Once again Tower Hamlets is being targeted by anti-Islam campaigners, this time a revamped and radicalised version of Ukip — the far-right event is now banned by the police, but we’ll be assembling this Saturday to make sure they stay away, says JAYDEE SEAFORTH
Alex Salmond: a transformative but limited political legacy
JOHN FOSTER examines how the late SNP leader shifted the party leftwards and upwards, bringing Scottish independence to the forefront while fundamentally failing to address deeper issues of class and corporate capture
Alex Salmond speaks at the SNP conference in Glasgow, October 14, 2016
URI WELTMANN reports on a day in the life of peace activists from Israel, travelling to help Palestinians in the West Bank harvest their olives under threat from settlers and soldiers
The independent TD’s campaign has put important issues like Irish reunification and military neutrality at the heart of the political conversation, argues SEAN MacBRADAIGH
Italian unions are mobilising against rearmament and for wages and investment – but left blunders still leave the ‘post-fascist’ Italian PM looking likely to keep her job, says NICK WRIGHT
New research into mutations in sperm helps us better understand why they occur, while debunking a few myths in the process, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
CAROL WILCOX argues for the proper implementation of the land value tax, which could see unused plots sold off and landlords priced out of landlordism, potentially resolving the housing and planning crises
DURING his two periods as SNP leader, from 1990 to 2000 and from 2004 to 2014, Alex Salmond transformed Scottish and, thereby, British politics. In doing so, he helped ensure that Britain’s character as a multinational state could no longer be ignored.
What led to this transformation? Salmond was a forceful and charismatic speaker. He could read his audiences — whether trade unionists or bankers. But it was his politics that were key. They transformed the SNP.
In the 1930s, the SNP had been a right-wing, and sometimes very right-wing, party representing a mixture of romantics, eccentric aristocrats and minority elements within what used to be called the petty bourgeoisie — but it was squeezed to virtual non-existence between a dominant Unionist Party, that harvested a significant Orange vote, and a challenging and relatively radical Labour Party.
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VINCE MILLS looks at how UK Labour’s backpedalling on policy has left Scottish Labour with nothing to offer its own electorate
As polls show Scottish Labour’s support crumbling and Reform rising even among independence supporters, an urgent need emerges for an alternative based on public investment paid for by radical progressive taxation, argues VINCE MILLS
