The attacks on black academics are well-funded and relentless, writes DIANE ABBOTT, and they need to be fearlessly resisted by all concerned
Novelist’s anti-Corbyn outburst speaks volumes
Jeremy Corbyn at a photocall after delivering the Alternative MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival
Extreme hot weather resulting from environmental change needs to be tackled through greater firefighting investment instead of fewer jobs and less resources, writes COLIN BROWN
There are many intricate details about the new Saudi, Turkish and Pakistani alliance we do not yet know, suggests ROGER McKENZIE, but its impact could be considerable
Holyrood incompetence has cost jobs and put the future of Clydeside’s Ferguson Marine shipyard into jeopardy. Its future should have been assured, argues KENNY MACASKILL
Hot and dry conditions are threatening British species unequipped for drought, explains PAUL ASHTON
The Baltic state is set to reverse its constitutional prohibition on nuclear weapons and foreign bases as part of accelerated Nato war preparations, warns TOM UNTERRAINER
BLASTS from the past are unexpected by definition. But when I discovered the young adult novelist William Sutcliffe had been in the Edinburgh International Book Festival tent alongside me to hear from Jeremy Corbyn and Yanis Varoufakis this week, I was still taken aback.
Sutcliffe’s book Bad Influence was foisted upon us in my third year of secondary school. It’s the tale of Ben and Olly, two innocent middle-class kids whose world is turned upside-down by the arrival of an older boy, Carl — who goes to, or bunks off from, “the unit” rather than normal school and whose mum has nothing in her kitchen cupboards.
It was not exactly a great work of literature, but it did deliver a few thrills, including a vicious card game called “knuckles” and our hapless English teacher, an ex-BBC man, having to say the S-word while reading to the class.
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