Common Weal director Robin McAlpine looks at the broad sweep of the Programme for Government on Source here. There will also be a further, more detailed policy analysis published on the site later today. In short, the Programme was a bit of a pre-election teaser. There’s not a lot of heavy lifting going on in terms […]
Lockdown
“The central green commitment of the Scottish Government’s economic recovery plan is an auction block of Scotland’s resources in the form of a Green Investment Portfolio.”
Analysis: The ‘Zealots’ and the Great Scottish Green Energy Auction
Usually on Source Direct we give focused news analysis on one main item, but there are so many things going on in Scottish politics right now we are going to give you a brief snapshot of several different issues today. 1) Economic Recovery report response: Remember Bennie Higgins’ Economic Recovery advisory report for Scottish Government Ministers? […]
Multiple-fronts of Scottish politics: a snapshot
“Let’s raise a toast to all those new homeworkers who have kept our country going since lockdown started, let’s reward them by making it a legal right to do what they have been doing throughout this crisis.”
Keith Baker: Why homeworking must become a right
The Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival is currently taking place online, and yesterday I watched ‘Riptide’, a film produced and directed by Tim Barrow, one of our Source Direct subscribers. It is a story about Jacob, living in Edinburgh and suffering from schizophrenia. He falls in love with another schizophrenic person, and what follows is a […]
Confront the structural forces inducing individualism and social isolation
“If there is a solution to the problems of arts funding, it will involve more than a handout from Boris Johnson, or the wisdom of Creative Scotland.”
Sean Bell: If we purport to care about art, we must care about artists
Let’s start with the good news. One in every 200 tests are now coming back positive for Covid-19 in Scotland. From 32,021 tests in Scotland last week, 155 were positive, just 0.5 per cent. The WHO says tests should be delivering sub-5 per cent results for two weeks before lockdown easing measures are considered, so […]
Swinney’s gamble
“If the changes that have led to this new demand profile are good for renewable energy, are they good for people and society too, and if so, how can we encourage them to stick with us post-lockdown?”
Keith Baker: How should our approach to energy use change post-lockdown?
“What would it look like if we decided that our economy was no longer to be rigged in favour of folk who have benefited from its collapse?”
After lockdown, we must ask: who is the economy for anyway?
All Dominic Cummings needed was ‘plausible deniability’. In the world of sharply polarised political opinion, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s closest adviser, and a key strategic figure in the UK Government, didn’t need to be exonerated. He just needed […]