MAgazine
Our economy is literally criminal
Why are convicted criminals at the heart of the financing and roll-out of AI? Because the global economy is based on practices which in any other realm would be a complex criminal conspiracy.
How taxing land can help us find out who owns land
One of the barriers to creating a land tax in Scotland is the fact that our Land Register is incomplete and we don’t know who owns Scotland. Instead of seeing it as a barrier though, it may be an opportunity to compel owners to properly value and register their land.
Resist Inflation Madness!
You have been trained to believe that inflation must be controlled with rises in interest rates. Now take two seconds to stop and ask why and you’ll start seeing just how nuts a lot of economics is.
Burnham’s National Care Service plans are a warning to the Scottish Government
The Scottish Government should adopt Andy Burnham’s approach to policy-making: to build up the detail of a proposal for change before setting the timeline to launching it.
The pension triple lock became a problem that a double lock won’t solve
Andy Burnham’s dropping of the state pension triple lock is an attempt to fix a perceived problem with the state pension that may involve asking the wrong question. His promise to use the savings to fund a National Care Service are even less clear.
Pay attention Scotland - we’re cutting our own throat
There are major developments in the global economy that ought to be influencing policy in Scotland. Instead we appear to be about to do precisely the opposite of what we should be learning, and we’ll pay a price for it.
The Programme for Government 2026
The first Programme for a newly elected government is a good time large ambitions. The ones included in this year’s PfG certainly are large, but not necessarily good.
That’s Plenty! The church of Jack and Victor
Politics tries to hide it but the only morality it is interested in these days is greed and avarice. It is this which has done endless damage and only a moral campaign can challenge it.
How to break an investment bank
Losses continue to mount at the Scottish National Investment Bank. This would not have been an existential problem had the Scottish Government followed our blueprint for the bank.
A simple proposal
Our world is becoming more complicated by design and it’s being done to exploit us. It is a time we fought back in favour of simplicity and systems we can actually understand - and trust.
Giving to those who already have
Why is the Scottish Government creating a housing subsidy it knows will mostly go to the wrong people? In Common this week argues strongly against another help to buy scheme.
Forget ‘opportunities’; what about lives?
Being young has never been easy but it used to be a transitionary stage towards a decent adult life. If that adult life is less and less available, what does our politics offer young people?
Bad economics lead to bad decisions…
Yet again we are being told that there are special economic laws which mean that there are perfect and imperfect tax rates. The theory concerned is highly flawed and it isn’t even showing the thing that it is claimed it is showing.
How to reform Council Tax and why we must
In our In Common column in The National this week, Craig discusses the warning shot fired at Andy Burnham this week in terms of Council Tax reform and how Scotland could go about revaluing every house in the country to allow for fair taxation.
Why Andy Burnham won’t reform Council Tax either
Andy Burnham was given a chance to make the most necessary reform of British taxes that he possibly could do. He declined. The reasons he did are the same as the reasons the Scottish Government haven’t reformed Council Tax either.
Everything wrong with the new 'Universities Defence Alliance'
In this week’s In Common, Rory Hamilton adds a new layer to the saga of university management in Scotland, where three leading Scottish universities have signed up to a charter which asks members to promote the defence industry to students and creates a dependent relationship between defence sector funding and university research priorities.
We failed to invest cleverly - can we learn?
Our failure to understand why China is so good at manufacturing is the failure that will stymie the Burnham Government and which is at the heart of Scotland’s weak government. Where you invest your money matters too much to be left to chance.
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 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.