MACASKILL CALLS FOR POLICE SCOTLAND TO CEASE TRAINING IN SRI LANKA OVER HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES Former Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill MP has called on Police Scotland to cease engagement with its counterparts in Sri Lanka until such times as its government adheres to international human rights. Mr MacAskill has written to Keith Brown MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans calling for… Read more »
Westminster was focused on Afghanistan last week, as the world has been with the tragedy unfolding there. Sadly, despite the Prime Ministers statement there remains little clarity on the three issues that have arisen from the debacle. They are why we went in 20 years ago, how it collapsed so suddenly and most importantly of all, what’s to be done… Read more »
You’d expect a government that fought long and hard for a ground-breaking policy to want to make it work effectively. You’d also expect them to want to maintain progress in an area of social harm, especially one that’s long devilled Scotland and where another social ill of drugs’ are wreaking carnage. But not this Holyrood administration, as recent alcohol death… Read more »
The New American Century was a concept promoted by right wing American hawks. Pursued with venality yet vigour by the likes of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld and having both its summit and its very nadir in Iraq. Now it’s enduring its death throes in Afghanistan, yet who could have imagined it would come so suddenly and in this manner. Global… Read more »
Former Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill MP has written to the Health Secretary Humza Yousaf calling for the Scottish Government to raise Minimum Unit Pricing of alcohol from 50p per unit to 65p per unit following the publication last week of statistics which show that alcohol specific deaths are now at their highest level since 2008. The figures which show alcohol specific… Read more »
The Council’s preparing a poverty plan and they’re right to do so, as many are facing hard times. It’s not coming about because of coronavirus but due to political choices. Matters have been exacerbated by coronavirus, but the trajectory had ongoing for years. The rich have been getting richer and the poor have been suffering. As a 60s child I… Read more »
Neither climate change nor the Miners Strike are laughing matters, yet Boris Johnson with his usual buffoonery crassly sought to make light of them. His comments were also not only hugely disrespectful but historically inaccurate. Margaret Thatcher’s attack upon the mining communities was nothing to do with global warming but everything to do with smashing the trade union movement. The… Read more »
The re-elected SNP administration’s first hundred days are fast approaching, and they’re resembling a Government in power, but with no idea for what purpose. Normally that honeymoon period’s viewed as critical for making your mark and setting political direction. To be fair as incumbents there’s perhaps slightly less need. But given that there’s new faces in office and the country’s… Read more »
The closure of the McVitties factory in East End Glasgow’s an unmitigated disaster for the area. Poverty and unemployment already abound and this worsens it. Decades ago I recall the Golden Wonder site in Broxburn similarly shutting and likewise damaging Broxburn. Jim Sillars and I did a photo call at the closed site, placing Red Roses on the locked gates. … Read more »
As the Afghan horror unfolds before our eyes, I’m minded of Spinoza’s comment that “if you want the present to be different from the past, study the past”. From Alexander the Great, through the British Empire to the Soviet Union, history’s littered with failed military interventions in that forsaken land. Tragically, that wasn’t heeded and it’s poor Afghanis paying the… Read more »