Reviewing the Scottish Left

The Scottish Left Review was established in 2000, styles itself ‘a journal of the left in Scotland’ and appears bi-monthly. While published in full online, I find that for those of us increasingly disposed to consult material digitally, unlike the easy page-thumbing of paper and the accidental encounter, it can be easy to overlook sources which don’t give you a prod and announce their presence. For those of us whose browsings are governed by our blog connections, consulting the SLR just got a whole lot easier, the servitors at their end having activated the familiar forms of syndication which knot us all together.

For those of you who haven’t consulted the Review before, here is a taster of issue 56, on which the ink is still wet. For those of you keen on a reflective, leftie approach to Scots politics, this may be of interest. I’d strongly encourage you to add it to your links, to whit, I’ve noted the Atom and RSS references at the foot of the post. In other tittletattle of like sort, I gather that the Scots blogosphere will soon be gaining a clutch of boon, Greenie commentators, a few of their alfalpha males having banded together to form the self-effacingly entitled Bright Green Scotland. I look on with interest.

Whae’s Like Us?

In Issue 56 we launch a year-long look at other small countries and regions which have similarities to Scotland to explore if there are lessons Scotland can learn – and to try to do something to bridge the political isolation that Scotland suffers in international terms. In this issue we have an analysis of the state of politics in Iceland by party group chairman for the Movement, a member of the Icelandic Parliament, activist and poet Birgitta Jónsdóttir. We also have an overview of left politics in Holland by Tiny Kox, Senator for the Socialist Party in the First Chamber of the Dutch States-General.

In each issue of the Scottish Left Review in 2010 we will include at least one similar article from countries around the world.

Also Margaret and Jim Cuthbert on how PFI criticisms have turned out to be correct and that mistakes are being repeated by the current Scottish Government; Tom Nairn on the Scottish nation as an expression of trends embracing the whole globe; Daniel Gray on the popular response to his study of Scots volunteers in the Spanish Civil War; Carole Ewart on UN Human Rights Treaties and public expenditure priorities; Jim Phillips examines the devolution campaign and asks What now? It’s time to shake off forty years of establishment manipulation says Andy Anderson.

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http://www.scottishleftreview.org/li/index.php?option=com_rss&feed=ATOM0.3&no_html=1

http://www.scottishleftreview.org/li/index.php?option=com_rss&feed=RSS2.0&no_html=1