SOLOMON HUGHES recommends Sunjeev Sahota’s recent novel set in a trade union election campaign for its fresh approach to what unites and divides workers, but wishes the union backdrop was truer to life
THE trial, which will begin soon, of an 88-year-old former junior school teacher, housemaster and deputy head teacher on 18 counts of child abuse may seem like a local affair, particular to a strangely rotten private school in Edinburgh, and of interest only to Scottish tabloids and the Tory press, and not to readers of the Morning Star.
But this would be wrong. This case is highly revealing of the ruling-class culture that fills the ranks of the government and professional classes that hold sway disproportionately in Britain, and it demonstrates uniquely both how vulnerable this culture is, and how the ruling class itself deals with the revelation of the abuse that lies at its heart.
It also shows that socially engaged and democratic oversight of schools, that has a track record in Scotland, points the way forward.
NORMA AUSTIN HART reports from a conference on on the rights of women prisoners in the Scottish criminal justice system
The devastating impact of austerity has left Scotland’s education system on its knees, argues ANDREA BRADLEY, urging politicians to show courage by increasing wealth taxation to fund our schools properly



