Latest editorial
Tenement flats along Comely Bank in Edinburgh, September 22 ,2020
SCOTTISH LABOUR has joined calls for tougher action on Scotland’s thousands of empty homes.
Their number has grown by 70 per cent since 2014 to 27,280 in 2023 while 32,240 households — including 16,263 children — languish in homelessness.
The data from the Scottish Parliament’s public information service emerged after a year that has seen several councils declare a housing emergency as they wrestle with a staggering 110,000 households on waiting lists for social housing, and 15,039 households with a record 9,595 children in temporary accommodation.
Our housing crisis isn’t an accident – it’s class war, trapping millions in poverty while landlords and billionaires profit. To solve it, we need comprehensive transformation, not mere tokenistic reform, writes BECK ROBERTSON
GLYN ROBBINS celebrates how tenant-led campaigning forced the government to drop Pay to Stay, fixed-term tenancies and council home sell-offs under Cameron — but warns that Labour’s faith in private developers will require renewed resistance