“As a creative producer, my team and I are able to do more, better, faster; we’re expanding and experimenting with techniques we weren’t previously able to do. Ideas I’ve never had the time, headspace or resources to realise are now coming to life.”
Policy
Build, baby, build
The Scottish Parliament has just passed a new housing bill that, inter alia, removes the council tax cap on second homes but we need a much more consequential approach to solve the housing polycrisis.
Political change across Britain and Ireland (2)
“Underlying most of these is a deep disenchantment across the UK with its democratic credentials and constitutional settlements a generation on from devolution. Such issues have fallen down the political agenda amid a complacency about the need to address them…Support for Scottish and Welsh independence in the EU, and for referendums on Irish unity, grows in response and would accelerate under a Farage-led government.”
Scottish education: genuine partnership or pre-election fix?
“The Scottish educational establishment, over many decades, has been successful in resisting attempts to disturb its culture of complacency. Sadly, it may take a further decline in public confidence and trust before real change – as distinct from yet another exercise in public relations – can take place.”
Ferreting out radioactive leaks from Trident
“Loch Long is a 20-mile-long seawater loch that flows into the Firth of Clyde. People fish there; they swim and paddleboard. They had a right to know about the leak – and we all had a right to know about sloppy work practices at the (Coulport) base…”
Defence spending in GERS: anatomy of a myth
“Through an official government news release, Scotland’s Finance Secretary has created a false narrative which has now become an outright falsehood being promoted by SNP activists on social media. This should concern anybody interested in the problem of misinformation in political debate.”
Labour and ending poverty
“When governments are remembered after they lose office, their achievements are unforgivingly distilled into a few pithy bullet points. Does Keir Starmer really want one of his bullet points to be that he was the unusual Labour prime minister who presided over an increase in child poverty?”
Fiscal challenges for the Scottish Government, Pt 96
The new Medium Term Financial Strategy from the Scottish Government sets the scene for the upcoming Scottish Budget in December and marks a step forward in providing fiscal detail
The spending rollercoaster is well and truly back
The Scottish Government says it and Scotland have been “short-changed” by Rachel Reeves but what does the Spending Review mean for us really?
Scottish paradox: a £704m boom on a foundation of sand
“The most striking disparity is gender. For every £100 of investment capital distributed in Scotland last year, a colossal £87 was captured by businesses run by men, who secured 75% of all deals….The disparities highlighted in this report, particularly the concentration of capital in a handful of typically male-led, later-stage ventures and urban centres, risk stifling the very dynamism a healthy start-up ecosystem depends on.”