Yesterday was spent attending the Radical Independence Conference 2013 in Glasgow, organised by the Radical Independence Campaign which employs the slogan “Another Scotland Is Possible”. We were a thousand strong, packed into a big room in the Marriott Hotel where we were addressed by a series of very able and persuasive speakers all of whom…
I have just watched this interview in which Ross Ashcroft of the Renegade Economist talks to author and film-maker David Malone about democracy, economics and more. There’s a lot of good stuff in it but one idea struck me as something really special. David Malone argues that the idea of individual rights – human, constitutional, whatever…
Those of you who suspect that our politicians (Salmond, Swinney, Cameron, Osborne, Miliband, Balls, etc.) are clueless when it comes to sorting out our economy please watch Ben Dyson explaining how our money system actually works. Then you’ll understand why no-one from left, right, centre, or independent Scotland will be able to save us from…
Last month I wrote a piece about the European Citizens’ Initiative for a universal basic income but I had no idea that there was an organisation campaigning for just such a thing in Switzerland until a friend sent me this link from Reuters which tells us that there will be a referendum on the proposal sometime…
This article by David Greig is inspiring. He argues that the debate over Scottish independence is stirring up all sorts of ideas about how we should manage our lives and suggests that these are beginning to filter through into the mainstream media. I hope he’s right.
The Yes Scotland campaign website has a page, “Undecided – tell us why?”, where you can fill in a form with your reasons for not knowing which way you might vote at next year’s independence referendum. A week or so ago I sent them this message: Our financial system is designed in such a way…
I have just read through the Scottish Government’s white paper entitled “Pensions in an independent Scotland – September 2013”. If you’re too busy to read it for yourself I can summarise it’s contents as: “don’t worry, we’re going to keep everything the same as it is in the rest of the UK with the exception…
Simon Heffer has caused a bit of a stooshie with this stunningly mendacious article in the English version Daily Mail, which has given Yes Scotland the opportunity to publicise some corrections. I’m a long way from being a Yes Scotland supporter but facts are facts and I thought my friends from south of the border…
Here’s a video that gives a simple explanation of how money might work in an independent Scotland. Sadly the makers of the video fail to acknowledge the elephant in the room, a creature that’s going to make a mess of the carpet regardless of which of the three options we choose. All three choices in the video…
Interesting article by Gerry Hassan suggesting that the tedious binary bickering of SNP yes and establishment Labour is now being challenged by a wave of independent thinking on where we might go with an independent Scotland. He calls it “a third Scotland”, people who are interested in independence in order to change the way that…
Views From The Boatshed 