of Forth. Others may know it for...
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The rocks remain
IT’S the first Saturday of the Scottish school holidays and I’m still a wee bit bleary-eyed a er an early morning train down to Troon to take the replacement ferry across to Arran. The temporary port-a-cabin grandly named “Ferry Terminal” is a packed...
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An open future
HOW we perceive the future is central to how we organise society, government, democracy and power. Thinking about the future has always been part of being human, since we first began organising and living in complex civilisations and cultures. However,...
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Weaponising morality
THE idea that Palestine Action – people taking non-violent direct action against the weapons of genocide – should be proscribed as a “terrorist group” is a pitiful indictment of our current government’s complicity in atrocities in Gaza and of the...
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Telling our story
IN 1921, on the eve of publication of Ulysses, James Joyce declared that “all great writers were national first and it was the intensity of their nationalism that made them international in the end”. The text of Ulysses redefined Irish national...
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Top of the league
FOOTBALL has long been called The Beautiful Game, not only for the magic on the pitch but also because of its unique ability to bring people, from all walks of life, and their communities together. In recent years, that unity has developed into...
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High-water mark?
ASCOTTISH “cruise tax” could soon be calling into ports from Orkney to Greenock. With new powers proposed for local authorities to charge visitor levies, what might a tax look like, and what might it achieve? Summer in the isles is cruise season. You...
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Scotland on show
FOUR new Scottish films are part of this year’s showcase at arguably the most renowned film festival in the world. The invitation-only FIAPFaccredited event takes place on the French Riviera at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès, exhibiting the...
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Free Palestine!
ON October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet saying: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable,...
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Charting protest pop
THE 1980s was a period of profound popularity for political pop. Now, 40 years later, it’s what we desperately need again with a Labour, not Tory, government applying an austerity agenda and Trump’s state-terrorism taking a terrible toll. This is...
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Art for the nation
‘ITRY to get abroad every year,” said Scottish architect Sir Alan Reiach in The Scotsman on April 14 1956, “just to see what is being done, and to get angry about how little is being done here.” He was speaking about his plans for a new, three-tiered...
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End of the line
SCOTTISH politics has had some climactic moments recently – the UK Supreme Court decision on women’s and trans rights; the SNP and Labour trying to deal with the challenge of Reform UK and the brief excitement of an opinion poll with a sensational...
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Beyond McCarthyism
THERE’S an ongoing argument I have with a friend whenever I express shock or outrage at the latest spasm of authoritarianism from the United States or from Westminster. She rebukes me for being nostalgic for bygone eras, which she reminds me were...
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Soul representative
‘I’VE always liked to make noise,” Brooke Combe says with a smile. She’s speaking to us from her home in Edinburgh during a rare break from tour rehearsals for her recently released debut album Dancing At The Edge Of The World. “I got a drum kit when I...
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Forget everything …
GENRES of music have always ebbed and flowed in popularity, often dictated by specific moments in pop culture, individuals breaking through into the mainstream or even as a result of whole political movements. In recent years, there has been extensive...
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What’s the ofLabour point
THIS Labour Government faces tough choices. Constrained domestically and internationally, they are hampered by the structural weaknesses of the UK economy; the legacy of 14 Tory years; by Brexit and Trump, and the limits of Keir Starmer and Rachel...
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Sturgeon’s legacy
NICOLA Sturgeon’s announcement that she was standing down next year came as a surprise to no-one. She, like a great many of her colleagues and peers, is giving up on politics to turn their attention to having a life. And, who could blame her? Well, it...
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Bucking the trend
THE empty cliffs of St Kilda are a monument in black basalt. They’re as dramatic a landmark for boat trippers as they are a reminder of lost island communities. Croft houses abandoned for a less precarious existence, anywhere else. The empty, stone...
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Where did all the young people go?
LOCHABER no more. Sutherland no more. Young Scots heading abroad to find their fortune – or, at least, more fortune than at home – is a recurring theme. The fact Scotland is again experiencing a youth exodus might come as news to few. The population of...
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RADICAL POLITICS
TO be blunt, the 1970s have a bit of a bad name, usually being remembered for flares and loping lapels, the banality of mainstream music (prog rock, glam rock and disco), the rise of men with mullets, feather cuts and permed hair as well as beige,...
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The age of disruption
THE world is living through unparalleled times. The post-war international order created by and for the USA is being unilaterally ripped up and trashed by the USA. In so doing, it is establishing a new world order which looks less like the 1930s and...
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Phantom change
IAM listening to Frances Barber talk about her role in the new play When Maggie Met Larry, about the time when a younger Margaret Thatcher met Laurence Olivier to help her with speech training. Can we already detect the class cringe of the aspirational...
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Twisted web
TAKE a walk in the Dean Cemetery on the west side of Edinburgh and you will find a memorial that is emblazoned with the distinctive battle flag of the Confederacy during the US Civil War of 1861-65. The monument is dedicated to Edinburgh-born Robert A...
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There’s no time to chill...
THE global climate is kind of screwed and climate change is the single biggest threat to Scotland’s habitats – so perhaps now is not the time for Scotland to be so chill. Since 1994, we’ve lost 15% of our nature; if I’d lost 15% of my children, I’d be...
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Malign meddling
‘AMERICA’S backyard” is a concept that has always sat uneasily in the minds of many. For countless people in Central and Latin America – the vast region to which it rather disparagingly refers – the phrase epitomises the perennially uneven and...
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No peace without liberation
THE tentative ceasefire agreement, currently, at the time of writing being “ratified” by the Israeli cabinet, is a fragile thing, with hope for hundreds of thousands of people – and millions of displaced Palestinians – hanging in the balance. Though...
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The future of Alba
YOU would think that the Alba Party had an awful lot of things going for them – the SNP’s palpable failure to advance the cause of the campaign for independence since the 2014 referendum; the Stalinesque grip of the leadership on the SNP; the SNP’s...
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The Hungary games
WHEN MCC Brussels – a soft power outpost of right-wing Hungarian president Viktor Orbán’s privately run “pet” University, Mathias Corvinus Collegium – launched in November 2022, its aims were clear. From farming to migration and from “family values” to...
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The age of disruption
POLITICS everywhere across the West is shaped by failure, exhaustion and unpopularity in the mainstream – and increasingly by anger and rage among voters. Both Scotland and the UK are no exception. Labour’s election victory with 34% of the vote was the...
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TIME FOR A REPUBLIC
JUST when you think nothing will ever change, and the dark nights and the short days of midwinter encourage you to despair, a glimmer of light beckons. Winter is here. Spring is coming. A poll by Norstat, (formerly Panelbase) asked this week: If...
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Fight The over farmed salmon
IT’S an unseasonably warm November evening and at a packed public meeting in Ullapool a Norwegian multinational is being quizzed over its plans for a fish farm. Hosting the discussion is Ben Hadfield – chief operating officer of Mowi Scotland – who is...
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For peat’s sake …
PEAT is an endangered resource. Formed from decomposed vegetation around 12,000 years ago, it grows at a mere millimetre per year. It can take up to 1000 years for one metre of peat to form. When it’s gone, it’s gone. Peatlands are primarily found in...
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Theatre’s festive fare
THE festive season is upon us and, for most playhouses in Scotland, the sound of sleigh bells ushers in the busiest period in the theatre calendar. From Ayr to Aberdeen, Paisley to Perth, the nation’s theatres are preparing to welcome audiences of all...
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The battle for our future
WE are nearly five months into this Labour Government – elected after 14 years of Tory government mired in scandal, division and failure which the public were desperate to see the back of. Why then does it already feel as if this Government is running...
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The death of reason
THE collection of people Donald Trump has been appointing to his new administration is extraordinary. It’s worth resisting their normalisation and sanewashing and let them go by without comment. To the surprise of nobody they are a toxic mix of white...
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Practical hope ...
IN the late 1980s, Stuart Murdoch was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), known as chronic fatigue syndrome. It was a dicult period in his life which now “feels like a movie” – one the frontman of Belle and Sebastian decided to revisit...
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Like a prayer
ABOUT a week ago, I gatecrashed a Maga fundraising dinner in downtown Milwaukee. The event, held in the opulent art deco ballroom of the city’s Hilton hotel, opened with a prayer. Reverend Dr Karl Fabrizius, an evangelical pastor from nearby...
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How to defeat fascism
TWENTY-FIVE years ago, at the height of Blair, Bill Clinton and “The Third Way”, many felt that the future direction and progress of the world was safe and secure. Widespread optimism and belief in globalisation and economic freedom leading to...
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& Truth, humanity genocide
‘PEOPLE ask how I’m doing. I laugh at the chasm of the question. How is anyone doing? Climate catastrophes, genocide, the election from hell.” So answers Sarah Kendzior, one of the most astute writers on the American crisis. While it’s mesmerising to...
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Ruth Wishart
over the most catastrophic government in British democratic history. According to YouGov, Starmer has a net rating of -36; according to Ipsos, his net ratings are almost the same as Jeremy Corbyn on the eve of Labour’s 2019 disaster. Corbyn had been...
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Fuel thoughtfor
HYDROGEN is a huge part of Scotland’s plans to reach net zero by 2045. The Scottish Government aims to have a hydrogen production capacity of five gigawatts (GW) by 2030 – that’s equivalent to 15% of the nation’s energy demand. By 2045, the hope is to...
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