Book review: When the Clyde Ran Red, by Maggie Craig

The election of 1922 saw “the Red Clydesiders sweep into Westminster”, seen off at St Enoch’s station by a huge crowd, estimated by some at 100,000. It was a very different Scotland from ours today. A choir sang not only The Red Flag but also Jerusalem and the 124th Psalm, which, oddly, Maggie Craig quotes in the form given in the Authorised Version of the Bible rather than that of the Scottish Metrical Psalter. It was a highly emotional occasion, but “these were no Red revolutionaries or dangerous Bolsheviks. This was all about using democracy and the parliamentary process to get into Westminster and start reforming the system from within.” If there had ever been a moment – Craig doubts if there was – when violent revolution was possible in Scotland, it had already gone.