MAgazine
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.
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.
How to solve Renewable Constraint Payments
Taking inspiration from a policy in Sweden, it is possible that the UK could move away from the need to pay energy companies to turn off wind turbines when there’s too much wind.
Scotland's Seabed Is Worth More Than This
Guest writer Fraser Brydon looks at the projected rental income from ScotWind and how it compares to energy choices made by our neighbours.
Be angry – their stability is your chaos
You have heard politician after politician lauding the merits of 'stability', but have you ever stopped to ask what it is they want to be stable and for who? Once you realise the answer, your grocery bill (and starving children) make a lot more sense.
How the Scottish Government drove a wedge between care experts and the cared for
Mark Smith and Marion Macleod from Common Weal’s Care Reform Group discuss their latest academic paper on how the Scottish Government overused the “lived experience” of cared for people to shield themselves from expert advice about the National Care Service.
Workers aren’t lazy; they’re being left behind
Young workers are being told that the reason that the economy isn’t growing is because they are too lazy. There’s a lot to unpick about why this is entirely wrong.
Don’t imagine dinner, find a recipe
The Scottish Government is constantly getting lost in the long grass between its vague but ambitious aims and its lacklustre actions. The gap between these things can only be filled with a clear plan which contains analysis and objectives.
Why does the Government keep undermining its own policies?
The Scottish Government’s love of “arms-length” companies should be a strong tool for furthering mission-driven governance, but are often used merely to claim credit when things go well but deflect blame when they go badly.
Government must get its hands dirty
Common Weal could offer the incoming Scottish Government all the policy it needs, but its problem isn’t policy. Its problem is that it doesn’t have a theory of how government works so it doesn’t understand why it isn’t working just now.
How the average person killed politics
The ‘moderate centre’ is where almost all politicians think elections are won, yet new research shows that no-one wants moderate parties. The gap between is exactly where democracy has been dying.
It's time to be serious – Scotland needs partners
It seems like self-sabotage to have the chance of a major industrial plant in Scotland and to throw that chance away. It is time we were more aware of the reality of our position as a manufacturing nation and recognised that to develop, we can’t start from scratch.
A Strategy for Deliberative Democracy
Bill Johnston follows up his article from January on building the infrastructure we need to develop a truly deliberative democracy
A regulated economy is one that works for all of us
The “Red Tape” of regulations binds us for a reason. Cutting it too often just makes it easier for some to benefit from the cuts by making us pay for their failures.
A nation that can't take care of itself is a fool
If the economics of precarious supply chains and globalised risk is stuttering, what is the responsible thing for a nation state to do? The same as always – make sure it's people have what they need.
The economics which created our crisis can’t fix it
The latest war-driven global price panic is not an aberration but a constant state of being in the contemporary global economic. It is all so unstable that unless we take a new course, it will fall down sooner or later.
The UK Grid is changing - how it will affect Scotland?
Gordon Morgan of the Common Weal Energy Working Group looks at upcoming changes to the way the UK is managing the electrical grid and how the UK Government’s choices will affect Scotland.
We are all responsible for industrial scale child abuse
Our generation has betrayed our children and chosen our greed over their best interests. There is no ‘dealing with’ a childhood in crisis - we need to remove the cancer.
The New National Housing Agency must serve people, not profit
Common Weal celebrates the Scottish Government’s support for our policy of creating a National Housing Agency. We will now campaign to make sure that it is done properly.
The economic case for renewable energy is now unstoppable
While the environmental case for renewable energy has been clear for decades, the economic case for investing in renewables to the exclusion of fossil fuels has now been decisively made.