What a difference a few months make! In the summer Gordon Brown was on the ropes. Over the past couple of months he has picked up a thoroughly undeserved reputation as the ‘saviour of the world economy.’ Brown has embraced Keynesian policies wholeheartedly, without explaining his U-turn. His solution to our economic ills is to hurl money at them. ‘Never apologise, never explain’, seems to be his motto. So what is making Brown look good? The Tories, that’s what.

As our editorial last month pointed out, what killed the citizens of Pompeii was not the pyrotechnics of the explosion of Mount Vesuvius, but the resulting ash that choked the people. It is possible, though not inevitable, that we have seen the worst of the banking collapse. But the results are destroying jobs all over Britain.

Buried on page 11 of the Guardian on 1st November is an article, extremely enlightening in its simplicity, reporting the ‘news’ that during office Blair was only too happy to do Rupert Murdoch’s bidding. According to Lance Price, former Downing Street spin doctor, Murdoch was ‘one of the four most influential people in the administration’. Never mind that he was totally unelected, not actually a part of any ‘administration’, or that he is a US citizen whose company (News Corp.) pays no net tax.

"ANDREA: Unhappy the land that has no heroes!"
"GALILEO: No, unhappy the land that needs heroes."
Bertolt Brecht (The Life of Galileo)

He is the Hero of the Hour, the man who single-handedly has saved the world financial system from meltdown. When all around were panicking and in despair, here was a man who kept his head and, emanating a sense of absolute calm akin to the Buddhist Nirvana, issued the command that re-established the Order of the Universe. Nothing remotely similar has been seen since that far-off time just before the Big Bang when the Almighty pronounced the immortal words: Let there be Light. And there was Light. And God saw the Light, that it was good.

A vote at the Employment and Social Affairs Committee of the European Parliament could signal an end to the British opt-out from the Working Time Directive. Of particular significance was the unanimous vote of British Labour MEPs to kill it. This is in sharp contrast to the determination of New Labour in Whitehall to keep the opt-out – at the expense of the British working class. The resoluteness of our MEPs, in behaving like real Labour representatives, has rightly been described as an “embarrassment” to the UK government.

The situation of financial crisis, coupled with a hugely unpopular Westminster government that has found itself entirely incapable of coming up with any solutions  beyond throwing more and more of our money at the banks, would seem a perfect opportunity for the SNP to make their mark and assert the need for an independent Scotland. With unemployment poised to reach two million and share prices continuing to fall at the SNP conference, Alex Salmond has been reduced to calling for the return of ‘Scotland’s money’ and blaming the collapse of Scottish banks on the Union. Supposedly independence will save us from such catastrophes in the future. 

After a long drawn out process the Scottish Government has controversially granted infamous American tycoon turned television celebrity Donald Trump permission to build a luxury golf resort in rural Aberdeenshire. It will feature two golf courses and hundreds of private homes and is set to be the most expensive golf resort in the world. The plans have faced widespread opposition and the means used to finally secure their approval has only exposed the reality of our allegedly democratic system and the slavish attitude of the SNP government towards big business.