Rethinking our Politics

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About the Book: 

As the Scotland electorate wakes up in the day after the referendum, everything has changed and nothing has changed. Scottish and UK politics is broken, it desperately needs fixed. The future of Scotland will be centre stage, but so will our democracy and the future of a Union in decline.

Our politics once again needs to inspire, enthuse, educate and be relevant to the needs and aspirations of the public and reconnect with the values that underpin our society. There are urgent issues that we need to deal with now – the most important of which being rampant inequality. We have to move away from the mindless tribalism and partisanship that too often dominates much of what passes as political debate.

Over the past year it has become clear that regardless of their stance on the referendum debate, the Scottish people are united on one front, the yearning for change for the betterment of their nation, their institutions and their politics. For McLeish, the referendum debate is merely the beginning. It is a symptom of the need for a more fundamental shift in the way we engage with politics in the UK and Scotland today.

Former First Minister of Scotland, Henry McLeish is well placed to diagnose the crisis at the heart of Scotland and UK politics. In Rethinking Our Politics McLeish looks critically at the conditions which have created an increasingly divided and alienated public and forged Scotland’s yearning for radical change. He rails against the stagnation of the union and makes a rousing and persuasive case for a complete overhaul of our political thinking, demanding that instead of making decisions on the basis of fear and insecurity, we rediscover the founding moral purpose of government.

This is a must read for those who care about the future of our nation.

About the Author:

RT HON HENRY McLEISH began his political career as an elected member in local government in 1974, and was leader of Fife Regional Council for five years. In 1987 he was elected as a member of the UK Parliament and acted as Minister for Devolution and Home Affairs in the Labour government from 1997 to 1999. In the first Scottish Parliament he was Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning from 1999, and in 2000 he became First Minister of Scotland until 2001. Retiring from politics in 2003, he is now an adviser, consultant, writer author and broadcaster and lectures in the USA and elsewhere on the European Union and politics.