Bill Speirs
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Bill Speirs
William MacLeod Speirs (8 March 1952 – 23 September 2009) was a Scottish trade union leader, a socialist and internationalist. He was General Secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress. Speirs was a key figure in left-wing Scottish politics, chairing the Scottish council of the Labour party at the 1987 general election, and being a prominent member of various groups of the Bennite left, e.g. the Labour Co-ordinating Committee and Scottish Labour Action. Speirs was also a high-profile advocate of Scottish devolution, e.g. he was instrumental in the creation of Scotland United, was a member of the Scottish Constitutional Convention, and was a member of the group that drafted the key document Scotland's Parliament, Scotland's Right in 1995 Early life, education and work Bill Speirs was born in Dumbarton and grew up in Renfrew. He went to school at the John Neilson Institution in Paisley and took a first class honours degree in Politics as the University of Strathclyd ...
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Dumbarton
Dumbarton (; also sco, Dumbairton; ) is a town in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland, on the north bank of the River Clyde where the River Leven flows into the Clyde estuary. In 2006, it had an estimated population of 19,990. Dumbarton was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Strathclyde, and later the county town of Dunbartonshire. Dumbarton Castle, on top of Dumbarton Rock, dominates the area. Dumbarton was a Royal burgh between 1222 and 1975. Dumbarton emerged from the 19th century as a centre for shipbuilding, glassmaking, and whisky production. However these industries have since declined, and Dumbarton today is increasingly a commuter town for Glasgow east-southeast of it. Dumbarton F.C. is the local football club. Dumbarton is home to BBC Scotland's drama studio. History Dumbarton history goes back at least as far as the Iron Age and probably much earlier. It has been suggested that in Ancient Rome, Roman times Dumbarton was the "place of importance" named as Alauna in ...
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University Of Strathclyde
The University of Strathclyde ( gd, Oilthigh Shrath Chluaidh) is a public research university located in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1796 as the Andersonian Institute, it is Glasgow's second-oldest university, having received its royal charter in 1964 as the first technological university in the United Kingdom. Taking its name from the historic Kingdom of Strathclyde, it is Scotland's third-largest university by number of students, with students and staff from over 100 countries. The institution was named University of the Year 2012 by Times Higher Education and again in 2019, becoming the first university to receive this award twice. The annual income of the institution for 2019–20 was £334.8 million of which £81.2 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £298.8 million.. History The university was founded in 1796 through the will of John Anderson, professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, who left i ...
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2009 Deaths
This is a list of deaths of notable people, organised by year. New deaths articles are added to their respective month (e.g., Deaths in ) and then linked here. 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 See also * Lists of deaths by day The following pages, corresponding to the Gregorian calendar, list the historical events, births, deaths, and holidays and observances of the specified day of the year: Footnotes See also * Leap year * List of calendars * List of non-standard ... * Deaths by year {{DEFAULTSORT:deaths by year ...
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Grahame Smith
Grahame Thomas Smith (born 8 January 1959) is a Scottish people, Scottish former trade unionist, who served as General Secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC). Education Smith attended Bishopbriggs High School, which merged into Bishopbriggs Academy, between 1971 and 1977. He is a graduate of Strathclyde University, where he obtained an Honours Degree in Economics and Industrial Relations. References External linksAddress by Grahame Smith, STUC 9 July 2009.STUC webpage
1959 births Living people People educated at Bishopbriggs High School Alumni of the University of Strathclyde General Secretaries of the Scottish Trades Union Congress Commanders of the Order of the British Empire {{UK-trade-unionist-bio-stub ...
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Cathy Peattie
Cathrine "Cathy" Peattie (born 24 November 1951, Grangemouth, Falkirk) is a Scottish Labour Party politician. She was the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Falkirk East constituency from the 1999 Scottish Parliament election until the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, when she was defeated by Angus MacDonald of the Scottish National Party (SNP). Peattie served as chair of the Scottish Labour Party from 2019 to 2020, with her daughter Cara Hilton Cara Laura Hilton (born 1975) is a Scottish Labour politician, who was the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Dunfermline from 2013 to 2016. Political career Hilton was the Labour candidate at the Dunfermline by-election on 20 Oc ... serving as vice-chair during her time in the office and succeeding her as chair. References External links * Cathy Peattienew site for 2011 election News from Cathy Peattiewordpress blog 1951 births Living people People from Grangemouth Labour MSPs ...
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Morning Star (British Newspaper)
The ''Morning Star'' is a left-wing British daily newspaper with a focus on social, political and trade union issues. Originally founded in 1930 as the ''Daily Worker'' by the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), ownership was transferred from the CPGB to an independent readers' co-operative in 1945. The paper was then renamed and reinvented as the ''Morning Star'' in 1966. The paper describes its editorial stance as in line with ''Britain's Road to Socialism'', the programme of the Communist Party of Britain. During the Cold War, the paper gave a platform to whistleblowers exposing numerous war crimes and atrocities, including publishing proof that the British military were allowing Dayak auxiliaries to headhunt suspected MNLA guerrillas in the Malayan Emergency, publishing evidence of the use of biological weapons by the United States during the Korean War, and revealing the existence of mass graves of civilians killed by the South Korean government. The ''Mornin ...
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The Scotsman
''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its parent company, JPIMedia, also publishes the ''Edinburgh Evening News''. It had an audited print circulation of 16,349 for July to December 2018. Its website, Scotsman.com, had an average of 138,000 unique visitors a day as of 2017. The title celebrated its bicentenary on 25 January 2017. History ''The Scotsman'' was launched in 1817 as a liberal weekly newspaper by lawyer William Ritchie and customs official Charles Maclaren in response to the "unblushing subservience" of competing newspapers to the Edinburgh establishment. The paper was pledged to "impartiality, firmness and independence". After the abolition of newspaper stamp tax in Scotland in 1855, ''The Scotsman'' was relaunched as a daily newspaper priced at 1d and a circul ...
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The Herald (Glasgow)
''The Herald'' is a Scottish broadsheet newspaper founded in 1783. ''The Herald'' is the longest running national newspaper in the world and is the eighth oldest daily paper in the world. The title was simplified from ''The Glasgow Herald'' in 1992. Following the closure of the ''Sunday Herald'', the ''Herald on Sunday'' was launched as a Sunday edition on 9 September 2018. History Founding The newspaper was founded by an Edinburgh-born printer called John Mennons in January 1783 as a weekly publication called the ''Glasgow Advertiser''. Mennons' first edition had a global scoop: news of the treaties of Versailles reached Mennons via the Lord Provost of Glasgow just as he was putting the paper together. War had ended with the American colonies, he revealed. ''The Herald'', therefore, is as old as the United States of America, give or take an hour or two. The story was, however, only carried on the back page. Mennons, using the larger of two fonts available to him, put it in t ...
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Campaign For Socialism
Campaign for Socialism (CfS) is an autonomous pressure group of Scottish Labour Party members and supporters who campaign for left-wing policies and candidates within the party. In 2016, CfS agreed to a joint membership scheme with Momentum, a UK-wide grassroots movement supportive of Jeremy Corbyn and his leadership of the Labour Party. History CfS was originally established in 1994 to campaign against the removal of Clause IV from the Labour Party's constitution. By 2012, it was one of the only remaining ideological-based groupings in the party but Gerry Hassan and Eric Shaw, writing that year, claimed that CfS "has few members, little organisational presence and has had a negligible influence on the direction of the party". CfS played a key role in organising Neil Findlay and Katy Clark's leadership bid in the 2014 Scottish Labour leadership election. Though unsuccessful, CfS claims the campaign "built the foundations for Jeremy orbyns campaign just a few months later" by ...
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Clause IV
Clause IV is part of the Labour Party Rule Book, which sets out the aims and values of the (UK) Labour Party. The original clause, adopted in 1918, called for common ownership of industry, and proved controversial in later years; Hugh Gaitskell attempted to remove the clause following Labour's loss in the 1959 general election. In 1995, under the leadership of Tony Blair, a new Clause IV was adopted. This was seen as a significant moment in Blair's redefinition of the party as New Labour, but has survived beyond the New Labour branding. Text The original version of Clause IV was drafted by Sidney and Beatrice Webb in November 1917, and adopted by the party in 1918. It read, in part 4: This section was widely seen as the Labour Party's commitment to socialism, even though the word "socialism" is not explicitly mentioned. ''The Manchester Guardian'' heralded it as showing "the Birth of a Socialist Party", stating that: In 1918, nationalisation was seen by many voters as aki ...
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Scottish Labour Party
Scottish Labour ( gd, Pàrtaidh Làbarach na h-Alba, sco, Scots Labour Pairty; officially the Scottish Labour Party) is a social democratic political party in Scotland. It is an autonomous section of the UK Labour Party. From their peak of holding 56 of the 129 seats at the first Scottish parliament election in 1999, the Party has lost seats at each Holyrood election, returning 22 MSPs at the 2021 election. The party currently holds one of 59 Scottish seats in the UK House of Commons, with Ian Murray having represented Edinburgh South continuously since 2010. Throughout the later decades of the 20th century and into the first years of the 21st, Labour dominated politics in Scotland; winning the largest share of the vote in Scotland at every UK general election from 1964 to 2010, every European Parliament election from 1984 to 2004 and in the first two elections to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 and 2003. After this, Scottish Labour formed a coalition with the ...
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Labour Students
Labour Students is a student organisation within the Labour Party of the United Kingdom. It is a network of affiliated college and university clubs, known as Labour Clubs, who campaign in their campuses and communities for Labour's values of equality and social justice. Labour Students’ main activities include providing political education and training to its members, sending activists to by-elections and marginal constituencies across the country and organising politically within the National Union of Students and Student Unions. Labour Students was disaffiliated from the Labour Party by the Party's National Executive Committee in September 2019, with the intent of replacing it with a new student organisation. Although campaigning activity continued to be organised under the Labour Students branding during the 2019 general election, the organisation subsequently ceased to exist. A new, refounded Labour Students was passed at the 2021 Labour Party Conference. National Co ...
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