Description
Book SynopsisDid Scotland’s rough wind become something more after the referendum, as so many hoped it would, or did it blow itself out? What power can pessimism have in a nation of newfound self-confidence?
A generation ago, the socialist poet Hamish Henderson forecast that ‘mair nor a roch wind’ - more than a rough wind - would rush through the great glen of the world as empires and nations collapsed. In Roch Winds, three young radicals pick through the rubble left in the wake of the storm that propelled the Scottish National Party into a position of unprecedented political dominance in Scotland.
This darkly humorous book dissects the rise of the SNP and the fall of Labour during the months leading up to 2014 Independence Referendum and beyond. Drawing on their involvement in the Yes campaign for independence and the Labour Party, the authors cast their eyes to Scotland’s future and to radical horizons. Fluent, funny and full of fighting talk, this book is for everyone who has ever wondered what lies behind the tartan curtain of Scotland’s new establishment.
Trade ReviewAn engagingly original challenge to received wisdom, be it left or right, nationalist or unionist. – David Torrance
Scotland needs this book like a hole in the head. – Colin Kidd
Table of ContentsForeword by Scott Hames
Acknowledgements
Introduction: How Scotland Got Carried Away
Stop the world, Scotland wants to get off
Classified
Dissecting the body politic
At hame wi freedom
Chapter 1: Raising the Tartan Curtain
Comrade Khrushchev goes to Disneyland
Casting the establishment
The cage for left-wing nationalism
Yes Swampland
Revelations
Lights out
Chapter 2: Labour Loses its Head
Better (all go down) together
One notion Labour
Living in the ruin
The last Keynesians
Doing the same thing over
Chapter 3: The Scottish Ideology
Streams of social consciousness
Coming of age
The chronicles of Nairnia
Stars align
Kirstification
Scotopia
Chapter 4: The Underground Current
Don’t stop digging
Look to Russia
Drink to the damned
Preach profanity
The cunning of treason
The blowout
Epilogue Unparliamentary Language
