James Maxwell James Kelman possesses a spectacular talent for provocation and controversy. When his novel How Late It Was, How Late was awarded the Booker Prize in 1994, one judge, Rabbi Julia Neuberger, erupted in fuming protest, describing the decision as “a disgrace”. He was once branded an “illiterate savage” by the journalist Simon Jenkins, [...]
James Maxwell In the early 1980s, Alex Salmond was expelled from the SNP. It was judged, by the aging nationalist establishment, that the faction of which he was a leading member — the 79 Group — was too subversive and oppositionist ever to be reconciled to the centrist agenda that had formed the core of [...]
James Maxwell Next year, Margo Macdonald MSP will attempt to legalize assisted suicide in Scotland. She has drafted a bill that, if turned into law, will for the first time allow a terminally-ill or severely disabled adult the opportunity to request that a medical professional prematurely induce his or her death. Only two other European [...]
James Maxwell examines the difficulties faced by Glasgow’s refugees and asylum seekers – and those who try to help them The Unity Centre sits on the corner of Ibrox Street in Cessnock, two or three hundred yards from the gates of the Home Office immigration compound that its volunteers picket weekly. The peeling pale-blue paint [...]
As the part privatisation of Royal Mail is announced, James Maxwell explores the ideological chaos at the heart of the British Labour Party During the 1990s, the Labour Party quietly abandoned the language of the old left and adopted a less politically-loaded vocabulary. References to the ‘working-classes’ vanished and ministers began talking instead of ‘hard-working [...]
James Maxwell reflects on the life and work of one of America’s finest writers, John Updike John Updike, who died last month from lung cancer at the age of 76, was a uniquely talented literary polymath who excelled as an essayist, poet, critic, commentator and fiction-writer. Over five decades as a professional author, he rigorously [...]
Following the death of Harold Pinter, James Maxwell pauses for thought on the life of the Noble prize-winning playwright The poet, polemicist and playwright Harold Pinter, who died last year on the 24th of December, was one of the dominant figures of Britain’s post-war cultural landscape. Despite the critical savaging his first work, ‘The Room’, [...]
In the third and final part of our series on a history of Glasgow University, James Maxwell investigates how the institution has influenced politics, the Nationalist movement and culture in contemporary Scotland Glasgow University has witnessed many of the most pivotal moments in Scottish history. Indeed, it has participated in a considerable number of them. [...]
