Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs Twitter profile | Pikagi

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Ewan Gibbs

@ewangibbs

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Historian of energy, industry, work and protest. Author of Coal Country. Now writing The Unmaking of the British Working Class. Not always entirely serious.

Glasgow

Joined June 2009

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

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@ewangibbs

Ewan Gibbs

5 months

My book, Coal Country: The Meaning and Memory of Deindustrialization in Postwar Scotland, is available to download for free from this link! You can also buy a paper copy. Coal Country is the first book length account of the end of coal mining in Scotland.

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Coal Country - University of London Press

The flooding and subsequent closure of Scotland’s last deep coal mine in 2002 brought a centuries long saga to an end. Villages and towns across the densely populated Central Belt owe their existence...

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@ewangibbs

Ewan Gibbs

4 years

Just grassing on an exhausted delivery driver as I order medical supplies for my horse. Class society is alive and well in 2021.

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

The British press is up in arms that Waitrose lorry drivers now earn enough to shop at Waitrose.

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Ewan Gibbs

6 months

We all used to own British Gas. These profits could and should have been lower bills.

@guardiannews

Guardian news

6 months

British Gas profits leap from £72m to £751m in a year

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2 years

Moscow, East Ayrshire.

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Ewan Gibbs

7 months

What a grim prospect. There are neighbourhoods in Glasgow which have a significantly lower male life expectancy than 71.

@guardiannews

Guardian news

7 months

UK state pension age will soon need to rise to 71, say experts

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Ewan Gibbs

4 years

Aristotle isn’t going down well in Glasgow.

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Ewan Gibbs

4 years

This is a classic case of making small amounts of public money seem huge. £17m is about about ten pounds per person in NI. It's ten times less than what the BBC pays for the rights to show Match of the Day each year and around a quarter of the Royal Family's annual public cost.

@BBCNewsNI

BBC News NI

4 years

Providing free school meals during 2021 holidays would cost NI over £17m:

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

Obviously the Saudi Arabia takeover of Newcastle is grim but it also appears that a lot of people are much keener on holding Newcastle fans to greater account than the UK government, BAE Systems or the City of London when it comes to Saudi dealings.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

Jason Cummings has now progressed further in a World Cup than any player in the history of the Scottish national team.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

Lots of replies to this detail various thrifty ways to travel by rail in the UK as though you should have to game the system instead of showing up on the day and get a decent price.

@AndyBurnhamGM

Andy Burnham

2 years

Return tickets from Manchester: ▪️India £343 ▪️Jamaica £345 ▪️Brazil £325 ▪️Ivory Coast £319 ▪️London (rail) £369

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

It’s deeply depressing and intellectually vacuous that not having read one of the most influential economists of all time is considered a good trait for a future Chancellor of the Exchequer.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 months

Feel pure shite, just want them back.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 months

This is the political culture that has produced most of Britain’s prime ministers and governments. We’re only now getting a glimpse into the shady practices and weird and far right political influences in the Tory Party because they’re down and out.

@Gabriel_Pogrund

Gabriel Pogrund

@Gabriel_Pogrund

2 months

EXCL 🚨 Tory student group held black-tie dinner two weeks ago where members sang German marching song used by the Nazis in WW2 Warwick Uni Conservative Association sorry after dancing to “Erika” — used by SS and Wermacht and today white supremacists

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

Fourteen years in jail is the sort of sentence you might expect if criminal actions led to loss of life. It’s absolutely not what you’d anticipate for disorder. This is a troubling knee jerk sentence.

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Bristol man who rioted at ‘kill the bill’ protest jailed for 14 years

Ryan Roberts set fire to police vehicles during a demonstration against the police, crime, sentencing and courts bill

www.theguardian.com

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

Scottish Water is trending because folk are pointing to the success of public ownership. It's important to remember it was political struggle that kept Scottish Water public. In 1994, Strathclyde Regional Council held a referendum with a 70% turnout to vote 'no' to privatisation.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

Watching Londoners celebrate another new underground line whilst Glasgow awaits a subway extension initially promised in the 1970s.

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Ewan Gibbs

24 days

Sounds brilliant.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

When troops in the First World War stopped shooting at each other it was viewed by their superiors (and often by soldiers themselves) as akin to workers taking strike action!

@SaulStaniforth

Saul Staniforth

@SaulStaniforth

2 years

Richard Madeley on railway workers going on strike: "To do it at xmas seems an act of unkindness... its destroying quite a few businesses... it seems almost sadistic... troops in the First World War stopped shooting at each other, xmas is a time to set disputes aside" #GMB

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

It’s absolutely fair to blame everyone who voted Tory at the 2019 general election for this by the way.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

There’s a huge ‘know your place’ whiff to the outrage that train drivers - manual workers - have the temerity not only to strike and inconvenience people who consider themselves above them in the social hierarchy, but also that they might earn higher wages than them too.

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Ewan Gibbs

1 year

It is deeply funny that Forbes’ supporters spent days performing an elaborate dalliance around her highly conservative political views only for her to loudly proclaim them on day one.

@C4Ciaran

Ciaran Jenkins

1 year

NEW: Kate Forbes tells @Channel4News she would have voted against equal marriage. But as First Minister she will not 'row back on rights that already exist.'

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Ewan Gibbs

2 months

The Corbyn manifestoes were both fully costed, to the extent journalists took great joy quizzing shadow cabinet ministers on remembering various figures from them. McDonnell's team did an important job in costing social democratic policies and making them credible.

@jessicaelgot

Jessica Elgot

2 months

Keir Starmer says Tories are building "Jeremy Corbyn-style manifesto where anything you want can go in it, and none of it is costed. It’s a recipe for chaos. "Load everything into the wheelbarrow, don’t provide the funding, and hope that nobody notices the money isn’t there."

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Ewan Gibbs

1 month

The damage that George Osborne’s six years as Chancellor did to British society and our economy are being written out of the routing of the Tories. The social ruin and political crisis we are now in did not start with Brexit.

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

Do any other children of the nineties live in mortal fear of chip pan fires or is it just me?🔥

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Ewan Gibbs

2 months

It's Scotland versus Switzerland. It's Calvin's nation of residence against the country which most embraced his radical theology. It's truly the Presbyterian derby.

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Ewan Gibbs

4 years

Something folk need to get their heads round is that people who vote to re-elect far right governments across the world are not protest voters anymore. They’ve seen what’s on offer, they like it and they want more of it.

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Ewan Gibbs

6 years

So the #GrenfellEffigy suspects include Conservative Party members, a buy-to-let landlord, a company director, a scaffolding business owner and the son of a property magnate. Tell us more about how racism and the nascent far-right are the preserve of the working class.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

It’s staggering how small a role the North Sea oil industry plays in dominant narratives of twentieth century Britain. The UK became the fifth biggest oil producer in the world, comfortably out producing many of the iconic petro states when prices were high during the 1980s.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

Today I'm going to be irrationally annoyed by the number of UK journalists who know more about the intricacies of politics in Idaho than the basic workings of devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

It’s disturbing to me that for lots of people Alistair Campbell is a nice guy who doesn’t like Brexit and who offers mental health advice instead of a crucial figure behind the war in Iraq. That includes people who must be old enough to recall the 45 minute warning and Dr Kelly.

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

When Mandela died, a man who had whole heartedly supported the Palestinians and allied to the IRA was universally praised in the UK and globally as a hero of the anti apartheid struggle. It speaks to shifting political climates that there’s been an attempt to slight Desmond Tutu.

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Ewan Gibbs

4 years

That would be the Labour Party who led the 1915 rent strike and whose major electoral breakthrough came in 1922 on the back of years of campaigning on housing policy. The Labour Party that was thereafter a champion of rent restrictions and public house building. Yes, them.

@LabourList

LabourList

4 years

NEW: 'Cancel the rent' coronavirus housing policy would be "un-Labour" and "really regressive", says Thangam Debbonaire:

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

Glasgow firefighters went on an all out unofficial strike for 10 days in 1973. This great archive footage shows how they faced down journalist claiming strikers had left the public in danger, and ends with a great display of community support the journalist doesn’t anticipate!

@CleanersFor

Träger Warning 🇵🇸🇸🇩 ☭

2 years

Always think of this clip when I see the British media establishment duty-shame emergency service workers for taking industrial action. It is truly obscene that public servants are expected to show dedication without remuneration. Solidarity to the health workers.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

Folk are saying that the P&O mass immediate sacking by Zoom is like something from another era, but the replacement of swathes of permanent skilled unionised employees with agency staff is actually the logical outcome of how workplaces have been run in Britain since the 1980s.

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

The group match between Scotland and the Soviet Union at the 1982 World Cup produced one of the most memorable football banners of all time.

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Ewan Gibbs

1 month

Over the last 20-30 years, the Saltire has very much become the dominant Scottish national flag and the Royal Standard (Lion Rampant) became much less popular. I assume this is a cultural politics of devolution story. Pictures of Scotland fans at Wembley in 1999 and at Euro 2021.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

The reparations were paid to the slave owners though.

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Ewan Gibbs

1 year

Glasgow’s current council leader likes to wax lyrical about its aspirations to be a leading European city comparable to Barcelona but you can’t even use the subway after 6 on a Sunday even when there’s a major event next to a station.

@GLASubwayTravel

GLASubwayTravel

@GLASubwayTravel

1 year

Going to see @ArcticMonkeys at Bellahouston Park on Sunday? Please be aware that there will be no Subway services after 6pm and the system will not be operating when the concert finishes. #GlasgowSubway

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Ewan Gibbs

18 days

It’s likely that the T*mmy Robins*n march in Glasgow will be the largest far right march in Scotland for decades. Anti fascists need to oppose it in Glasgow, not to rally in another city. This march in Edinburgh is only going to weaken opposition.

@ScotNational

The National

18 days

BREAKING: Independence campaigners have announced a counter-protest on the same day a pro-UK rally promoted by Tommy Robinson will take place in Glasgow. Story to follow.

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Ewan Gibbs

1 month

Biden has mistakenly referred to the Communist Party of Britain as the now disbanded Communist Party of Great Britain. No coming back from that.

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Ewan Gibbs

5 months

Beneath the anti intellectual trends that exercise a growing influence in British society there lies a patronising hostile insistence ‘ordinary’ people are incapable of grasping complex ideas, watching challenging films or reading high brow books. It’s nonsense.

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

Scottish Water was kept in public hands partly because Strathclyde Regional Council organised a referendum on the UK government’s privatisation proposals that secured a 97% rejection on a 70% turnout - over 1.2 million votes. We’re still living with its long-term benefits.

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

It’s actually pretty disgusting to construe getting a vaccination as ‘a national duty’ whilst Covid-19 runs wild across developing countries because Britain and other nations stood shoulder to shoulder with pharmaceutical companies against the world’s poorest people.

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Ewan Gibbs

1 year

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@HugoGye

Hugo Gye

1 year

Rachel Reeves tells Telegraph: "We don’t have any plans to increase taxes outside of what we’ve said." ❌ No wealth tax ❌ No tax on high-value properties ❌ No increase to top rate of income tax ❌ No capital gains tax hike

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Ewan Gibbs

6 months

The bankruptcy of Birmingham, Britain's second biggest city, and the disastrous consequences it will have, oddly doesn't seem to be the dominant and damning story you'd think it would be.

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Ewan Gibbs

6 months

Ed Miliband’s unrelenting loyalty to the Labour Party hierarchy through a decade and a half of being publicly undermined and humiliated by it is sad confirmation of how right his father was on parliamentary socialism.

@Ed_Miliband

Ed Miliband

6 months

Following today’s announcements, Labour have confirmed we will fight the election with a world-leading climate agenda: Great British Energy 🇬🇧 National Wealth Fund 🏗️ Warm Homes Plan 🏠 British Jobs Bonus 👩🏼‍🔧 Local Power Plan 🔋 No new oil & gas licenses 🛢️ 2030 clean power ☀️

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Ewan Gibbs

1 year

The Lineker nonsense actually brings home one of the real free speech crises of our times: employers monitoring what their workers say in their private lives on social media.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 months

Me, a fool: Britain is a wealthy country which ought to heavily invest in its crumbling infrastructure. You, a future mover and shaker in government: No! Britain cannot possibly afford to invest. Instead , we must recklessly and inefficiently rack up debts through privatisation!

@alexwickham

Alex Wickham

2 months

Exclusive: Labour set to land billions in new investment from banks and international firms within months, as part of a plan to use private finance to rebuild Britain that it hopes will avoid a need for sweeping tax rises With @PronouncedAlva @Joe_Mayes

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Ewan Gibbs

4 years

I understand the motivations behind #IWentToStateSchool . But aside from the questionable codification of class in modern Britain - well over 90% of us did - it's also worrying working-class narratives are now usually structured through personalised stories of 'escape'.

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Ewan Gibbs

5 months

A few months ago now, I signed a contract to write a book called The Unmaking of the British Working Class. I've now written a draft of around half of the book which examines how an organised working-class interest and presence in British politics was unmade since the 1960s.

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Ewan Gibbs

9 months

Had McDonnell rather than Corbyn been Labour leader I suspect more or less the same course would have panned out but we’d now have people saying it would have been better if we’d have had a nice unthreatening socialist vicar type figure like Jeremy Corbyn.

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Ewan Gibbs

4 months

Has a Spanish flag in their name and over 200,000 followers but has seemingly never heard of the Reconquista, the wars against the Ottomans or Spain’s conquest of the Americas.

@ada_lluch

Ada Lluch 🇪🇸

4 months

I never saw anyone murdering people screaming “Christ is King”. Just saying.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

If I was the leader of Scottish Labour, I might consider that Labour’s most successful contemporary politician and only current head of a national government who has successfully navigated the national question in Wales might be worth listening to?

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Labour indyref2 split as Welsh First Minister backs referendum in Scotland

The senior figure was slapped down by Scottish colleagues for remarks contradicting party policy.

www.dailyrecord.co.uk

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

When I was researching 1980s pit closures in archives I found records of Thatcher’s energy ministers pressuring the Coal Board to increase closure rates up to and beyond a level they knew would provoke an industrial dispute. Closures were very much a political decision.

@tomhfh

Tom Harwood

3 years

Think language around today's row is wrong. Thatcher didn't 'close the mines'. If the mines were profitable obviously they would have stayed open. Choosing to not chuck taxpayer cash at a bottomless pit is not the same as somehow perniciously picking on something to shut down.

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Ewan Gibbs

4 years

The far right were in control of the centre of Scotland's largest city tonight. They gathered to attack an asylum seeker protest against a hotel owner. What could better epitomise the essence of fascism than attacking the most vulnerable people in society when they speak out?

@parcelorogues

Liam.

4 years

loyalist riot - again

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

That Sunak video essentially amounts to a Tory chancellor and would be Prime Minister fondly reminiscing about a more egalitarian social democratic country that his party destroyed.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

Britain had two polarised general elections in 2017 and 2019. At the latter in particular, serious ideas for reforming the economy were reduced to 'the magic money tree', 'nationalising sausages' and lampooned as unviable despite support from credible experts.

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

The average Edinburgh house ‘earned’ more than the average full-time Edinburgh worker last year. What a broken society we live in.

@EdinburghLive_

Edinburgh Live

@EdinburghLive_

3 years

House prices are on the rise again!

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

My worry is that the energy price hike DOES NOT result in civil unrest. What would that say of us all? That we will accept people being frozen to death? This is a huge test for society but perhaps not the one we think it is.

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Ewan Gibbs

1 year

Incredible dialogue here where a journalist insists that what ought to matter most in governing Wales is what an English politician thinks. A complete disrespect for a country of a couple of million people.

@Channel4News

Channel 4 News

1 year

"I've not had that conversation with him, nor should I need to." First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford tells @PGMcNamara that he did not consult Labour Party Leader Sir Keir Starmer MP about lowering the speed limit on most Welsh residential roads to 20mph.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

Unite members in Orkney, Merseyside and Kent have refused to load and unload Russian tankers with oil and gas. The union also released a statement which ‘unreservedly condemns Putin’s invasion of Ukraine’ and which supports Ukraine’s right to self-defence.

Unite executive council – statement on Ukraine crisis

The Unite executive council unreservedly condemns Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and stands in full solidarity with the millions of victims of the attack. Unite calls for an immediate cease-fire and a...

www.unitetheunion.org

@REWearmouth

Rachel Wearmouth

2 years

Some Lab sources want rid of Unite & say it's filled with "extremists", "Putin apologists", "communists". Others dismiss that as factional & want to keep the link TU sources claim Unite's being provoked by LOTO allies refusing to compromise at NEC & Corbyn losing whip's a factor

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Ewan Gibbs

7 months

Port Talbot has solidly voted Labour at every general election since 1922. Whilst it might suit a certain form of liberal remainer politics to imagine the ‘Red Wall’ is getting what’s coming to it, that argument just doesn’t even apply in South Wales.

@BotFinderUK

Frank Place Botfinder UK🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

7 months

"I was a skilled steel worker. Now I'm delivering parcels for minimum wage, self employed, no rights. It stinks. Think we'll lose the house. Vote Brexit, they said, save Steel. Vote Boris, they said, save Steel. I'll still vote tory again - I don't trust Labour"

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

It’s depressing to see a significant online presence of SNP members and supporters attacking low-paid cleansing workers and train staff taking industrial action on poorly thought out grounds that are principally motivated by supporting that Scottish Government come what may.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

We could nationalise energy companies and use public money to subsidise prices. That's something we could easily do. It's not a fantasy to suggest it.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

When reactionaries imagine the past they’re always the emperor and not the slave, the knight and not the peasant and the gala attendee rather than the person who cleans up afterwards.

@AlpacaAurelius

Carnivore Aurelius ©🥩 ☀️🦙

@AlpacaAurelius

2 years

They took this away form us and gave us dating apps instead. I will bring back galas.

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Ewan Gibbs

4 years

There's already an apologist on Sky News discussing 'working-class' anger on display at Washington. You're talking about folk that travelled great distances on a week day with thousands of pounds worth of riot gear and weaponry in many cases. Don't buy that story.

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Ewan Gibbs

6 months

One of the biggest historical successes of the labour movement is winning time for workers to rest and recreate. The same arguments against the 4 day week were used to justify the 6 day week and the 60 hour week.

@EstherMcVey1

Esther McVey

6 months

Let’s stop the Labour madness of 5 days’ pay for 4 days’ work.

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Ewan Gibbs

1 month

Nico Williams has dedicated his goal and Spain’s victory to the nation of Wales and his namesake, cultural theorist, Raymond Williams. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

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Ewan Gibbs

4 years

I tend to be highly critical of Sturgeon and the SNP's claims that devolved powers limit what they can do on a given major problem. But I think today the First Minister was right and honest about furlough. COVID19 is sharply exposing the economic limitations of devolution.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

It is a ridiculous undemocratic circumstance that not only can Holyrood not call a referendum but that there is no obvious constitutional method to achieve one that doesn't involve a the UK government deciding so. The Supreme Court case is not a good sign of a healthy democracy.

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Ewan Gibbs

5 months

The hysterical bile that is aimed at @OwenJones84 , not just by 'trolls' but by mainstream politicians and commentators, his ostensible colleagues, speaks to the death spiral of our public intellectual culture, a lack of curiosity and frankly deep rooted nastiness and loathing.

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Ewan Gibbs

9 months

It’s funny that Tories like Daley have cheered on privatisation and allowing foreign states to own our railways, power stations, wind farms and oil rigs and refineries, but apparently a right-wing rag of a newspaper is where we should draw the line.

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Ewan Gibbs

1 year

The Waterstones centrist know it all section is growing.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

Calls for illegal draconian responses to legal industrial action are becoming a routine feature of television news reports on strikes. It’s a worrying trend and one that undermined the human right to join trade union which all workers are supposed to enjoy.

@BBCNewsnight

BBC Newsnight

2 years

‘What would you say to the unions?’ asks @sima_kotecha ‘Get a life... sack the lot’, says David Moore, owner of Michelin Star restaurant Pied à Terre, as 2023 begins with fresh train strikes

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

You should be giving credit to low-paid unionised workers who showed bravery by going on strike and exercising their collective power, not the Scottish Government who were compelled by industrial action to do the right thing and make them a much improved pay offer.

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Ewan Gibbs

1 year

There’s no demand for Scottish universities to abandon a very successful model of undergraduate degrees which let students study a broad range of subjects for two years before specialising at honours level for the final two. We should keep the four year degree.

@KieranPAndrews

Kieran Andrews

@KieranPAndrews

1 year

Excl: University degrees in Scotland would be cut to three years as standard as part of a Conservative plan to lift the cap on Scottish students The announcement will be the main policy from the Scottish Tory conference, which starts tomorrow

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

The decade and a half since the 2008 crash will have to go down as the great wasted opportunity for Britain and most other advanced economies to make big environmental and necessary societal changes when money was cheap and government borrowing paid for itself.

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Ewan Gibbs

4 months

If this is a fair question and we treat Scottish devolution as reversible and experimental, should we also ask: in what sense can the past 25 years of British parliamentary rule be considered a success?

@mrianleslie

Ian Leslie

4 months

Genuine question: in what sense can Scottish devolution be considered a success?

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Ewan Gibbs

4 years

I’m struggling to imagine a situation where a Labour prime minister would ever have the press pining about how hard their job is. During the 1920s, 1930s, 1970s and 2000s, crises with global causes were in fact actively blamed on Labour governments to great political effect

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

I found a letter that demonstrates Thatcher's government assisted BP to supply South Africa with North Sea oil and get round the international embargo. It's not news that Thatcher's administration supported South Africa, but it's galling to think Scottish oil fuelled Apartheid.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

Thanks to our postie, who this morning redirected a card that was sent to my old address because he knows me and recognised the name. That’s the important public service that @CWUnews are fighting to save.

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Ewan Gibbs

1 year

This is a very ignorant comment I’m afraid. The Labour Party published a centenary edition of the Communist Manifesto in 1948, when it was led by Clement Attlee in the period generally viewed as the most successful and important Labour government.

@jruddy99

John Ruddy

1 year

Labour MPs and MSPs shouldn't be associating with Marxists. Marxism is and always have been opposed to Labour values.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

Since I was last in London they’ve added a new underground line that takes you all the way across the city from Heathrow. Meanwhile, Glasgow still doesn’t have the airport rail link promised in the 2000s nor has it added a stop to the subway since it opened in the 19th century.

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Ewan Gibbs

1 year

Devolution massively increased the size of the Scottish professional political class. It’s consolidated a world of hangers on and the chumocracy has been embraced as a sign of political maturity rather than questionable cosiness.

@Ross_Greer

Ross Greer

1 year

Shirley-Anne gave me my first job 11 years ago. I owe so much about where my life has gone since to her & the trust she put in me Working with a truly brilliant friend once again on issues that we're both so passionate about is a privilege that I'll always treasure

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

As Ruth Davidson saunters off to the Lords, we shouldn’t forget that the Scottish Tories peaked in 2017, when Davidson declared she would use the contingent of Scottish MPs that May relied on to hold her feet to the fire on Brexit, before utterly capitulating. Decline followed.

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

I found a letter that shows Thatcher’s government assisted BP in using North Sea oil to supply apartheid South Africa during research at The National Archives this week. Marc Horne has written an article for the Times on the significance of the document.

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

Famously, the Tories are a party consumed by the cause of saving industrial jobs.

@ScotYoungTories

Scottish Young Conservatives

@ScotYoungTories

3 years

Lorna Slater and the @scottishgreens to all North East oil workers 👇👇👇

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Ewan Gibbs

1 month

@kieran_hurley I think I just thought they were English

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

This week, train staff will begin strike action and they're likely to be followed by other workers standing up against the squeeze on living standards. They'll be met by a barrage of anti-union sentiment in the press and social media. Here's a short guide to the main varieties ⬇️

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Ewan Gibbs

7 months

The logic here is that by virtue of earning good money someone is obliged to uproot themselves and leave their home and their neighbourhood just because they happen to live in council housing. It amounts to saying council tenants should be seen as temporary second-class citizens.

@NeilDotObrien

Neil O'Brien

7 months

MPs earn a good salary and should not take up council housing

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Ewan Gibbs

11 months

So the Labour versions of the Union is a country where Scotland is Scottish, Wales is Welsh and England is British? Can’t foresee any long or short term problems there.

@PAShanky

Paul Cruikshank

11 months

Before the Nats get too excited/incensed about this - Scottish cards will have the Saltire; and Welsh cards will have the Welsh flag. Because we're comfortable with that kind of thing.

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

Famously, Northern England didn’t suffer from Tory policies before.

@rosscolquhoun

Ross Colquhoun

3 years

👎 Northern England is now experiencing Tory deception and betrayal that Scotland knows only too well.

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Ewan Gibbs

1 year

Amazing that Glasgow still doesn’t have an airport rail link. Amazingly bad that is. A badly run city.

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Ewan Gibbs

3 years

Too often, working-class heroes like Bob Somerville are commemorated after they die. Nae Pasaran made sure that the courageous and effective stance that Scottish engineers took against Pinochet was remembered in their lifetimes and in their own words. A Lanarkshire legend. RIP.

@NaePasaran

Nae Pasaran! - Now On Demand

3 years

Here's to the wonderful Robert Somerville, who sadly has moved on, aged 85. Also known as Bobby, Papa or Mr Netherdale (after the youth club of the same name he founded in Motherwell), he was a beloved great-grandfather, a loving husband to Jean and a legendary shop steward.

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Ewan Gibbs

1 year

This couldn't be more wrong and either dishonest or ignorant. I've spent the last ten years as a historian researching the dismantling of Britain's national industrial economy and I can only conclude from that work that it was definitely the left and unions who tried to save it.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

In 2017 the Labour Party under Corbyn reversed a trend of declining votes and vote share to win a vote share around the same as in 2001, c.40%, and almost 12.9 million votes, only surpassed by Blair's landslide in 1997. Quite an achievement for a visions that 'wasn't resonating'.

@RMCunliffe

Rachel Cunliffe

2 years

The Corbyn era felt a lot like this. A cadre of insiders who simply couldn't understand why the wonderful vision they had for Britain wasn't resonating. More focus on blaming voters than trying to persuade them. Now we're seeing the same thing from the other economic side

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

Looks like Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss are finding out that the problem with capitalism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

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Ewan Gibbs

4 years

Away from corona news, my publishers got in touch to confirm they’ve accepted a finalised version of my book. Coal Country: The Meaning and Memory of Deindustrialization in Postwar Scotland, will be published by University of London Press on an open access basis (free!) in 2021.

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Ewan Gibbs

2 years

Really? My grandmother came from a peasant family in Ukraine, was used as slave labour by Nazi Germany and was displaced by the war before she worked in Perthshire farms, Dundee jute mills and cleaning a hospital. I consider myself highly privileged to have known and loved her.

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