MAgazine
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.
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.
Building citizens for the age of infinite information
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.
Save the CCA for Artists
Guest writer Georgia Grainger calls for the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow to be retained as a cultural hub for artists via community ownership rather than being lost to the private sector.
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.
Defining the Right to Grow Old
The UN has started the early stages of what could become an international treaty on protecting the rights of older people. Scotland should be ready to help shape it, as well as to make sure that we live up to it.
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?
How to make the sun shine at night
Upcoming battery technology may well finally eliminate the last disadvantage of renewable energy and turn what has been an intermittent power source into a fully dispatchable one.
Don’t trash the court jester, face them instead
Some political commentators have decried the upcoming electoral battle between Nigel Farage and Count Binface as a farce that is demeaning to our democracy. Instead, we should see it as speaking truth to power where no-one else would.
A summer of sport: Why we should invest in the things that bring us together
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.
The SNP’s opportunism is naked when it comes to Andy Burnham’s decentralising agenda
Can sentencing reform solve Scotland’s prison overcrowding crisis?
Make It a Contract, Not a Gift
Guest writer Douglas Guy replies to Craig’s recent article on Zonal Pricing and our Daily Briefing on Data Centre politics by looking at the demand side of the equation and asks if data centres could be supported if they could meet conditions around ownership and environmental impact.
Retrofit is on a roll, Let’s keep the momentum going
Keith Baker gives us an update on the progress he’s making on helping to improve Scotland’s home energy efficiency standards by having the Scottish Government adopt principles that he and Common Weal have been pushing towards.
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.