FRED BAYER says the cuts to the congress cycle could be disastrous for the Scottish trade union movement

Scottish Labour's leaders cannot keep blaming Westminster for the collapse at the ballot box, says VINCE MILLS

The new Scottish Parliament looks set to continue a cycle of managerial tinkering while public services face the axe, writes STEPHEN LOW

As Scotland heads to the polls, the main parties offer variations on the same script, says MATT KERR

As STUC Congress moves to a biennial format, TOM MORRISON warns of concerns over shrinking lay power

But that’s OK, says MATT KERR, as talking is what will help us get things done

A recent Union Street blaze showed firefighters at their best, but years of underfunding and job losses are stretching the service to its limits, writes JOHN McKENZIE

As the STUC gathers in an election year, the message to politicians is clear – continuing managed decline is unacceptable to Scotland’s workers, says ROZ FOYER

Inspired by Ireland’s success, Equity urges all parties to support a basic income for artists that could unlock talent and boost the economy, says MARLENE CURRAN

FINOLA SCOTT relishes a collection of verse in Scots that, among other things, meditates on the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu

As world leaders posture and local politicians bore, voters are left with a grim choice: despair, disengage — or start imagining something better, says MATT KERR

Labour’s approach to Scotland reveals a long-running tension between rhetoric and reality, warns PAULINE BRYAN

Art matters because stories, herstories, histories, and even flights of fancy matter, posits MATT KERR

After 27 years in Holyrood, the former first minister urged unity and respect — but,  says NEIL FINDLAY, her time in power told a very different story

The public recognise the corrosive influence of the rich over our democracy, argues MIKE COWLEY — it’s a shame the Labour Party doesn’t

Until ministers stop deferring to the market and start drawing hard lines, the public will remain at the mercy of private power, says MATT KERR

Five years ago a flash crowd of Glaswegian activists defeated the Home Office and the police; MATT KERR urges you to savour that day in a cinema

KENNY MacASKILL looks at the extraordinary political commitment of a Church of Scotland minister’s wife

Scotland’s deepening crises expose the human cost of political complacency — and the toll it is taking on working-class communities, says NEIL FINDLAY

Labour’s by-election defeat tells a story Scotland has known since 2008. A party that assumes loyalty while offering little more than managed decline will eventually discover that voters always have somewhere else to turn, says MATT KERR

KENNY MacASKILL reminds us of the unprecedented political career of a Scottish miner’s militant son who stayed the course and true to his roots