Brenda Morgan-Klein

Ask people what changes were most significant during the 1960s and you usually hear about the counterculture and the sexual revolution. In reality the major change for many families was getting an indoor toilet.

Having illustrated the problem of X ignoring its legal duties, I want to build an effective coalition for intervention. If you are or know people on X receiving racist abuse, rape threats, I would welcome receipts of one rejected attempt to report to the platform an indefensible case

Corbyn/Sultana: The Fiasco Party A long-read on the fantasy politics that lie behind the platitudes

Is the emergent ‘Your Party’ yet another, perhaps catastrophic, failure of the left and progressive politics.
open.substack.com/pub/htsf/p/c...

Edinburgh University had ‘outsized’ role in creating racist scientific theories, inquiry finds Investigation finds one of Britain’s oldest and most prestigious universities benefited from transatlantic slavery and was haven for white supremacist theories

Pleased this is finally published after I proposed it a few years ago. A lot of work by brilliant colleagues & some expected and some shocking findings. It’ll upset some (it’s a long time ago etc) but if a uni can’t speak truth to its own power what’s its point? www.theguardian.com/education/20...

💊The NHS is battling "medieval" levels of untreated illness in some of Britain's poorest communities – at a cost to the health service of about £50bn a year, or the same as the defence budget.

My big read from Barrow, Blackpool, Burnley and Blackburn:

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Farage's non-dom tax break gives up over £30 billion in current tax revenue (£33.9 billion) to raise about £1.6 billion instead at £250k/head. It then gives away the £1.6 billion raised in tax cuts as if it was new revenue! (Could give away £1.6 billion from the current tax keep £32 billion)

Grooming has been in Scotland for decades. We need an inquiry now Twenty-five years ago I embarked on the most disturbing and personally upsetting investigation of my career.

In 2002, I uncovered grooming gangs in Scotland. Nobody cared when I wrote the story. No action was taken.

Today, I wrote about it again.

Once more, nobody seems to care.

Is it because ethnicity was not a factor? And offenders were white as well as Asian?

www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/2524...

The Death of the Student Essay—and the Future of Cognition One professor's reflections on the end of an era, as AI tools such as ChatGPT have murdered the student essay (RIP). Here's why that threatens the future of human cognition—and how to save ourselves.

Why the processes of writing matter. How AI undermines this & a beautiful description of the joy of engaging with writing and ideas. Losing all this may be catastrophic.
open.substack.com/pub/briankla...

in Holyrood today Lorna Slater quoted an AI telling her that, because of higher public spending, some people in Scotland are better off than in England

if only she’d had the intellectual curiosity to ask where the funding for that higher public spending comes from (as i just did 👇)

All political parties agreed to the Scottish Child Poverty Reduction targets in 2017.

240,000 children in Scotland are in poverty.

@jrf-uk.bsky.social have launched a toolkit to ensure that the manifestos of these political parties will meet these targets by the end of the next parliament.

Renewal editors reflect on the meaning of social democracy Renewal is a journal of social democracy, but social democracy has always been a contested concept - and one understood variously as an ideology, a movement, a historical phenomenon, or even a desired...

What is it we mean when we talk about "social democracy"?

Here, Renewal editors past and present reflect on the meaning of social democracy, and what it means to be a social democrat.

renewal.org.uk/blog/renewal...

Just 1 in 5 people (19%) know that the cost of professional home care services could cost more than £1,000 per week. Most thought the cost was lower, with almost half (47%) thinking costs were between £200 and £600 a week on average. This is from a JRF poll carried out by FocalData in 2024.

People are unaware of high care costs, the cost of caring yourself, or long waiting lists.

Most of us hope the social care system will be there for us in times of need. But the system we have currently is inadequate.

Our latest analysis has found a ‘care expectation gap’ 🔽 1/4

Here in North Lanarkshire local government uses weed killer on community planting and a flailing machine on hedgerows with horrible consequences. Engagement with them is hopeless and breaks your heart.

I have come across that in the past on and off from university students as long as twenty years ago both in writing and speech. People mistakenly feel it can be used to mean ‘notably’. I hope school students are being helped with this.

J. D. Vance’s Very Weird Views About Women Most people who feel as he does are polite enough to keep it to themselves.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Our model of care provision is also hollowing out local democracy by drastically eating into state capacity the local level

Pay attention Scotland. If this is happening to projects in English waters (where it’s cheaper and easier to build a wind farm) then most of the Scottish pipeline is simply not going to happen. SNP rhetoric around the economic opportunity of renewables is dangerously deluded.

It's impossible to say this often enough. Many people feel worse off (and not just financially) now than a year ago. Work out what you can do to make life feel less of a battle for people relying on public services.

"This clip absolutely rinses the intelligence impairment of Farage. Well done, Trade Union. #ukpolitics

❤️‍🩹 | NEW REPORT: Voters want bold action on health – and don’t see it as 'nanny statism'. Our new research with Public First shows that smarter public health policy isn’t just good for the nation – it could be a vote-winner too.

www.ippr.org/articles/the...

Well done!

It's 250 Years Since The American Revolution Started What the Redcoats thought of the rebels

The American War of Independence began 250 years ago today. What did those redcoats say about the rebels in their private letters and journals? Here’s your weekend read markurban.substack.com/p/its-250-ye...

Not clear what the evidence is for this.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult to help people understand what LAs do/don’t do or local democracy generally, but I have tried and it’s an uphill task. Is it boring, gloomy or is it a deep alienation as people have accumulated many adverse experiences of failure and decline.

Thanks for reminding me of this. I will reread this magical book. I cant remember if it was Virago or Women’s Press who reprinted it, probably in the 80s. Off to look it out.

Obviously things have got dramatically worse in the US recently, and I don't want to diminish that, but I've been at *so many* conferences in the UK on topics like empire, humanitarianism and development where multiple speakers from the Global South have been denied visas or held at the border

Russian missile strike kills at least 31 in Ukrainian city of Sumy Volodymyr Zelenskyy says dozens killed and wounded on ‘ordinary city street’ while going to church for Palm Sunday

At least 31 civilians slaughtered by two Russian ballistic missiles in Sumy's city centre as people headed to church for Palm Sunday.

2 of the dead are children.

Putin's deadly strikes haven't stopped.

His commitment to war is ongoing, savage & shameless.

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Selkirk church kitchen expansion starts £2m overhaul plans A Borders church needs more room to cope with growing numbers at lunch clubs and coffee mornings.

A lovely story from just down the road from us, but I feel the crux of what is happening isn't fully explored. This is a church turning itself into a much-needed community centre at a time when public funds for such centres are being cut. It is charity meeting a need created by government failure.

Comment: Trump new world order brings Orwell’s 1984 dystopia to life Trump tariffs are ultimately about political power, not economics

Just about every economist has explained why Trump's tariffs are irrational, if considered in economic terms. But Trump's tariffs are about political power, not economics. This is the protectionism of the protection racket. My Eastern Eye column this week
www.easterneye.biz/donald-trump...

Yet another SNP minister repeats the lie that the SCP is lifting children out of poverty. The child poverty rate in Scotland is static. I fully support the SCP, it is contributing to keeping more children from going into poverty, but it is NOT lifting them out. ScotGov MUST stop lying about this.