Who signed up to the squeeze?

In writing a fast budget analysis from my sickbed last week I omitted to include something which was important. It is important to explain what is the mechanism which is squeezing funding in Scotland and to ask who signed it off and why. To understand the problem it...

Electricity – what will Scotland do with it all?

Last week we covered probably the most difficult single task in delivering a proper Green New Deal for Scotland when we looked at decarbonising heating. This week is probably the easiest single thing to do – getting Scotland to zero-carbon electricity. Scotland really...

Clean heating ain’t easy – so make it good

First published by Common Weal As we reach the third week of Common Weal’s Our Common Home campaign we reach the part which gives people most difficulties – heating. It gives difficulties purely for one reason; there is no simple answer to the problem. We have...

Why is Scotland’s shipbuilding going so wrong?

The discussion about the root cause for the failure of Scotland to deliver two ferries on time has become a tussle between two competing media stories. On the one hand the Scottish Government wants us to believe it is almost wholly due to incompetence on the part of...

Does Scotland jail too many people?

Today the Council of Europe has issued its latest version of its annual snapshot of prison populations around Europe (the Prisons and Prisoners in Europe: 2021). It does not make pleasant reading for Scotland. The report covers the 47 European countries who...

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