| The Scottish Labour Left |
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 Since their election last July, Scottish Labour’s 37 MPs have struggled to distinguish themselves from their southern colleagues. With the notable exception of Brian Leishman — whose ongoing struggle to save the Grangemouth oil refinery has won plaudits from across the political spectrum — the group has fallen into line behind Keir Starmer. Consistent opinion polls predict that most will lose their seats at the next election. By any measure, they are floundering.
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 LIKE most women activists of my generation, I’ve spent most of my adult life campaigning for equality for women as part of the struggle for social justice for all. There were times I even felt we were making progress.
 THERE IS no escaping it, Neil Findlay’s decision to leave the Labour Party on March 19 was a heavy blow for the Scottish Labour left. As reported in the Morning Star, his resignation letter was a stinging rebuke to the Labour Party leadership, citing the lengthening list of heartless decisions they have made in order advance the interests of corporate capital at the expense of the most vulnerable sections of the working class, with more to come
 The new Govan/Partick Bridge We all think we know what gentrification is. We sense it – it might be the new artisan bakery or an organic coffee shop on the corner – but the reality is the degutting of working-class neighbourhoods. The term was first coined by the urban sociologist Ruth Glass in 1964. She grasped that the movement of bohemian middle-class types was transforming the character of the likes of London’s Notting Hill[i]. The key motor was the displacement of working-class residents by rising housing costs.
 Councillor for Leith, Katrina Faccenda Housing is a UK wide problem but as a Labour Councillor representing Leith in Edinburgh, I am going to draw a lot of my comments from the current situation in my area and Edinburgh. In Edinburgh the New Town was built in the 18/19th centuries so that the wealthy could leave the overcrowded medieval closes. By the middle of the 19th century the life expectancy of New Town residents was twice that of the old town, a stone’s throw from one another, they became an inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
 THE planned cuts to welfare is a defining moment for this government. Keir Starmer has a political choice to make — does he dish up more of the same austerity that the Conservatives inflicted on the most disadvantaged people in our society, or does he do the right thing and look after our most vulnerable citizens?
 Demonstration on Grangemouth at Scottish Labour Conference Despite the double whammy of electoral woes facing Scottish Labour, with the UK Labour Government recently overtaken in the opinion polls by the gutter politics of the Reform party and the news that the Scottish party’s support had halved since the election, somewhat surprisingly, the Scottish Labour Conference was brimming with excitement. Nowhere was this clearer than In Anas Sarwar’s speech on Friday, with his limitless optimism on full display as he declared ‘We will defy the odds again…we will win in 2026,’ to rapturous applause.  IT MUST have felt like a nightmare for Anas Sarwar last Sunday morning. The very week that the Scottish Labour Party is to meet and in effect launch its bid for power in the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections, the Sunday Times published a Norstat poll that would give Scottish Labour its worst result in the forthcoming elections since the inception of the Scottish parliament in 1999.
 THE last time there was a Labour government in Westminster and an SNP government in Holyrood was 18 years ago. That was in the middle of a financial crisis and only lasted two years. 2010 was the first time that a Scottish government had to deal with a Tory UK government.
 IF I may adapt that old expression used of the US economy, it seems that if leader of the British Labour Party Keir Starmer sneezes, Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, gets a good deal worse than a bad cold. Starmer’s December Ipsos poll ratings show only 27 per cent of respondents were satisfied with his performance, with 61 per cent dissatisfied. This comes on the back of a slew of controversial policy decisions and, more importantly, an economy that is showing little sign of the growth Starmer promised, even if it is very early days of the promised infrastructural projects.
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