MAgazine
Information is still not free enough
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Escaping the bonds of bonds
The world has passed a tipping point and we can no longer see bond markets as facilitating democracy. They are an active threat to democracy and we need to disempower them.
Solidarity is dangerous
The power of the efforts to break the blockade of Gaza is seen as an act of futility by some. It isn’t; it’s an act of solidarity and it is powerful because of that.
An Illusionary Convention
John Swinney is proposing a ‘constitutional convention’, but what he is proposing is no such thing. Understanding the original Constitutional Convention offers a real way forward for independence.
The one Keir Starmer policy I want to see implemented in Scotland
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If you want to end homelessness, give people a home
A new study from the Social Market Foundation presents the results of several Housing First pilot schemes, including one in Scotland, and finds that providing free housing to people suffering homelessness results in better outcomes than current services and is cheaper than not doing it.
How to recapture public land
We need to reverse the subtle incremental transfer of land from the commons to the private sector. A way to do that is through a system of land default
How the EPC system makes building eco-houses harder
A guest article from supporter Michael Breslin on how his attempt to build an eco-house was penalised by the broken Energy Performance Certificate system.
This is a warning
We take modern digital connectivity for granted - too for granted. We are woefully ill-prepared for inevitable and possibly catastrophic outages.
Three years of learning
Moral Outrage - and rightly so
How to lose friends and alienate people
Politicians can't stop convincing themselves that working for commercial interests is actually working for the public good. The contradiction between what they think and what we think is undermining democracy.
Money for nothing is why we’re screwed
The expectation that every investment must automatically offer enormous returns has bent global economic policy round its fingers. But guaranteed returns are why the West is in so much trouble.
Still getting heating policy wrong
The Scottish Government is creating a system which will punish the little guy but let the big guy off the hook. It really ought to be the other way round.
Rolling the dice with housing-again
Will Britain never understand the difference between making housing affordable and subsidising unaffordable housing to prop up the profits of developers? Apparently not...
Rolling the dice with housing-again
Will Britain never understand the difference between making housing affordable and subsidising unaffordable housing to prop up the profits of developers? Apparently not...
Scotland has no controlling intellect
Why does it feel like things in Scotland aren’t designed to work? It’s because they’re not designed to work by a person who cares, they’re designed to make profit by a bunch of people who don’t.
Four Ideas for Housing Scotland
Lessons from New York
Democratic Socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani comfortably beat out billionaire-backed billionaire Andrew Cuomo, by 56% to 44% in the final round after vote transfers. Unlike Cuomo, his campaign centred around clearly articulated demands that reflected the needs of the people of New York.
What I learned from the school that made my children
My last child leaves primary school and it gives me a moment to reflect on what our little rural primary school has achieved. There are lessons to be learned for all public policy.
