The 61st episode of the Scottish Independence Podcast comes from a speech made at the Radical Independence Conference by Professor Ailsa McKay, who recently passed away.

Ailsa was recommended to me on three separate occasions as someone who I should try to get onto the show. I tried to get in touch but was obviously unaware of her illness.

Nevertheless, the aforementioned speech she made was available and I decided to put it out as an MP3 so that it might reach some people who didn't see it there.

It's certainly worth it.

Some of the work she did in her life is described on her Wikipedia page.

"McKay was Reader in Gender and Economics until her 2011 appointment as Professor of Economics at Glasgow Caledonian University. She also served as Vice Dean of the Glasgow School for Business and Society until 2013. She specialized in gender inequalities and the economics of the welfare state, and served as a consultant to the Scottish Parliament, the Irish Government, Her Majesty's Treasury, and the United Nations Development Programme. Since 2006, she held the visiting chair in gender studies at the Complutense University of Madrid, and was invited as an expert witness to give evidence during the budget process to the Scottish Parliament and the Parliament of Canada. She was a leading authority on gender budget analysis in the United Kingdom. She was also a business commentator for The Herald newspaper. In 2012 she was appointed by the Scottish Government as a member of the Expert Working Group on Welfare and Constitutional Reform."

Hope you enjoy.