2025.4 – Reflections on #ScotLab25
My reflections on Scottish Labour Conference 2025; the question being asked of us ahead of 2026, and whether we are offering a clear enough answer. Continue reading 2025.4 – Reflections on #ScotLab25
Category: Labour Party
What’s Soft and Yellow?
What’s the difference between a block of butter and the SNP voter base?
While both are soft and yellow – I don’t like my butter thinly spread. [Sorry, Ed.] Continue reading What’s Soft and Yellow?
#MakeItMurray in Glasgow
If you’re a Scottish Labour member in Scotland, you will be very acutely aware you have just over 12 hours left to make you choice for the Regional List Selections for the upcoming Scottish Parliament Elections. I think that this, more than the Scottish Leadership Election, is the vote that will mould the party and decide whether over the course of he next Parliament we … Continue reading #MakeItMurray in Glasgow
THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF POLITICS, HUH? (PART 2)
It’s been a long weekend in Scottish Politics – so much so, I’ve had to split up my thoughts over 2 posts. Part 1 looking at the Green Party, and the SNP’s impending Civil War is available here. Here, I look at how Labour and the Tories face a similar problem in Scotland – but have taken 2 different paths to find the answer. The … Continue reading THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF POLITICS, HUH? (PART 2)
Of Landlords and lawLords
…or why Human Rights are always Human Rights. It is often said that it is in times of crisis that we show our true selves. The selfish care for themselves first, while the caring going about looking after the most vulnerable. During the lock-down period, we’ve seen that, both in our local communities and at the national scale. Take the Scottish and UK governments, for … Continue reading Of Landlords and lawLords
Rebuilding Labour
After the devastating 2019 General Election result both in Scotland and across the UK, what does this tell us about 2017 and 2019, what challenges must Labour face, and how should it approach them in the future? Continue reading Rebuilding Labour
The week that was…
…or what seems like the end of the beginning of the end of Scottish Labour. It seems that whenever there is news coverage of the Scottish Labour Party it is always negative. Some would be inclined to blame this on media-bias or an anti-Corbyn-agenda (the focus on Corbyn, perhaps, being part of the problem), but when you see what we give them…I don’t think there’s … Continue reading The week that was…
Up to the Nines
The European Elections were a disaster for Labour in the UK – and more so in Scotland. What are the reasons, and what do I think need to happen?
Continue reading Up to the Nines
On 10 years’ Membership…
…this piece was originally posted on LabourHame on 8th September 2018. I am a child of the Labour Party. My Mum was CLP Secretary and my Dad was CLP Chair, and they spent their honeymoon leafleting for Donald Dewar in Glasgow Garscadden. So I suppose it was inevitable that politics would be in my blood. But it was my decision, not theirs, when I joined the … Continue reading On 10 years’ Membership…
Labour and Anti-Semitism…
…or why it’s still worth fighting for Labour
Now is not a great time to be a Labour Party member. Yes, we are ahead in the polls – though nowhere near as ahead as we should be given this shambolic government – but it is still a difficult time to be a Labour Member.
The Party now is markedly different from the party I joined almost 10 years ago (my 10th Anniversary is 8th September 2018). That Party was committed to fighting all forms of inequality and discrimination, of whatever kind, where it existed, as fully and as forcefully as it could. Recently that difference has shown itself clearly in the Anti-Semitism row, and the NEC’s decision not to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Association (IHRA’s) Working Definition and Examples of Anti-Semitism in full.
Paul Cruikshank 