This article was written for Perspectives magazine, and published on CommonSpace My friend emails me. Niki is a head teacher on an idyllic island not too far out from Athens into the Agean. She asks me for news of Scotland…
Author: PeterMcColl
David MacLennan Portrait
Democratic Left Scotland hosted the unveiling of a portrait of David MacLennan, the actor, writer and producer who was at the heart of Scottish theatre for over 40 years until his death in June 2014 at the age of 65.…
DLS Referendum Statement
Here is a message from Stuart Fairweather: “Tomorrow 97% of people over the age of 16 living in Scotland have the right to vote. We should encourage and support all friends, family, neighbours and workmates to use their vote. Democratic…
Sandy Moffat's portrait of Tom Nairn
In 2012 Democratic Left Scotland commissioned Sandy Moffat to paint a portrait of Scottish political theorist Tom Nairn. It was unveiled at the launch of a collection of his work “Old Nations, Auld Enemies, New Times, Selected Essays” on Monday…
Changing Scotland: "The Counting of Votes is Only the Final Ceremony of a Long Process"
Saturday 29th June 2013, 2pm. Augustine United Church, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh. “The Counting of Votes is Only the Final Ceremony of a Long Process” – Antonio Gramsci We believe that the political situation in Scotland offers a real opportunity…
Hobsbawm’s achievement
by Willie Thompson Eric Hobsbawm, who died at the beginning of October aged 95, was the last representative of the remarkable generation of Marxist historians who comprised the Communist Party Historians’ Group of the late forties and early fifties.…
Depression, Recovery and the Politics of Nations
David Purdy In what follows, I take up three of the issues raised by Stuart Fairweather in his recent posting Two Years of Crisis: What Potential for Change: the prolonged economic depression induced by the financial crash of 2007-8; the current…
The Political Economy of Independence: Perspectives 32
Now available for download here. “We promised in the last issue of Perspectives to “raise the questions and tease out the answers” in the independence referendum debate. Of course, with a projected voting date of autumn 2014, we have…
All that is solid melts into air – DLS AGM 2012
The Democratic Left Scotland AGM will be on the 22nd September 2012 at 2pm in Teviot Row House, Bristo Square Edinburgh. We will be having a discussion about how we do politics in a world beset by global economic crisis, in which democratic…
Alan Riach On Scottish Literature: An Open Canon – Perspectives Issue 34, Autumn, 2012
by Davie Laing Regular readers of Perspectives will have noted our reports on aspects of Scottish schools’ educational curriculum in recent years. Larry Cheyne drew our attention to the reform of the Higher History syllabus to require the teaching and…