MAgazine
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.
What freedom can't fix, hope can
Freedom is at times taken to be the ultimate goal of politics, but it is a corrosive idea that looks different from where you start. For a drug addict, the last thing you need is more freedom when what you really crave is peace.
The Case of the Election and the Disappearing Care Service
Nick Kempe looks at the party manifestos and asks why the main parties have retreated so far on their ambitions for care reform and a National Care Service
How Common is your manifesto?
Looking through some of the party manifestos to see where parties have adopted or are aligned with Common Weal’s policies as well as where they are working against them.
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.
Hold on, wait for it...
Our third economic crisis in rapid succession and an unhinged USA mean the time is ripe for major change. But if it is going to be positive change, the left have some important lessons to learn.
Freedom and the good stuff
There are a series of dogmas about choice and freedom which implies that they are the ultimate goal of human affairs. Well I’ve got a pair of jeans which suggests otherwise…
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.
If energy powers get devolved - what then?
Calling for more powers over energy to be devolved is one thing, but what is the Scottish Government’s plan for using them if they get them?
Is there a better way to debate?
While many people see the final debate on Assisted Dying as a great success, I beg to differ. Theatre doesn’t make good policy - so what does?
May 2026: The Age-Friendly Election?
Bill Johnston lays out his hope that the upcoming Scottish election will be an age friendly one, and gives you the tools to help make it happen.
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
If politicians can’t, let citizens who will
The failure of the Assisted Dying Bill this week has revealed the limits of the power of parliament to be able to pass important legislation even without the constraints of the party system. For Bills such as these, perhaps power should be returned to the people.
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.
Process over policy was never a route to Indy
The recent inquiry by the Scottish Parliament’s Constitution Committee into the lack of a legislative roadmap to independence told us little that Common Weal hadn’t already predicted. The real question is what to do about it.
Why you should learn the Iron Law of Oligarchy
All bureaucratic systems tend further and further towards centralised control, and there are no exceptions. The only protection against this are checks and balances, and the only protection for those comes from our determination to keep officials honest.
It’s a lack of will, not consensus, that prevents Council Tax reform
The Scottish Government’s failure to reform Council Tax has gone on far too long. It must be a defining mission of the next Parliament to reform it in the only fair way possible.