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The Common Green<p><strong>So You’ve Won Capitalism: An Open Letter To The&nbsp;Billionaires</strong></p><p><em>“Democracy is supposed to be ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’. Capitalism is ‘of the capitalist, for the capitalist’. Period.” –&nbsp;Jerry Ash</em></p><p><em>This blog post previously appeared in <strong><a href="https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25343452.won-capitalism-open-letter-billionaires" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><span>The National</span></a></strong>.</em><br><em>If you’d like to support my work for Common Weal or support me and this blog directly, see my donation policy page <span><strong><a href="https://thecommongreen.scot/donate/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">here</a></strong></span>.</em></p><p></p><p>Dear Billionaires,</p><p>I think we can all agree that you’ve won Capitalism. If the goal of Capitalism is to accumulate wealth via the canny deployment of capital (yours or someone else’s) for the purpose of spending that wealth on goods and services to improve your own lifestyle then you have been successful beyond measure. As a billionaire, you now possess more wealth than can be reasonably spent by any individual in a lifetime. In fact, you passed that measure a long, long time ago.</p><p></p><p>In the UK, we can measure how much income is required for a household to enjoy the minimum basic level of a “decent life”. The UK Minimum Income Standard is developed by asking people what such a life looks like. How much does it cost to buy enough food? What does a “decent” household spend on energy? How many holidays should a person reasonably expect to be able to go on in a year? What kind of budget should someone have to spend on hobbies? Various other questions like that build up a picture of a minimally “decent” life.</p><p>Perhaps it will surprise you to learn that what the people of the UK consider to be a “decent” life is both far less than you earn and far more than many households earn. For a household of 2 adults and 2 children, the UK Minimum Income Standard is approximately £71,000 per year (to be split amongst all income earners in the household). For a single adult living alone, it’s £28,000 per year. At the current UK minimum wage, a single person living alone but with a full time job only earns around £25,000 in a year. That four person household of two adults and two children would 2.8 full time minimum wage jobs to sustain a minimally decent life.</p><p>For you though. You could earn that lifestyle in the most trivial way possible. You don’t even need to call up one of those very, very expensive accountants who spend a lot of your money finding ways to make the rest of it “more tax efficient”. A 50 year UK Government Gilt right now yields about 4.9% interest. So to generate enough interest to pay for a decent lifestyle for your partner and your two children for very likely the rest of your life, you only need to buy £1.5 million worth of bonds. If you happen to be living alone, then the cost drops to £570,000.</p><p>Is a passive income sufficient to provide a minimally decent life not enough? You could double it, treble it, multiply it by ten even. Your wealth far outstrips what humans can easily visualise. There’s a joke: What’s the difference between a billionaire and a millionaire? Answer: About a billion.<br>Is that not enough? The Global Billionaire Set increased their collective wealth by something like $14 trillion between 2015 and 2025. Had that wealth instead been distributed evenly to every adult and child on Earth, each one of us could have instead been given a cheque this year for $1,600. And this wouldn’t have even touched the $12 trillion you and your mates had before 2015. You could lose almost everything and still be richer than most folk will ever be.</p><p>There’s an odd thing that happens when we talk about trying to make poor people less poor. When we talk about policies like a Universal Basic Income, one of the objections that always seems to come up is that if poor people aren’t threatened with destitution, if they’re “just given” enough money to survive on, then they’ll all just stop working.</p><p>But you know that’s not true, don’t you – because you didn’t. When you won Capitalism and accumulated enough to live comfortably on for the rest of eternity, you kept trying to accumulate more. Maybe you did it for bad reasons like sheer greed and maybe you did it for better reasons like the love and passion you have for whatever it is that you do.</p><p>You can no longer even be considered a “wealth creator”. Oxfam published a report this year called “Takers, not Makers” that examined the level of wealth extraction by billionaires around the world – particularly in the Global South, but also in countries like the UK. They showed that the UK’s 57 billionaires increased their personal fortunes by almost £13 billion in 2024.</p><p>The thing is, the entire UK economy only grew by about £7 billion that year. This implies that the GDP only went up because the billionaire wealth pot went up by more than the rest of the UK economy went down. In other words, we all had a recession that the stats didn’t show because you took all the cash.</p><p>I think the solution should be acceptable in either case. Either you don’t deserve your wealth or it’s simply not what motivates you and you don’t need it. So we can safely tax it from you.</p><p>The UK has been talking a lot about wealth taxes lately. I joined that conversation recently too with my own plan to reform Council Tax to better tax your mansions, castles and to encourage you to divest from your rented property portfolios (what the rest of us call “homes”) as well as to tax land ownership in Scotland. Various proposals to better tax wealth via Capital Gains, taxes on financial transactions, or on pension funds will all play their role too and may be particularly suited to better taxing mere millionaires.</p><p>But Billionaires like yourself are in another league and require other solutions. Even income taxes of 90% or higher won’t dent wealth piles that are tens of thousands of times deeper than the resources of an average person.</p><p>So maybe we just need a rule where we cap the maximum wealth that a single person can command. Once you’ve won Capitalism – we can set that level as high as a billion or perhaps somewhere lower than that – money and wealth are no longer yours alone. Everything you acquire above that gets placed into a publicly-owned trust – we could call it a Common Good Fund. This would ensure that any wealth you do create from now own does actually benefit all of us. If we did this in the UK right now with all wealth above one billion we’d instantly have a fund worth more than £7,000 per person in Britain. That’s the real monetary cost of maintaining billionaires in the world. But ending extreme wealth inequality also shields us from the political cost too. The moment someone becomes wealthy enough to have more power than their single vote, they become a threat to the very concept of democracy.</p><p>Do I expect you and your billionaire friends to agree to this? Probably not. I expect to see some dissent even from folk who are immeasurably closer to destitution than they are to joining you. But it’s a proposal that can easily be reversed. If we try it and it doesn’t work, we can all vote to give the Common Good Fund back to those who used to own it. A few thousand billionaires vs the rest of us. Let the votes land where they may.</p><p>Yours, expectantly…</p><p><a href="https://thecommongreen.scot/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/tcg-logo-2019.png" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a></p><p><span></span></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/capitalism/" target="_blank">#capitalism</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/inequality/" target="_blank">#inequality</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/politics/" target="_blank">#politics</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/scottishpolitics/" target="_blank">#ScottishPolitics</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/tax/" target="_blank">#tax</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/ukpolitics/" target="_blank">#UKPolitics</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/wealth/" target="_blank">#wealth</a></p>
The Common Green<p><strong>You Have Options Too: An Open Letter to John&nbsp;Swinney</strong></p><p><em>“Squeezing the lives of people is now being proposed as the saviour of the planet. Through the green economy an attempt is being made to technologise, financialise, privatise and commodify all of the earth’s resources and living processes.” –&nbsp;Vandana Shiva</em></p><p><em>This blog post previously appeared in <span><strong><a href="https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25326402.open-letter-first-minister-future-energy-needs/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">The National</a></strong></span>.</em><br><em>If you’d like to support my work for Common Weal or support me and this blog directly, see my donation policy page <strong><a href="https://thecommongreen.scot/donate/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><span>here</span></a></strong>.</em></p><p></p><p>DEAR First Minister John Swinney,</p><p>The UK is running away from the hard choices on energy. Its dismissal of ideas like zonal pricing – ­currently the only scheme yet presented that would allow the UK to maximise renewable energy generation, minimise infrastructure costs like ­pylons and to reduce fuel poverty while giving communities more incentive to take control of their own local energy generation – has been rightly criticised by you last week in a statement where you called out the UK for not doing enough on energy policy.</p><p>It was concerning to note, though, that your critique wasn’t backed up by much on what you want the UK to actually do instead. Even as you complained about the UK “ruling out all options to bring down ­energy bills” by abandoning zonal pricing, I’m not clear if you support it or would bring it in if you had the power to do so.</p><p>We all know that Scotland’s devolved powers in energy are limited and that, right now, you couldn’t do something like this, but also missing from your critique was what you plan to do with the powers you do have.</p><p>Scotland’s own devolved energy ­strategy has been woefully lacking in recent years – from the sell-off of ScotWind at ­bargain basement prices, through ­dropping ­climate targets that were designed to push ­action ever forwards, to flogging off (sorry, “­encouraging foreign direct investment in”) every piece of our renewable energy sector to multinational companies and ­foreign public energy companies to ensure that everyone in the world can profit from Scotland’s energy except us.</p><p>We can take another path, though. ­Scotland must ensure that we own our own renewable energy future and the way to do that is by <span><strong><a href="https://www.commonweal.scot/policies/how-to-own-scottish-energy" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">bringing it into public ownership</a></strong></span>. Here are several ways that you could do it.</p><p><strong>1) A National Energy Company</strong></p><p>This is what most of us think of when we think about “Scottish public energy”, and it’s the model that the Welsh Government adopted under the name Ynni Cymru. This is a single national company, owned by the Scottish Government or by Scottish ministers (similar to Scottish Water), that would own, generate and sell energy to consumers.</p><p>There is a snag to this plan in that the Scotland Act currently prohibits the ­Scottish Government from “owning, ­generating, transmitting or storing” electricity, so if we want the National Energy Company to be based around supplying ­electricity, then the first thing that the Scottish ­Government could be doing is mounting a pressure campaign to amend the Act – it puts Scotland in the ridiculous position that it’s legal for the Welsh Government to own a wind turbine in Scotland but not the Scottish Government.</p><p>Until that campaign is successful, there is something you can do.</p><p>The Act quite specifically bans your Government from owning electricity ­generators. It does not ban other forms of energy. A National Heat Company based around deploying district heat networks could supply all but the most remote of Scottish households.</p><p>While this would be a large infrastructure project, it wouldn’t be larger than the one required to build the electricity pylons we need if we’re going to electrify heat instead and the pipes would have the advantage of being underground and out of sight while ultimately providing heat to homes in a cheap, more efficient and ultimately more future-proof way that the current setup of asking people to buy heat pumps and just hoping that the grid can cope with the demand.</p><p><strong>2) Local Electricity Companies</strong></p><p>So, First Minister, let’s say that you’re not a fan of campaigning for the devolution of more powers and really want Scotland to be generating electricity. You can’t create a National Electricity Company but you can encourage local authorities to set up their own Local Electricity Company.</p><p>Conceivably, the 32 councils could even jointly own one National Electricity Company – the Scotland Act merely bans the Scottish Government from owning the company.</p><p>In many ways, this would be an even better idea than the Scottish Government doing it. Government borrowing ­powers are far too limited and you’d need to ­campaign for more borrowing powers to get the scale of action required to build the infrastructure we need – but councils have a trick up their sleeves.</p><p>They are allowed to borrow basically as much money as they like so long as the ­investment the borrowing allows brings in enough of a return to pay back the loan. This is very likely how Shetland Council will finance its plan to connect the islands via tunnels – the construction would be paid for via tolls on traffic.</p><p>Energy, as we know, is very profitable indeed so there should be absolutely no issue with councils being able to pay back their loans and then to use the revenue from their energy generation to subsidise local households against fuel poverty and to support public services.</p><p>If we want to go even more local than this, then councils and perhaps the Scottish National Investment Bank could support communities to own their own energy.</p><p>We’ve seen multiple times that community ownership generates many times as much local wealth building – as well as skills and jobs – than the current model of private ownership plus paltry “community benefit funds”.</p><p><strong>3) A National Mutual Energy Company</strong></p><p>This is another national-scale energy company that the Scottish Government could launch but in this case wouldn’t own or control. Instead, the “National Mutual” would be owned by the people of Scotland.</p><p>In this model, every adult resident of ­Scotland would be issued one share in the company. They wouldn’t be able to sell it and they’d have to surrender it if they ever stop living in Scotland, but ­other than this, it would be much like owning a share in companies like Co-op.</p><p>The company would be run as any other commercial company and would be beholden not to the Government but to its shareholders – us. We’d jointly ­decide ­future energy strategy and even potentially have a say in how much of the company’s operating surpluses are invested in future developments or distributed to shareholders (again, us) as a dividend.</p><p>This model would be particularly suited to very large energy developments that cut across local authority or even national borders or to help develop offshore assets. Imagine ScotWind had been owned by the people of Scotland, instead of being flogged off to multinational companies in an auction that had a maximum bidding price attached.</p><p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p><p>First Minister, I applaud you for keeping up some sense of pressure on the UK Government on energy.</p><p>As we make the necessary ­transitions ­required of us under our obligations to end the climate emergency, this is one of the sectors of Scotland that will change the most. It’s vital that we get this ­transition right, or not only will ­Scotland see yet another generation of energy ­potential squandered in the same way that the coal and oil eras were, we’ll see Scottish ­households bear the weight of others ­profiting from that transition while we still experience crushing levels of poverty and economic vulnerability.</p><p>The UK Government may be ruling out all of their options on energy but that doesn’t mean that you need to do the same. We don’t need to wait until independence – as vital as it is – or to wait until Westminster gets its act together – which may or may not happen. We – you – have options too. It’s time to take them.</p><p>Yours, expectantly …</p><p><a href="https://thecommongreen.scot/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/tcg-logo-2019.png" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a></p><p><span></span></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/energy/" target="_blank">#Energy</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/politics/" target="_blank">#politics</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/scotland/" target="_blank">#Scotland</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/scottishpolitics/" target="_blank">#ScottishPolitics</a></p>
The Common Green<p><strong>How to Launch a Scottish Wealth&nbsp;Tax</strong></p><p><em>“I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.” –&nbsp;Eugene V. Debs</em></p><p><em>This blog post previously appeared in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25310439.no-need-wait-uk-scotland-can-launch-form-wealth-tax/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><strong><span>The National</span></strong></a>.</em><br><em>If you’d like to support my work for Common Weal or support me and this blog directly, see my donation policy page <strong><a href="https://thecommongreen.scot/donate/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><span>here</span></a></strong>.</em></p><p></p><p>(Image Source: <span><strong><a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/person-holding-fan-of-us-dollar-bill-TH4fII_mE_4" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Unsplash</a></strong></span>)</p><p>“From each according to their ability, to each according to their need”. This used to be the core credo of parties of the Left – particularly the Labour Party in Britain – but it appears to have been eroded to the point of meaninglessness. Wealth inequality is increasing at an unimaginable rate and is currently substantially higher than income inequality. The rich are taking from all of us far more than they need and are giving back far less than what they are able to. This is a self-reinforcing problem such as where people who were able to buy houses when they were cheap (perhaps during Thatcher’s Right to Buy demolition of the social housing sector) became able to rent them out at ever increasing rates to people who can’t now afford to save the deposit to buy a house because house prices are rising faster than they can save due to the amount they have to spend on rent. Even the Office of Budget Responsibility is now warning (as I did several years ago in my book All of Our Futures) of the fiscal risks looming due to the number of people still privately renting when they retire and who will simultaneously be unable to afford to keep paying those rents and won’t have any capital saved in their house to subsidise their inadequate state pensions.</p><p>It’s not for no reason that the British public are increasingly demanding that the UK Government brings in a wealth tax to rebalance our increasingly unstable economy. I will say that there are good reasons for the UK to not bring in “a wealth tax” – by which I mean a single annual payment calculated as a certain percentage of the value of all of the assets and possessions that you own. Prof. Richard Murphy has articulated many of them well. It’s hard to value those possessions. Easy to hide them. And there are other taxes that the UK could use – such as reforms to taxes on stocks, shares, pensions and capital gains – that would achieve much of the same result. Not that the UK Government is going to do any of that either unless the pressure escalates to the point that the impossible becomes inevitable.</p><p>Let’s say, however, that the Scottish Government wants to take the first step. Could we do it here instead of waiting for the UK?</p><p>The patterns of wealth ownership in Scotland are substantially different than in the UK (particularly in London and the South East). We don’t have quite as many financial billionaires floating about the place. We don’t have as much wealth in stocks and shares – mostly because we don’t have a stock exchange in Scotland any more. Our generally lower rates of pay mean comparatively lower rates of wealth stored in pensions. There are, however, two sectors in Scotland where wealth is substantially stored and which could be taxed using devolved tax powers – Land and buildings.</p><p>Scotland already has its Land and Buildings Transaction Tax but despite the Scottish Greens seeking to apply what they called a “mansion tax” to it this would remain merely a surcharge on the transfer of assets, not a wealth tax applied to the holding of them. If you never bought another mansion, you’d never pay the mansion tax.</p><p>Council Tax is the most outdated and badly broken tax Scotland still insists on inflicting on the poor. The Scottish Government has stated that they’re not even going to think about reforming it until the end of this decade. This is completely unacceptable, especially as the solution is obvious. We need to scrap Council Tax and replace it with a tax based on a percentage of the present market value of the property. Common Weal argued that a rate of 0.63% would have been revenue neutral compared to Council Tax at the time we published the paper. That number could be recalculated now but we estimated then that a “revenue neutral” rate would actually mean a tax cut for eight out of 10 households as the burden of paying the tax would be placed more fairly on those who lived in the most expensive houses. We calculated that the “break even” point then would have been a house worth something like £400,000. This is based one a flat rate of tax too. We would argue that Councils should have the power to add progressive rates on extremely valuable properties like £1mn+ mansions or, as is the case with the current Council Tax, additional multipliers for multiple home ownership.</p><p>This would immediately act as a wealth tax both on the most expensive properties but also on multiple property ownership. Unlike Council Tax that is paid by occupants, our Property Tax would be paid by property owners and they could only pass on to their tenants the basic rate of tax. Landlords would have to pay any multiple ownership surcharges themselves.</p><p>The second wealth store in Scotland – land – is probably the greatest store of almost untaxed wealth in the country. Many countries tax the ownership of land as a distinct tax from properties built on it (sometimes because of local democracy, for example you might pay the land tax to your municipal government and your property tax to your regional government) but in Scotland there may be good reason to not do that but to simply extend the Property Tax to cover not just the land under and around your mansion but also the broader estate you own with it. Given that the two are often sold together, this will be much easier to put a price on than trying to calculate a separate Land Value Tax. We’ve estimated that doing this at the same flat rate as the Property Tax would bring in around £450 million a year in revenue – though this could be adjusted down to account for subsidies for small farms or up to better tax the 422 people who own half of Scotland.</p><p>One of the major advantages of both of these taxes – one that negates objections from both the UK and Scottish Government whenever taxes on the wealth have been suggested – is that it completely bypasses the idea that the rich will simply leave the country. Recent studies have shown that the idea of “millionaire flight” basically isn’t a thing (it’s not just a huge logistical hassle for comparatively little financial gain to pack everything up to go and live in a tax haven, even millionaires have friends and family as do their kids and tearing up those social bonds to save a bit of money just isn’t worth it) but this hasn’t stopped the media pushing that line anyway. Even if it was true, the wealth they have locked up in Scottish land and housing can’t move with them. The tax still needs to be paid by whomever owns them regardless of where they live (and many of the largest landowners in Scotland already don’t live here so the point is particularly moot there).</p><p>One of the biggest sources of instability in our current society and economy is wealth inequality. It urgently needs to be reigned in and reversed. If the UK Government persists in refusing to do it then there is at least something that the Scottish Government can do without having to wait for them. And if the current Scottish Government doesn’t want to do it either well, there are elections next year. Maybe politicians could suggest who we should vote for who will?</p><p><a href="https://thecommongreen.scot/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/tcg-logo-2019.png" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a></p><p><span></span></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/politics/" target="_blank">#politics</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/scottishpolitics/" target="_blank">#ScottishPolitics</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/tax/" target="_blank">#tax</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/ukpolitics/" target="_blank">#UKPolitics</a></p>
Dr Craig Dalȝell<p>Glasgow's great plan to revitalise Argyle Street appears to be to depedestrianise it...<br><a href="https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25319462.new-image-reveals-major-argyle-street-transformation-plans/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">heraldscotland.com/news/253194</span><span class="invisible">62.new-image-reveals-major-argyle-street-transformation-plans/</span></a></p><p>This would appear to be a direct violation of the Scottish Government's National Transport Strategy when it comes to the sustainable transport hierarchy.<br><a href="https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/mobility-and-access-committee-for-scotland-annual-report-2021-2022/responding-to-the-climate-emergency/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">transport.gov.scot/publication</span><span class="invisible">/mobility-and-access-committee-for-scotland-annual-report-2021-2022/responding-to-the-climate-emergency/</span></a></p><p><a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishPolitics</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Transport" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Transport</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Glasgow" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Glasgow</span></a></p>
US news | The Guardian<p>Police in Scotland braced for large-scale protests if Trump visits new golf course <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/09/police-scotland-braced-protests-donald-trump-visits-new-golf-course" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">theguardian.com/us-news/2025/j</span><span class="invisible">ul/09/police-scotland-braced-protests-donald-trump-visits-new-golf-course</span></a> <a href="https://halo.nu/tags/Scottishpolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Scottishpolitics</span></a> <a href="https://halo.nu/tags/USforeignpolicy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>USforeignpolicy</span></a> <a href="https://halo.nu/tags/DonaldTrump" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>DonaldTrump</span></a> <a href="https://halo.nu/tags/USpolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>USpolitics</span></a> <a href="https://halo.nu/tags/Worldnews" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Worldnews</span></a> <a href="https://halo.nu/tags/Scotland" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Scotland</span></a> <a href="https://halo.nu/tags/Aberdeen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Aberdeen</span></a> <a href="https://halo.nu/tags/Politics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Politics</span></a> <a href="https://halo.nu/tags/UKnews" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>UKnews</span></a> <a href="https://halo.nu/tags/USnews" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>USnews</span></a> <a href="https://halo.nu/tags/Golf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Golf</span></a></p>
The Common Green<p><strong>What Scottish Independence Could Deliver For The Welfare&nbsp;State</strong></p><p><em>“How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.” –</em><em>&nbsp;<span class="">Marcus Aurelius</span></em></p><p><em>This blog post previously appeared in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thenational.scot/politics/25285107.universal-basic-income-scotland-can-draw-neighbours/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><strong><span>The National</span></strong></a>&nbsp;as part of Common Weal’s In Common newsletter.</em><br><em>If you’d like to support my work for Common Weal or support me and this blog directly, see my donation policy page <span><strong><a href="https://thecommongreen.scot/donate/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">here</a></strong></span>.</em></p><p><a href="https://thecommongreen.scot/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/cash.png" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a></p> <p class="">Back in the early days of Common Weal, while we were still finding our feet and building our reputation, we had an informal rule when it came to policy-making. We had to be able to show the policy working somewhere else.</p><p class="">This was because we felt that Scotland simply wasn’t ready for some of the radical ideas that we wanted to implement so being able to show it already working was a good way of building confidence in a nation too often told “we cannae dae it” (by which our opponents often mean “we shouldnae dae it” which is a different thing entirely).</p><p class="">We’ve since dispensed with that rule and we sometimes broke it even then (one of Common Weal’s very first policy papers, <span><strong><a href="https://reidfoundation.scot/portfolio-2/inplaceofanxiety/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">“In Place Of Anxiety”</a></strong></span>, was an advocacy for Universal Basic Income (UBI) long before it became one of the “cool” policies) but this isn’t to say that we can’t learn lessons from elsewhere.</p><p class="">Just this week, I was asked by a researcher which of our neighbour nations I’d like Scotland to copy if I could. My answer was that we shouldn’t copy any one but that I take a lot of inspiration from Germany on local democracy, from Denmark on energy strategy and from Norway for public ownership. Somewhere else we could do with taking inspiration from our neighbours is on social security.</p><p class="">The scenes this week from the UK’s attempts to hammer the poor and disabled and only backing down after shambolic chaos in the Parliament should be a lesson not just in humanity but in policy-making as well. Never fight a battle you haven’t won in advance. Never assume a large on-paper majority means certain absolute power.</p><p class="">With many of our neighbours basing their politics on proportional representation and coalition politics, this kind of legislation would have undergone a lot of negotiation and compromise long before arriving at the voting chamber.</p><p class="">The way that many of our neighbours deal with the issue of social security is markedly different from the UK in several ways. The first is that the systems are a lot more generous in general. Norway, Denmark and Sweden rank in the top three OECD nations for spending on disability protections at above 3% of GDP while the UK is well below the OECD average at less than 2%.</p><p class="">Many more social securities like unemployment protections follow a different model from the UK when they are calculated. In particular, instead of the flat rate paid under the UK’s Universal Credit, many countries follow a model where the protection you receive is based on a percentage of your previous income.</p><p class="">There are consequences to each of these models. A flat rate tends to be more redistributive if it is generous enough (which Universal Credit isn’t) whereas a proportional rate tends to be less disruptive to an individual who is already going through the shock of losing their job while still having bills to pay.</p><p class="">We’ve seen these impacts in the UK too. During the pandemic, the Covid furlough scheme was paid at a proportional rate to people who were employed but was often paid at a flat Universal Credit rate to self-employed people. This exposed a lot of people who were previously on the side of denigrating poor and vulnerable people as lazy slackers to just how meagre and cruel the UK “benefits” system is.</p><p class="">We had an opportunity then to get some serious change off the back of that and maybe we still see echoes of it in this week’s chaos but largely the Powers That Be wanted to make us forget that moment of reflection as quickly as possible.</p><p class="">On the other side and as tempting as it might be to copy a European-style unemployment insurance based on previous income, and as beneficial that would be to people in well-paid but otherwise insecure jobs, we have to remember that many people are not in well-paid jobs and that wage suppression has been rife in the UK for decades. Receiving 60% of your previous income when you were being paid poverty wages won’t protect you from poverty in unemployment.</p><p class="">So maybe rather than Scotland – particularly an independent Scotland – copying existing social security policies from our neighbours, we need to look to them for inspiration in another way and look back at that paper I mentioned at the start of this column.</p><p class="">Last year, the EU think tank the Coppieters Foundation published a paper called <span><strong><a href="https://ideasforeurope.eu/activity/publication/a-european-universal-basic-income/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">“A European Universal Basic Income”</a></strong></span> which found that a UBI sufficient to eradicate poverty across the entire union could be entirely paid for by relatively modest changes to income tax and the savings found from the reduction of poverty itself.</p><p class="">Its model called for a UBI of €6,857 per year for adults and half that for children under 14. This is the equivalent of £113 per week for adults and £57 per week for children. The paper claimed that the increase in income taxes to pay for this level of UBI would themselves be relatively modest and the “breakeven” point for people who’d pay more income tax than they’d receive in UBI would be at around the 80th percentile.</p><p class="">In other words, eight out of 10 people would be directly better off with the UBI. And, to repeat, while this is still a relatively small sum per person if you have no other income, it would be enough to eradicate poverty across the entire EU and would be cheaper overall – after the health, crime and social inequality costs of poverty are factored in – than the current systems.</p><p class="">When this paper came out I argued that this meant a UBI was now a <span><strong><a href="https://thecommongreen.scot/2024/03/01/a-ubi-is-now-a-moral-imperative/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">moral imperative</a></strong></span> because it was cheaper than the cost of poverty, but there’s clearly a financial imperative too. Whether we’re discussing an independent Scotland seeking to create a better country for all of us or even just a cynical UK trying to save money in the face of a humiliating attempt to crush the poor, here is a solution we should all support. Eradicate poverty, save money, implement a Universal Basic Income.</p><p><a href="https://thecommongreen.scot/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/tcg-logo-2019.png" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a></p> <p><span></span></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/politics/" target="_blank">#politics</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/scottishpolitics/" target="_blank">#ScottishPolitics</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/social-security/" target="_blank">#SocialSecurity</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/ubi/" target="_blank">#UBI</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/ukpolitics/" target="_blank">#UKPolitics</a></p>
Dr Craig Dalȝell<p>CW Daily Briefing</p><p>The Big Four consultancy firms have been fined again. This time for cheating on ethics exams.</p><p>What, precisely, will it take for the Scottish Government to stop using them to develop public policy?</p><p><a href="https://www.commonweal.scot/daily-briefings/briefing-c7tgs" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">commonweal.scot/daily-briefing</span><span class="invisible">s/briefing-c7tgs</span></a></p><p><a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishPolitics</span></a></p>
Dr Craig Dalȝell<p>How about we take after the example of the Nac Mac Feegle.</p><p>"Nae king! Nae quin! Nae laird! Nae master! We willna' be fooled again!”</p><p><a href="https://www.thenational.scot/news/25266085.donald-trump-no-longer-meeting-king-charles-scotland/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">thenational.scot/news/25266085</span><span class="invisible">.donald-trump-no-longer-meeting-king-charles-scotland/</span></a></p><p><a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/NoKings" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>NoKings</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/USPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>USPolitics</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishPolitics</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/UKPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>UKPolitics</span></a></p>
Wen<p>The SNP are using Conservative votes to keep significant changes out of the Land Reform Bill, MSPs have said.</p><p>While the story is a wee bit more involved than this article would have us believe, the SNP are not covering themselves in glory here pandering to large, rich estates, frequently foreign owned. Grow some balls Swinney.</p><p><a href="https://www.thenational.scot/news/25256169.snp-working-tories-weaken-land-reform-bill-msps-say/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">thenational.scot/news/25256169</span><span class="invisible">.snp-working-tories-weaken-land-reform-bill-msps-say/</span></a></p><p><a href="http://archive.today/2025.06.22-065216/https://www.thenational.scot/news/25256169.snp-working-tories-weaken-land-reform-bill-msps-say/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">http://</span><span class="ellipsis">archive.today/2025.06.22-06521</span><span class="invisible">6/https://www.thenational.scot/news/25256169.snp-working-tories-weaken-land-reform-bill-msps-say/</span></a> (archive)</p><p><a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishPolitics</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/LandOwnership" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>LandOwnership</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/LandReform" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>LandReform</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/SNP" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>SNP</span></a></p>
Wen<p>‘Scottish’ Labour are getting desperate now</p><p>'Tony Blair to help Scottish Labour seize power from the SNP’</p><p>Blair and his ‘not for profit’ Institute (read deeply unpleasant, deeply corrup,profit for Blair) are being hailed as the saviour for the London party in Scotland. Self awareness is low in this group of muppets and Blair a very very unpleasant smell.</p><p><a href="http://archive.today/2025.06.21-210344/https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/tony-blair-scottish-labour-manifesto-nxshlf7lk" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">http://</span><span class="ellipsis">archive.today/2025.06.21-21034</span><span class="invisible">4/https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/tony-blair-scottish-labour-manifesto-nxshlf7lk</span></a></p><p><a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Blair" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Blair</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Scotland" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Scotland</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishPolitics</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishIndependence" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishIndependence</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Labour" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Labour</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Farce" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Farce</span></a></p>
Dr Craig Dalȝell<p>The UK Labour "metro mayor" plan should be pretty clear to folk now. UK funding decisions will not be based on merit or need but on whether or not Scotland decides to centralise eight Local Authorities under the power of a single person that UK Labour assumes will be loyal to party first.</p><p><a href="https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25246917.glasgow-7-7bn-smaller-snp-says-darren-jones/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">heraldscotland.com/news/252469</span><span class="invisible">17.glasgow-7-7bn-smaller-snp-says-darren-jones/</span></a></p><p><a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishPolitics</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/UKPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>UKPolitics</span></a></p>
The Common Green<p><strong>What I’d Sacrifice For&nbsp;Wellbeing</strong></p><p><em>“Equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity.” – <span class=""> Joss Whedon</span></em></p><p><em>This is a transcript – edited for text medium – of the speech I gave at the Independence Forum Scotland Conference in Perth on the 14th of June 2025</em></p><p><em>If you’d like to support this blog, you can throw me a tip at my <strong><a href="https://ko-fi.com/craigdalzell" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Ko-Fi</a></strong>.</em></p><p><a href="https://thecommongreen.scot/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/craigperth.png" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a>Image Source: <span><strong><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/scottishindypod.bsky.social/post/3lrl326rpu22p" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Independence Live</a></strong></span></p><p>The previous speaker posed us the question of what would it look like to bridge the gap between defining a Wellbeing Economy and achieving one. I’m going to try to look at that problem through the lens of sacrifice.</p><p>Those opposing economic change often frame the transition away from the status quo as causing us sacrifice.</p><p>Whether it’s sacrificing something abstract like the idea that “GDP Growth will make you rich”, even though it hasn’t.</p><p>Whether it’s “The climate transition will force you to give up your conveniences”, as if the only way to live sustainably is by moving into the forest, gathering berries and being robed in hemp homespun like some kind of hedge witch (actually…that sounds good…)</p><p>It’s sometimes even the outright conspiracy theory level of “15 Minute Neighbourhoods will take away your freedom to drive for 45 minutes to find a post box, if you can get past the military checkpoints at the end of your street”.</p><p>But what if a Wellbeing Economy wasn’t about sacrificing anything we’d miss? What if it actually was about fixing the things that are wrong with the way we live today?</p><p>In the next session you’re all going to be asked the question “What does a wellbeing economy look like?”. I’d like to throw in a few ideas here about what it means to me but looking through the eyes of what I might have to sacrifice to get there.</p><p>First – the daily commute. I’ve already sacrificed that. I’ve worked from home since the pandemic. I know. I get the privilege. I have a job that can be worked from home and, more importantly, I have a home that can be worked from. Not everyone who has the former has the latter. I’m a homeowner so I could modify my house to retrofit in an office. Renters in Scotland often can’t. Renters in Germany have the right to make reasonable modifications to their home though. So maybe we need to sacrifice the kind of landlord lobby that holds Scotland back and builds a housing sector for their profit rather than our wellbeing.</p><p>On the commute itself, the Scottish Government recently ditched its target of reducing car miles after being told they weren’t doing anything to meet it. The extra pollution this failure will result in will sacrifice people. That’s not a wellbeing economy.</p><p>Second, still on houses, I’d like to sacrifice my heating bill. Our housing sector is built for developer profits too, so we get cheap, crap, cold, damp houses that are hard to repair and retrofit. And we have a retrofitting strategy built around dumping the responsibility to fix things on you, rather than treating this as a massive public works infrastructure job for the public good.</p><p>I’d like to sacrifice buying things. The biggest mindset shift we as a society went through in the last twenty years was from “I need a thing, I’ll walk down the High Street and buy one” to “I need a thing, I’ll drive to the out-of-town outlet to buy one” to “I need a thing, I’ll buy it from Amazon Prime and have someone with a crap job deliver it to me tomorrow”. The next mindset shift needs to be “I need a thing, I’ll walk down the High Street and borrow one from the library”. The Scottish Government made a promise to the 2021 Climate Assembly to deliver 75 new Tool Libraries by the end of 2024. They only delivered 9. And the Minister at the time told me that they knew that 75 wasn’t enough to create that mindset shift but that they “hoped that the private sector would fill the gap”. Guess what. It didn’t.</p><p>While I’m down the High Street, I’d like to sacrifice the Thatcherist mindset that “there’s no such thing as society”. That mindset has actively pushed society out of our lives in favour of consumerism. Think about your community. How many of you can think of a space that you can go to, where you have a reasonable chance of accidentally meeting someone that you know. And it’s a place where you can exist for as long as you like without the expectation of buying something?</p><p>The protests over the removal of the steps in Buchanan St in Glasgow are emblematic of this. Let’s face it. Those steps aren’t particularly nice. It’s not a green urban nature reserve – it’s bare stone. They’re not comfy to sit on. It’s in the middle of a walking route. But they are a place to be in the middle of the city where you can gather and not buy and consume. They are a focal point for protest and organisation more generally – if that’s not “society”, what is? Glasgow Council keeps wanting to turn them into shops. I wonder if that plan is about suppressing protest more than it’s about encouraging consumerism.</p><p>It’s about sacrificing need and poverty. I want to see a Job Guarantee so that everyone who wants to work can work. But I also want a Universal Basic Income so that no-one needs to work, even if they want to. That need is what really keeps us poor. Keeps us powerless because it keeps us working for crap wages and bad conditions because if we don’t, we’re told that someone more desperate than us can replace us. The rich above us weaponise the poor below us to enrich themselves. It doesn’t even matter where “we” are in that ladder, because there’s always someone richer weaponising someone poorer.</p><p>And that’s the final thing I’d like to sacrifice to create a wellbeing economy. The idea that we’re not all in this together. The idea that there are people in this world who are better than you. Whether it’s by dint of Magic Blood, or by the power of their Magic Hat that can make you a Commander of the British Empire. Or whether it’s an overtanned manbaby who wanted to play with real life toy soldiers on his birthday. Or whether it’s any number of warlords who think that history will remember them kindly for their warcrimes or their desire to murder civilians by the score.</p><p>That’s what a wellbeing economy means to me. No Kings. Not real ones, not fake ones. Just a society that puts All of Us First.</p><p><a href="https://thecommongreen.scot/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/tcg-logo-2019.png" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a></p><p><span></span></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/economics/" target="_blank">#Economics</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/politics/" target="_blank">#politics</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/scotland/" target="_blank">#Scotland</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://thecommongreen.scot/tag/scottishpolitics/" target="_blank">#ScottishPolitics</a></p>
Dr Craig Dalȝell<p>Today in "Carbon Capture Still Doesn't Work"</p><p>The flagship carbon capture project in Iceland is revealed to have not just missed its targets but has failed to capture enough carbon to offset its own emissions. They would have been better off doing nothing.</p><p>Something to think about as the UK and Scottish Governments pour money into the Acorn Project.</p><p><a href="https://heimildin.is/grein/24581/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">heimildin.is/grein/24581/</span><span class="invisible"></span></a></p><p><a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Climate" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Climate</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Carbon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Carbon</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/CCUS" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>CCUS</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Greenwashing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Greenwashing</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/UKPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>UKPolitics</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishPolitics</span></a></p>
Dr Craig Dalȝell<p>There is, of course, a very easy way for Scotland to tax the very wealthiest here without the threat of them leaving.</p><p>Tax something they can't take with them.</p><p>Tax land - <a href="https://www.commonweal.scot/policies/taxing-land-in-scotland/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">commonweal.scot/policies/taxin</span><span class="invisible">g-land-in-scotland/</span></a></p><p><a href="https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/25221735.kate-forbes-scottish-business-relationship-income-tax/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">heraldscotland.com/politics/vi</span><span class="invisible">ewpoint/25221735.kate-forbes-scottish-business-relationship-income-tax/</span></a></p><p><a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishPolitics</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Tax" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Tax</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/LandReform" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>LandReform</span></a></p>
Wen<p>There is an interesting article in today’s ‘National’ discussing Danny Dorling’s observations that Scottish independence is well underway - by stealth with a growing gap between our country and the rest of the UK. Slowly slowly catchee monkey?</p><p>Now to follow it up with financial and political independence.</p><p><a href="https://www.thenational.scot/news/25220069.scottish-independence-already-begun-uk-political-culture-diverges/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">thenational.scot/news/25220069</span><span class="invisible">.scottish-independence-already-begun-uk-political-culture-diverges/</span></a></p><p><a href="http://archive.today/2025.06.08-050223/https://www.thenational.scot/news/25220069.scottish-independence-already-begun-uk-political-culture-diverges/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">http://</span><span class="ellipsis">archive.today/2025.06.08-05022</span><span class="invisible">3/https://www.thenational.scot/news/25220069.scottish-independence-already-begun-uk-political-culture-diverges/</span></a> (archive)</p><p><a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishIndependence" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishIndependence</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Dorling" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Dorling</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Culture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Culture</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Independence" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Independence</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ChildPoverty" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ChildPoverty</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishPolitics</span></a></p>
iamBullivant<p>Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election. SNP and Tories lose votes to Reform leaving Labour largely untouched? 🤔 </p><p><a href="https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2025/06/06/sir-keir-starmer-continues-to-be-malleus-scotnatorum/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">www1.politicalbetting.com/inde</span><span class="invisible">x.php/archives/2025/06/06/sir-keir-starmer-continues-to-be-malleus-scotnatorum/</span></a></p><p><a href="https://mastodon.ie/tags/ScottishPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishPolitics</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.ie/tags/SNP" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>SNP</span></a></p>
Dr Craig Dalȝell<p>Surprised by the Hamilton results?</p><p>I am.</p><p>But unlike any of the pundits I've seen this morning, I can tell you /why/ we've been surprised.</p><p>Everyone forgets that the sofa is also a candidate.</p><p>The SNP lost 8,800 votes last night compared to 2021. Labour, the victors, lost only 3,600.</p><p><a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishPolitics</span></a></p>
Dr Craig Dalȝell<p>The Information Commissioner has endorsed Katy Clark's Bill to extend the powers of Freedom of Information and to limit the power of veto over transparency currently held by the First Minister.</p><p><a href="https://www.foi.scot/commissioner-welcomes-new-bill-reform-foi-law" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">foi.scot/commissioner-welcomes</span><span class="invisible">-new-bill-reform-foi-law</span></a></p><p><a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishPolitics</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Transparency" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Transparency</span></a></p>
Wen<p>Flawed though the Barnett formula is (I would dispense with it through independence), it takes some sort of clown to think that this will appeal to the people of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse.</p><p><a href="https://www.thenational.scot/news/25207571.nigel-farage-branded-clown-suggests-scrapping-barnett-formula/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">thenational.scot/news/25207571</span><span class="invisible">.nigel-farage-branded-clown-suggests-scrapping-barnett-formula/</span></a></p><p><a href="http://archive.today/2025.06.02-121834/https://www.thenational.scot/news/25207571.nigel-farage-branded-clown-suggests-scrapping-barnett-formula/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">http://</span><span class="ellipsis">archive.today/2025.06.02-12183</span><span class="invisible">4/https://www.thenational.scot/news/25207571.nigel-farage-branded-clown-suggests-scrapping-barnett-formula/</span></a> (archive)</p><p>But maybe some of them can be persuaded that he was only joking?</p><p><a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishPolitics</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/Farage" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>Farage</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishIndependence" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishIndependence</span></a></p>
Bob Jamieson<p>A far right group branded as neo-Nazi has been condemned for using children to promote its white nationalist politics ahead of the by-election in South Lanarkshire next week.</p><p><a href="https://theferret.scot/neo-nazi-group-condemned-for-using-children/" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="ellipsis">theferret.scot/neo-nazi-group-</span><span class="invisible">condemned-for-using-children/</span></a></p><p><a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/fascism" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>fascism</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.scot/tags/ScottishPolitics" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>ScottishPolitics</span></a></p>