Scotland

Political prediction is a risky business at any time, but at the moment the odds favour a Scottish independence referendum taking place according to the timetable set by the SNP-run devolved Scottish government - two years from now in the autumn of 2014. What is not yet clear is the exact nature of the question or questions that will be asked and who will be allowed to vote. In the present circumstances members and supporters of the Socialist Workers Party in Scotland will be arguing and campaigning for a vote for independence.

Back in February Glasgow Rangers Football Club entered administration. The administrators claimed there were short-term problems and the club would be back to normal shortly. In the period since there have been almost daily revelations about toxic bank debt, tax avoidance, cheating on the football field and legal investigations that may result in charges of fraud and corruption. On 14 June Rangers' creditors refused to accept the administrators' offer of a 3p payment for every pound owed. The result was the liquidation of the club. How did this happen?

Echoing Woody Guthrie's famous anthem, Salmond went out of his way to welcome new Italian, Pakistani and Middle Eastern members of the Scottish Parliament, saying, "This land is their land...it belongs to all who choose to call it home. This includes new Scots who have escaped persecution or conflict in Africa or the Middle East...We offer a hand to all, whether they hail from England, Ireland, Pakistan or Poland."

Whatever disagreements we may have with his interpretation of events, there is no doubt that Isaac Deutscher's major works are great literary achievements which helped keep alive a critical approach to the Russian Revolution in the darkest days of the Cold War.

Neil Davidson's new book has sparked debate on the Scottish left. It covers the period when Scotland moved from a backward feudal society to one of the most dynamic centres of emergent capitalism - a bourgeois revolution that most historians fail to recognise.