john mcallion

Dismantling Westminster is key to socialist advance

February 9, 2017 // 0 Comments

by John McAllion, former Labour MP and MSP, now in the SSP • Most voters do not pay close attention to the detail of day to day parliamentary politics. The extent to which they understand the ...

Scottish Labour faces a ‘developing calamity’

August 11, 2016 // 0 Comments

by the SSP’s John McAllion, former Labour MP and MSP • Labour’s crisis has so far focussed on characters and events south of the border. The second leadership contest within a year looks set ...

2016 presents Scotland’s left with unprecedented challenges

February 5, 2016 // 0 Comments

by John McAllion In July of 1988, the Queen addressed both Houses of Parliament on the occasion of the tercentenary of the Glorious Revolution. Her address, awash with complacency and condescension, ...

Corbyn leadership bid faces implacable hostility of Labour’s Westminster elite

August 7, 2015 // 0 Comments

by John McAllion The YouGov poll showing Jeremy Corbyn on track to become Labour’s next leader caused widespread panic across the party’s establishment and parliamentary leadership. The three ...

Scottish Labour’s main business now is to avoid extinction

June 5, 2015 // 0 Comments

John McAllion assesses Scottish Labour’s fall Labour’s cataclysmic electoral defeat has sparked the resignation of its losing leaders north and south of the border, the simultaneous launch of ...

What awaits new SNP MPs – if the polls are correct?

April 30, 2015 // 0 Comments

former MP and MSP John McAllion sounds a warning… Labour’s left wing icon Nye Bevan was first elected as a MP in 1929 shortly before the Wall Street crash that led to the last Great ...

Soundbite Labour still signed up for austerity

March 26, 2015 // 0 Comments

by John McAllion The reception given to the Coalition’s pre-election budget was universally hostile among what remains of left of centre newspapers in Britain. An Observer editorial described it as ...

Will Westminster’s indy nightmare return after May?

March 13, 2015 // 0 Comments

by John McAllion Westminster politics has long been haunted by the spectre of Scottish independence. Since the SNP’s Winnie Ewing sensationally captured the previously rock solid Labour seat of ...

Behind Murphy’s tartan paint job, has anything changed?

January 31, 2015 // 0 Comments

by John McAllion, ex-Labour MP/MSP, now with the SSP Almost from the moment he was elected Scottish leader, Jim Murphy sought to emulate his political hero Tony Blair. One of his first announcements ...

The Scotland that helped return Blair’s landslide no longer exists

December 11, 2014 // 0 Comments

by John McAllion, ex-Labour MP and MSP, now with the Scottish Socialist Party At the time of writing, the most recent opinion poll in Scotland gave the SNP a 15 point lead over Labour in voting ...