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Ewan Gibbs

@ewangibbs.bsky.social

5.5K followers 1.3K following 2.1K posts

Historian of work, energy, industry and protest. Author of Coal Country. Now writing An Injury to All: The Unmaking of the British Working Class. Not getting that much more right wing as I get older.

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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · Nov 14

My book, Coal Country: The Meaning and Memory of Deindustrialization in Postwar Scotland is the first book-length account of the end of coal mining in Scotland through the memories of miners and their families. It is available to download for free on this link, or you can also buy paper copies.

Coal Country - University of London Press

The flooding and subsequent closure of Scotland’s last deep coal mine in 2002 brought a centuries long saga to an end. Villages and towns across the densely populated Central Belt owe their existence ...

uolpress.co.uk

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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 10h

A watching cat 🐈‍⬛

Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 23h

Running under the red sky 🏃‍♂️

Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 1d

I like this thinking. Edwin Chadwick, unwitting agent of the big state?

Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 1d

The Citizens theatre has reopened around the corner in the Gorbals. I'm hoping it'll lead to some Bretcht being performed. Would be particularly appropriate given the Red Clyde anti-war history around here too.

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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 1d

Passed some chancers with a load of half baked libertarian signs who had taken over a pedestrian crossing. One of them called for the restoration of small government and I was genuinely interested to know when they thought that had ended in Britain? I'm saying 1914.

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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 1d

I think these might be less mutually exclusive than first reading might suggest.

Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 2d

Back out running at my own much slower pace! 🏃‍♂️

Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 3d

Laura ran 10k in less than 45 minutes but I was there to carry the bags and take the pictures!

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Reposted by Ewan Gibbs

Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 5d

#OtD 3 Oct 1937 almost a year after their defeat at Cable St, Mosley's Blackshirts attempted to march through Bermondsey, South London. Met with strong local opposition and barricades in the streets, the march never arrived at its intended destination workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e35-...

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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 8d

First run in a long time which began before the sun had come up. Nice start to the day 🏃‍♂️

Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 9d

Does continuing to use a digital recorder for in person oral history interviews make me an old timer or are other folk still using them?

Reliable kit in my opinion!

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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 10d

I’m open to that but I’d suggest the case for the EU was British nationalist in character given it was often told through national interest, meeting national economic needs etc

Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 10d

Labour Party politics has certainly been powerfully shaped by forms of British nationalism from the party’s inception. Sometimes with complimentary Scottish, Welsh and English nationalism.

Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 10d

One of the most facile trends in politics is the pretence that ‘patriotism’ is good and harmless whilst ‘nationalism’ is negative and threatening.

I’d tend to argue nationalism is a much more specific term but also one that extends to a huge range of tendencies and political positions.

Peter Walker @peterwalker99.bsky.social · 10d

Streeting: “When I look at our main opponents at the next general election, I don't see a battle between left & right, I see a battle between right & wrong. I see a battle between progressives & reactionaries. I see a battle between patriots & nationalists. I see a battle between hope over hate.”

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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 10d

Run in the autumn sun 🌞 🍂 🏃‍♂️

Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 13d

This government by contrast feels embattled and reactive, but not just to the sort of external forces that have undone past Labour government eg international economic and political volatility. Instead it also seems boxed in by its own contradictions and the lack of will to take decisive measures.

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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 13d

Historic Labour governments and PMs had stories they told themselves and the country

Attlee 1945-51 - rebuilding the country and implementing the Beveridge report.

Wilson 1964-70 - modernising Britain on social democratic terms.

Blair 1997-2007 - embracing globalisation in a fair way for all.

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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 13d

I can't understand choosing to spend a huge majority and political capital on mandatory ID. If socialism is the language of priorities then Starmer's government has huge questions hanging over its choices. It also doesn't seem to have any story of what it's doing, just a series of ad hoc measures.

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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 13d

Good conditions for a morning run 🏃‍♂️

Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 14d

Probably did less societal damage

Reposted by Ewan Gibbs

Chris McCall @dennynews.bsky.social · 15d

Scots living in the most deprived parts of the country are 4.5 times more likely to drink themselves to death than those staying in the wealthiest areas.

Not a figure contained in the Scottish Government press release on the subject.

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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 15d

First run in a while which I began by seeing my breath in the air. 🏃‍♂️

Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 16d

The combined right-wing (Tory + Farage vote) has been around 50% in Britain for around 10 years already. Labour is banking on being able to mobilise the remaining voters horrified by the prospect of Farage becoming Prime Minister and a Reform government. That's becoming a taller order by the day.

Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 16d

Keir Starmer’s spokesperson asked for the PM's response to Nigel Farage’s plan to deport hundreds of thousands of people living and working completely legally in the UK, replies that he thinks it is “unworkable” and “unfunded”.

So his objection is that they’ve got their sums wrong

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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 17d

Autumn Clyde

📸 @duncs1875.bsky.social

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Ewan Gibbs @ewangibbs.bsky.social · 18d

We’ll assess this evening!