MARY CONWAY revels in a powerful reminder that human lives are not defined by physical perfection
Who Stole the Town Hall? The End of Local Government As We Know It by Peter Latham (Policy Press, £12.99)
WITH startling clarity, Peter Latham exposes the moral bankruptcy of neoliberalism and the risks it poses to all of us in Who Stole the Town Hall?, which deconstructs the government’s strategy of dressing self-serving centralisation in the clothes of “localism.”
It considers too the perilous state of public services and the corrosive impact of outsourcing, with Latham’s central argument summarised in a hard-hitting introduction by Rodney Bickerstaffe, former general secretary of Unison.
Years of underfunding are eroding Scotland’s local services and deepening inequality in communities, says VINCE MILLS
LOTTE COLLETT welcomes the arrival of a new party for the left, a vehicle for councils to finally fight for progressive policies on housing, green spaces and public facilities, rather than administering cuts and misery from central government
Holding office in local government is a poisoned chalice for a party that bases its electoral appeal around issues where it has no power whatsoever, argues NICK WRIGHT


