MAgazine
Farewell Auld Reekie, onwards the dear green place
Rory Hamilton says his non-New Year’s resolution to carry something forward from 2025 into 2026 and to leave something behind in 2025 is no better embodied than in his moving from Edinburgh to Glasgow.
Approaching 2026 with hope
This year has been a dark one, but I approach next year with hope because we’re now seeing how powerful we really are.
2025 - Common Weal’s Year in Policy
Craig runs through Common Weal’s policy library to show off everything we’ve published this year, just in case you’ve missed a paper or two and would like to see them.
How the basic building blocks of health and care services are being outsourced
Nick Kempe reveals how fundamentals of healthcare that should have been under the control of patients and the National Care Service are instead being outsourced to private companies.
I want to choose a different modernity
Modern life truly is rubbish, and it is a state of affairs none of us chose. It is time to believe that we can chose a different modernity, one that works for us.
How can you wash your hands when this happens to us?
Temoka Melindo (Moka) is a student at Glasgow Caledonian University and now lives in Scotland as a climate refugee. She tells her story and asks how we can sit around and watch this happen to families like hers and still do nothing.
It’s time to stop lobbyists
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This Skye wind farm fight shows Scotland's national energy injustice
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Chatbots Vs Democracy
Craig’s encounter with an AI chatbot feeding him false information about a Scottish political party and what that did to alert him to another threat from AI to our democracy.
Why this sport's in a perilous position in Scotland
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Information is still not free enough
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The Energy Postcode Lottery? We already have one
Gordon Morgan from the Common Weal Energy Working Group discusses the recent decision by the UK Government to reject “zonal pricing” in light of a recent consultation into reform of the way that consumers are billed for electricity.
Escaping the bonds of bonds
The world has passed a tipping point and we can no longer see bond markets as facilitating democracy. They are an active threat to democracy and we need to disempower them.
Solidarity is dangerous
The power of the efforts to break the blockade of Gaza is seen as an act of futility by some. It isn’t; it’s an act of solidarity and it is powerful because of that.
An Illusionary Convention
John Swinney is proposing a ‘constitutional convention’, but what he is proposing is no such thing. Understanding the original Constitutional Convention offers a real way forward for independence.
The one Keir Starmer policy I want to see implemented in Scotland
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How to tell stories for the future
If we are to beat the narratives of the far right we need to tell people better stories. But to do that we have to stop thinking about what we feel for a moment and start thinking more about what the people we want to speak to are feeling.
How the EPC system makes building eco-houses harder
A guest article from supporter Michael Breslin on how his attempt to build an eco-house was penalised by the broken Energy Performance Certificate system.
Opening and Securing the Digital Frontiers
The Scottish Government needs to start talking about “real security” - one way it can start practicing it is by making it easier for Scottish public bodies, private companies and individuals to start using open source software instead of software that can be compromised or shut down by the US President.
How liberals abandoned the future - and why we must find it again
The liberal establishment came to totally dominate Britain, but it had no vision of what the future should be other than a series of procedures. Unless others begin to map out a different future, we’re stuck here - or worse.
