Supporters of independence have not come up with compelling answers on the question of currency and its implications for monetary policy. But if supporters of the union think their case for our influence over monetary policy is any more persuasive they are wrong.
Read More »Is someone offering us a democratic monetary policy?
Both Creative Scotland’s decision to further marketise the arts in Scotland and Michael Moore’s assumption that lack of neoliberal support for the Yes campaign is a weakness show how much the political mind remains captured. You don’t have to support the Yes campaign to take heart in an alternative voice.
Read More »Creative Scotland and Moore shows how deep is the ‘IMF of the Mind’
Some people have argued that the NATO row is obscure and pointless. But this policy will potentially define Scotland’s future and define what kind of political party the SNP is. These things matter.
The Scottish system of justice needs to be looked at. We should stat with Lockerbie and work our way forwards from there. Until we do we should not consider piecemeal changes to the very meaning of justice.
Read More »Expedience should neither help the law nor protect it
It looks like an anti-NATO victory over possible SNP policy change. This shows the left that it has genuine power, but we need to realise that this puts Scotland on the front line of London’s drive to ensure military hegemony.
The real value of jobs is in distributing wealth around society, not in providing a fig-leaf for the same business elite which trashed the economy. Low-pay, part-time, insecure jobs are nothing to celebrate and politicians should not get away with it.
It is possible both to argue that minimum pricing for alcohol is entirely right but that it is just only if we see it as part of a proper social contract. If the governing classes keep imposing policies on the poor but never for the poor, what we get is ‘minimum society’.
The power motive in the local government carve-up seems to be misunderstood, but the outcome is still a dangerous game for a LabourParty which has been revelling in the SNP’s own dangerous games.
Read More »It may be power not politics, but it’s still a dangerous game
An electoral system that ‘gives’ you councillors you don’t really want via a barely-proportional system no-one understands, and one that seems to favour candidates who come first alphabetically and can easily result in councillors with little link to you or your concerns cannot be a good system. The Single Transferrable Vote should be replaced, and with haste.
Read More »STV stinks (the electoral system, not the TV station)
The ‘political class’ has got to give up on its lazy recourse of blaming ‘apathy’ for low turnout. People turn out when they think they can make a difference. In most communities they know they can’t. So blame the system, not the people.