MAgazine
WE must stop the Dark Triad or we’re Done for
There is a cluster of behaviours which have come to be known as the Dark Triad and they have overtaken the world. If we are to save ourselves we need to find ways to fight back.
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.
Borders are easy – but not necessarily simple
As Common Weal crowdfunds for our Prospectus for a New State, Craig examines one part of it to give a taste of what is to come.
We’ve been invaded - stop the bits!
There is a sudden, alarming rise in experts warning of an apocalyptic ending for our AI adventure in only a few years. It is only onerous example of why we literally can’t let tech sociopaths control our society, and why Scotland must act now
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.
John Swinney Is Acting Like a Climate Denier
John Swinney is actively lobbying for oil companies to get a tax cut so that they can make more money. This makes him more extreme on oil subsidies than vocal climate denier Donald Trump.
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.
Perhaps Scotland should take the dirty road
What if Scotland is deluding itself about its current state of development and what if countries we consider below us are more realistic? Does it suggest that we should take a less formal approach to solving our problems?
On a Reality-Based Security Strategy
As the UK gears up to strip public services to the point of causing active harm in order to fund an expansion of war against threats that cannot be named, perhaps we should be talking about the threats that can be named so that we can design a security strategy based on actual reality.
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 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.
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 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.