Who you ask and how you ask matter, as does why you are asking — the history of opinion polls shows they are as much about creating opinions as they are about recording them, writes socialist historian KEITH FLETT
Going back to your roots
April is the time to get planting a crop of scorzonera, says MAT COWARD
Scorzonera
[Steffen Zahn/Creative Commons] 
Scotland has become one of the world’s most foreign-owned economies, and our political elite celebrates these sell-offs as success — we need to ask how supposedly progressive nationalism has enabled corporate capture, writes DR JAMES FOLEY
When the latest round of hysteria reached our town, we successfully organised and stopped it reaching the asylum centre gates as the far right had planned — but we need to have answers for the local residents who joined their demonstration, writes NICK WRIGHT
A ‘new phase’ for Starmerism is fairly similar to the old phase – only worse. ANDREW MURRAY takes a look
Macron is seeking a centrist replacement for the pro-austerity French PM, while the emergence of the grassroots Bloquons Tout movement means for the left there’s a period of struggle ahead – and all to play for, writes BILL GREENSHIELDS
The Met Police arrested a staggering 890 people, many elderly, disabled, and even blind in a single demonstration — all to back up the government’s unhinged campaign against non-violent civil disobedience at the behest of Israel, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE
SCORZONERA belongs to that group of root crops which are listed in almost every seed catalogue, and described in almost every gardening book, but aren’t actually grown all that often in gardens or allotments.
I’m not sure why that is. Scorzonera isn’t difficult, and it’s a versatile vegetable with a pleasant, if not especially strong, flavour.
Perhaps it’s simply that folk have better things to do in the winter than dig long roots out of cold soil and then scrape the frozen mud off them in the kitchen sink.
More from this author
Doomed adolescents, when the missing person is you, classic whodunnit, and an anti-capitalist eco-thriller
MAT COWARD sings the praises of the Giant Winter’s full-depth, earthy and ferrous flavour perfect for rich meals in the dark months
The heroism of the jury who defied prison and starvation conditions secured the absolute right of juries to deliver verdicts based on conscience — a convention which is now under attack, writes MAT COWARD
As apple trees blossom to excess it remains to be seen if an abundance of fruit will follow. MAT COWARD has a few tips to see you through a nervy time
