It’s easy for the left to pick fun at Boris Johnson’s attempt to harness former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt yesterday. The Prime Minister sought to channel FDR in a speech in Dudley, but announced just £5 billion of spending plans, which – as critics were quick to point out – was equivalent to £100 […]
Economics
“British politics is a sealed world of class privileged, containing the nexus of housing, financial and media connexions which, if we were at the other end of Europe, would be called the British oligarchy, or Apparat.”
David Jamieson: The Jenrick Affair is a window into the world of the British oligarchy
The national question is carrying all Scottish political forces on a journey, whether they want it or not.
Analysis: The runaway national question
Confucius said: “When words lose their meaning, people lose their freedom”. This may be over-doing it a little, but I know what he meant. Words are how we express the meaning in life, but if those words are degraded to the point that they don’t describe anything meaningful, then how do we express the truth? […]
When words lose their meaning
The economic crisis has brutally exposed Scotland’s ‘tourism and bust’ model of regional development.
Analysis: Scotland’s ‘tourism and bust’ economics need to change
In politics, the case rarely changes, only the basis for its justification. The economics of the union, for example, is made and re-made based on whatever policy the UK state happens to be pursuing at any given time. The ‘age of austerity’? Then focus on an independent Scotland’s prospective budget deficit, and suggest that a […]
The changing moods of unionist economics
Global stock markets have tumbled as evidence emerged that several US states which have re-opened are seeing rising cases of Covid-19. Stock markets don’t actually tell you much about what’s going on in the real economy, but it is a sign of just how precarious investors think economic recovery is, as it hinges on avoiding […]
Tear up the old economic rules
11 June is the final day for new applicants to be added to the UK Government’s furlough scheme. But a Tsunami of new job losses has arrived.
Analysis: The furlough scheme is coming to an end, but job losses aren’t
Do you know about the Covid Corporate Financing Facility? Well, don’t beat yourself up if the answer’s ‘no’, very few do. You’ll find it scarcely reported in today’s papers. In fact, the Bank of England at first wanted no one to know about it – they sought to give out public money to corporations in […]
The corporate bailout you’ve never heard of
“The extent of US influence engenders the most profound questions of democratic sovereignty, war and peace, and economic and social life. These questions are posed afresh by the post-Cold War decline of US hegemony and its always questionable moral authority. Is there a viable alternative to being a province of the empire?”