“In a word gripped by a pandemic, economic crisis, climate change and intensifying geopolitical rivalries, the whole conversation around the veracity of small, independent, self-sustaining nations will transform.”
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“The idea of a guaranteed income has gone from the cranky flagship proposal of eccentric Democratic candidate Andrew Yang to a concrete proposal in an editorial of the Financial Times, the paper of the global banking elite, in a matter of months.”
UBI: An idea whose time has come?
“In a word gripped by a pandemic, economic crisis, climate change and intensifying geopolitical rivalries, the whole conversation around the veracity of small, independent, self-sustaining nations will transform.”
Jonathon Shafi: The independence movement will rise to meet this crisis – but to do so, it must change
“When the wellbeing of your country is at the whim of rich governments and financiers, you often don’t have a back-up plan. You try and get on with things the best you can. By cancelling this year’s debt in order to give these countries a fighting chance, it will be a step forward in taking on the unsustainable debt crisis worldwide.”
Pete Carson: A Debt Jubilee will set up the global South for recovery from Covid-19
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson in intensive care with Covid-19 should be a wake-up call to anyone who still needed one about just how dangerous this virus really is. Johnson is not of pensioner age – he’s just 55 years old. We must do everything we can to suppress this virus; no life is worth […]
Take care of the carers
“Scotland is uniquely placed to produce hydrogen at scale much cheaper and efficiently than most other countries.”
Gordon Morgan: The necessity of a Scottish hydrogen strategy
It’s there in black and white on the Scottish Government website: ‘People should avoid travelling unless it is essential…This guidance is for people planning to visit second homes…”. That the Chief Medical Officer Catherine Calderwood broke that rule not once but twice is very bad. But the government mishandling thereafter raises more questions than the […]
A tortuous Sunday
“If the festivals return to business as usual in 2021, complete with the same bad bosses, lousy wages and illegal working practices, with corners cut and conditions worsened in a mad drive for profit to make up for the losses faced this year, all efforts made to help them now will ring hollow.”
Sean Bell: When Edinburgh’s festivals return, priorities must change
Let’s develop a little scorecard on where we are with the economic measures in the UK and Scotland to cope with our new pandemic-world. For corporations, we have 80 per cent of the wages they owe workers affected by Covid-19 covered by government. That’s a significant drop in their costs, overnight. For banks, we have […]
The bailout scorecard
There may be a lockdown but some communities are stronger than ever.
Covid-19: Community in Crisis
“If politicians start talking about the post-virus priority being to get you all back to the shopping malls, then let’s use that 2021 election to tell them we want a better and more resilient society at the end of this.”
Robin McAlpine: When this is done, let’s build a resilient society
There are worrying signs about the UK’s Covid-19 trajectory. The UK’s death toll is now higher than Italy’s was at this stage, and is following the US in accelerating when other countries were by now seeing the rate of increase slowing. ITV Political Editor Robert Peston responded to that fact by stating plainly: “This is […]
The (lack of) testing scandal
Food. Everyone needs it. It’s one of those universal essentials that goes on regardless of a pandemic. But most of us are so used to getting it on our plate that we don’t worry about it how it got there, and whether the mechanisms which led it to get there are resilient. There is growing […]