The Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales reported in January 2024. The Commission had both independent experts and party political nominees on it, produced a unanimous report, and found that the three main constitutional options they focused on - enhanced devolution, a federal UK and an independent Wales - were all viable (each with their own strengths … [Read more...] about Options and challenges for Wales’s constitutional future
Podcast
Testing times for Scottish Parliament
With much of Scotland in semi-lockdown, there’s no live entertainment for around four million of us. No theatres, no cinemas, no concert halls, no basement gigs. But there is Scottish Parliament TV Not a packed house – Covid requirements leave many chamber seats unfilled, and no-one in the public gallery. But nicely filmed, streamed live to your living room and (perhaps even … [Read more...] about Testing times for Scottish Parliament
Bandit capitalism: a very British oligarchy
‘There is a set of British oligarchs who, like their Russian counterparts, have become unimaginably rich as a result of looting the British state.’ Bob Wylie takes no prisoners in his account of the scandal over the collapse of outsourcing company Carillion: Bandit Capitalism: Carillion and the corruption of the British State. He explains the link with the Russian oligarchs: … [Read more...] about Bandit capitalism: a very British oligarchy
Too big to reform? How banks capture the state
Over the last couple of months, we have published much-read extracts from Ray Perman and Ian Fraser’s books, Hubris and Shredded respectively, to mark the tenth anniversary of the financial crisis that hit western capitalist economies in 2008.Now in the latest Sceptical Scot podcast we ask Scotland’s two top financial commentators to explain what lessons, if any, we have … [Read more...] about Too big to reform? How banks capture the state