MAgazine
The SNP’s opportunism is naked when it comes to Andy Burnham’s decentralising agenda
Can sentencing reform solve Scotland’s prison overcrowding crisis?
Make It a Contract, Not a Gift
Guest writer Douglas Guy replies to Craig’s recent article on Zonal Pricing and our Daily Briefing on Data Centre politics by looking at the demand side of the equation and asks if data centres could be supported if they could meet conditions around ownership and environmental impact.
Retrofit is on a roll, Let’s keep the momentum going
Keith Baker gives us an update on the progress he’s making on helping to improve Scotland’s home energy efficiency standards by having the Scottish Government adopt principles that he and Common Weal have been pushing towards.
Performative Cruelty over asylum hurts all of us
The UK Government has announced new policies of further restricting the right to asylum in order to appease a far right who will never think they’ve gone far enough.
Life After Oligarchy
Oligarchs are now our greatest threat and they are out of control. The only hope for the good society is to build a world beyond their reach.
The gender pay gap in care tells us a lot about how we value work
Where now for informed citizenship post-Election?
Bill Johnston returns for the third part in his series on deliberative democracy with a call for a more informative and more collaborative media environment.
The Climate Emergency is Uninsurable
A new report from Moody’s warns that the impact of the climate emergency is proving so hard predict that the losses and damage caused by it are increasingly difficult to insure.
You can't reform oligarchs – we have to walk away
I retain the strong view that almost everyone is still greatly underestimating the power and control the US oligarchs have over our lives. Win or lose, it looks like they will destroy our standard of living so we should opt out of their rigged game right now.
Despite the challenges, football can still unite us
The World Cup shows much of the worst about football - along with much of the best. It may be captured by big business and political agendas, but so long as kids can kick a can in a playground, it remains our game.
Terrorists, troublemakers, and the winners of history
When child protection fails
Our public services: Subject to United States jurisdiction
Guest writer Douglas Guy explores how a U.S. government order to Anthropic exposed the fragility of digital sovereignty, arguing that Scotland’s key public systems, built on platforms like Amazon Web Services, sit under foreign jurisdiction with little scrutiny or an exit plan.
Why you should Get to grips with data centre politics
The backlash against data centres is only just reaching the UK but it would be a big mistake to mistake this for ‘just more Nimbyism’. Unless you understand what is different about this backlash you will miss one of the most significant things happening in politics right now.
Scotland’s Women’s health crisis was predicted
How Scottish politics got stuck in the mud
Guest writer Stuart Donald, author of a recent paper published in Compass and previous guest on the Common Weal Policy Podcast, looks at last month’s Scottish election results through the lens of his research into proportional democracy
Who Watches the Watchdogs?
Scotland’s Information Commission is doing a power of work to keep Government accountable. But there is a vulnerability in the system where the Government may try to defund organisations that become too effective at their job.
Round ’em up, boys! Are we glyphosatiated yet?
Things could get really scary, so why aren’t we preparing?
Is the Western economy on the brink of a worrying collapse? There are different views on this, but there is enough real world evidence to suggest our failure to prepare could be something we seriously regret.