Scottish Labour's leaders cannot keep blaming Westminster for the collapse at the ballot box, says VINCE MILLS
ATTEMPTING to neutralise dissidents by accusing them of serious crimes is a trick governments never get tired of.
Older readers will remember (though they may wonder if they dreamed such a bizarre episode) the time that Peter Hain was tried at the Old Bailey for robbing a bank. Now a respectable Labour peer, but then a radical Young Liberal and leading anti-apartheid campaigner, Hain was framed in 1976 by agents working for the South African government with the approval of the British secret police. He was only acquitted on a majority verdict. Even during a period of strange political trials, that one was sufficiently farcical to stand out.
At least the crime Hain was falsely accused of actually occurred. Unlike The Pop-Gun Plot...
MAT COWARD tells the story of the eccentric founder of a short-lived but striking experiment in ‘vital democracy,’ who became best known for giving away his estate to the nation
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
‘Honest’ Tom Wharton’s 1682 drunken rampage through St Mary’s church haunted his political career, but his satirical song Lillibullero helped topple Catholic James II during the Glorious Revolution, writes MAT COWARD
MAT COWARD tells the extraordinary story of the second world war Spitfire pilot who became Britain’s most famous Stalag escaper, was awarded an MBE, mentored a generation of radio writers and co-founded a hardline Marxist-Leninist party



