E-petitions, useless pish

In a move with potentially hilarious consequences, the government is moving ahead with plans to turn the most popular online petitions into parliamentary bills. The most popular petition on the government’s website, or those that reach around 100,000 signatures, will be introduced as private member’s bills to be debated in parliament, and possibly passed into [...]

Posted by Liam M on December 30th, 2010 | 4 Comments Posted in Uncategorized

If the SNP can't even try and get a referendum, then what use are they?

Yesterday brought news that surprised nobody in Scotland: despite what they promised when they were elected three years ago, the SNP aren’t going to be able to give us a say on independence this year. After decades of arguing for independence, the SNP finally got their shot at power for the first time in 2007. [...]

Posted by Jack on September 7th, 2010 | 8 Comments Posted in Uncategorized

Hollow victory for Thailand's unelected government

Since we last reported on Thailand, the unelected Thai government has completed its brutal crackdown on the protest camp in the heart of Bangkok’s business and shopping district. Showing that they valued the property of the area, and their own power, more than human life, the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajjiva ordered troops to [...]

Posted by Jack on May 27th, 2010 | No Comments Posted in Uncategorized

Thailand: Is compromise slipping through the government's fingers?

Protest camps in the Thai capital Bangkok are under a full scale siege by the army, as the unelected government has declared that the pro-democracy demonstrators must disperse today or face the cutting off of food and water supplies. As Leftfield has extensively reported, there’s been a standoff on the streets between the forces of [...]

Posted by Jack on May 12th, 2010 | 1 Comment Posted in Uncategorized

Protesting the election chaos

In all the confusion about who had won, something that is easily forgotten was that one of the biggest stories of last Thursday’s election was the hundreds of people turned away from busy polling stations, unable to excercise their right to vote. You might remember from the live coverage we gave in our liveblog that [...]

Posted by Jack on May 10th, 2010 | 4 Comments Posted in Uncategorized

Scotland in Britain will never get the government it votes for

Here, you can see two maps of the election. To the left is a map of all the seats and who has taken them. To the right, those same constituencies are all shrunk to the same size, so that you can see where how much of a proportion of the total UK vote the population [...]

Posted by Jack on May 7th, 2010 | 1 Comment Posted in Uncategorized

The neoliberal parties have no answer on poverty and inequality

This evening I was at a ‘question time’  hustings at Aberdeen College, with an audience of around 100 social science students and staff, as well as student representatives from Aberdeen’s universities and the NUS. It was only the second event of that kind that I had ever done, and it was the first time I [...]

Posted by CelticEwan on April 30th, 2010 | 3 Comments Posted in Uncategorized

Thailand update: Return of the Yellow Shirts

As Leftfield has already reported, the centre of the Thai capital Bangkok has been locked down for weeks now, as hundreds of thousands of Thais, mostly from the rural and urban poor, have camped out in mass protests. The Red Shirts, as they are known, demand the immediate dissolution of parliament, and fresh elections. The [...]

Posted by Jack on April 30th, 2010 | 1 Comment Posted in Uncategorized

More bobbies on the beat, not stuck behind a podium making political speeches

SSY today condemned the growing burden that interfering in politics is having on police officers. This follows the latest attempt of a top cop to influence government policy. Les Gray is the Chairman of the Scottish Police Federation, and used the organisation’s annual conference as an opportunity to call for a crackdown on the right [...]

Posted by Jack on April 25th, 2010 | 2 Comments Posted in Uncategorized

Stuff your Crown Powers!

As Britain is gearing up for the most important election in decades, it’s also the most closely fought. Successive opinion polls have shown that it is unlikely any party will have an overall majority to govern – that either means working as a minority Government, or one in coalition. This has an obvious disadvantage, that [...]

Posted by Andy Bowden on March 31st, 2010 | 1 Comment Posted in Uncategorized