MAgazine
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.
How to solve Glasgow’s derelict buildings problem
Democracy runs on trust – and what happens when it breaks
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 SNP aren’t making the most of a golden opportunity
Why every war sounds the same
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.
How Scotland could start investing in ourselves
Economist Jim Osborne discusses how Local Government Pension Funds could be a key anchor of Community Wealth Building in Scotland
Immunity without accountability
Who gets to design our children’s minds?
The public and politics are at right angles; this missing concept explains it
Politics used to focus on people’s quality of life - and then it started counting up numbers instead. This more than anything explains the disconnect between people and politics.
Why regulating social media is now a public health imperative
Managing the numbers, not the causes
What is the point of a party manifesto these days?
Party political manifestos may seem like an old fashioned method of electoral campaigning in the era of targeted digital adverts, but that might well be why they are still important.
Decarceration without transformation
Scotland’s prison overcrowding crisis has prompted renewed calls to reduce short custodial sentences. But focusing on sentencing alone risks mistaking capacity management for structural reform. This piece examines why decarceration without social reinvestment cannot deliver lasting population change.
How to make people non-disposable
There is a tacit understanding right across politics that some people just count for less than others, and everyone knows it. Only a rethink of our democracy can resolve this.