The Jubilee shows that Scotland and England seem to have a very different social contract with the state, with England’s deference contrasting with a more fundamental social democracy in Scotland. The Jubilee is over but the social question remains. How will the unionist-left resolve this?
It’s time to stop taking at face-value the idea that an independent Scotland would have ‘no option’ but to accept Sterling or the Euro as a currency. The independence debate could be quite different if supporters of independence would be less afraid of talking about the possibility.
The media always believes that what concerns it must concern us all. Twice recently it got this badly wrong – Iraq and the banking crisis where it simply failed to understand what was happening in the proportion of the world not made out of press releases. The navel-gazing over NATO and its difficulty in understand the Yes campaign launch suggest it may be starting to get things wrong again.
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’.