Episode 209 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Rory Hamilton about two major stories in Scottish politics this week. This first is the publication of our policy paper Profit Extraction which looks at the high levels of foreign ownership in the Scottish economy and how that leads to billions of pounds being pulled out of the country every year. The second is the collapse of the SNP-Green cooperation agreement, the...

Episode 208 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Igor Zulaika, one of the newly elected parliamentarians in the Basque Country's recent parliamentary elections which saw his party, the left-wing pro-independence EH Bildu, gain its highest ever vote share, just one seat shy of being the largest party in Parliament. They discuss the history of the Basque national movement, the landscape of politics in the Basque Country...

Episode 207 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Eilidh Keay from Living Rent about the state of the private rented sector in Scotland, what this means for tenants - especially when their rent is too high and/or their home is poorly maintained by their landlord and what the Scottish Government is about to do to bring in effective rent controls, improve tenants rights and conditions in rented homes. You can read Living...

Episode 206 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig is in the hotseat for a change as Rory Hamilton interviews him about his latest policy paper for Common Weal Taxing Land in Scotland. They discuss how to reform Council Tax into a Property Tax that matches the actual value of homes and then how to extend that tax to land, bringing in around £450 million a year in additional revenue for Scottish Local Authorities. You can read the...

Episode 205 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Prof Richard Murphy about his new report Taxing Wealth 2024. The report examines the causes of the UK's wealth inequality and looks at the policies that could be implemented to mitigate against it, including reforms to National Insurance, Capital Gains Tax and tax reliefs on savings such as ISAs and pension funds. You can read the Taxing Wealth report here:...

Episode 204 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Andy Wightman, possibly Scotland's foremost expert on land reform, about the Scottish Government's new Land Reform Bill and his updated analysis of his Who Owns Scotland? report which shows that in the past decade or so, Scotland's already very concentrated patterns of land ownership have got even more so with just 433 people now owning 50% of Scotland's rural land. Andy's...

Episode 203 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Kristopher Leask from Community Energy Scotland and Josh Doble from Community Land Scotland about their new call to action paper A Fair Energy Deal for Communities. They discuss the state of community owned energy in Scotland, what the benefits are compared to the privatised model we more used to in Scotland. They also discuss some of the barriers facing communities who want to...

Episode 202 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Ben Wray from the Gig Economy Project who report on issues affecting gig workers and platform work around Europe and internationally. They discuss the new Platform Work Directive which will regulate and improve workers' rights within the gig economy in Europe. They also talk about the implications of Brexit both in terms of how it affected the politics of the legislation...

Episode 201 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Simon Jones, a long time Common Weal supporter and activist, about a newly proposed £20 million regeneration scheme in his home town of Dumfries. They discuss the importance of Scotland's towns to our communities, the importance of long term planning in those proposals, Scotland's problem with "Central Belt" thinking vs "Remote", and why the UK Government - funders of this...

Episode 200 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to William Thomson from Scotonomics about their upcoming event The Festival of Economics which seeks to debunk and demystify economics and to explore innovations and new theories in economics as well as to explore the topics and policies affecting Scotland right now. You can buy tickets for the conference here: https://scotonomics.scot/festival-of-economics/ William's recent...

Episode 199 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Nick Kempe, Convenor of the Common Weal Care Reform Group, about the return of the National Care Service Bill to the Scottish Parliament within the next couple of weeks. They discuss why Common Weal campaigned for a pause to the Bill process, how we've engaged with the co-design process in the time since and what we expect from the Bill when it returns. They also discuss the...

Episode 198 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week Craig talks to Heather from the direct action group This Is Rigged about their upcoming March for Scran - a protest on February 18th 2024 starting at 11am from Garnethill Park in Glasgow. They discuss the reasons for food insecurity in Scotland, the rise of foodbank demand coinciding with a drop in donations and funding to meet that demand and what the Scottish Government could do to...

Episode 197 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Common Weal's own Nicola Biggerstaff about the various public consultations that we're currently taking part in such as the proposal for an Ecocide Bill, the UK Parliament's consultation on the sustainability of the UK's debt, work on the Scottish Circular Economy Bill, proposals for better local democracy and more. Craig also shares some hints and tips for folk who wish to...

Episode 196 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast  You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Prof Alison Phipps, Professor of Languages and Intercultural Studies at the University of Glasgow and UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts, about the devastation of Gaza, the recent ruling by the ICJ that there was a plausible risk of genocide as a result of Israel's actions and on the defunding of UNRWA by many states in the immediate aftermath...

Episode 195 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. Welcome to Season 6 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast. This year's theme is "Activate" so if you have a story to tell about an interesting thing happening in your community or if you're involved in a campaign to change things for the better, then please get in touch and we'll get you on the show to talk about it. This week, Craig talks to Lesley Riddoch about her new film Denmark: The State of...

Episode 194 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast  You can download the episode directly here. This week Craig talks to Common Weal Director Amanda Burgauer in the final Policy Podcast of the year. They take you through some of the highlights from Common Weal in 2023 such as our policy work in ScotWind, the National Care Service and in independence strategy. They discuss some of our public events and conference appearances. And they talk about the importance of public engagement with policy...

Episode 193 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Anthony Salamone from European Merchants who is here to discuss the Scottish Government's latest independence White Paper on Scotland's accession to the European Union. They discuss where the Scottish Government has started to demonstrate deeper understanding of EU processes and structures but also where the paper continues to gloss over or ignore critical barriers such as...

Episode 192 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Sophia Georgescu, a PhD candidate currently researching how actively involving children in democratic participation can both educate and embed participation later but can also have a meaningful impact on our democracy itself. Decisions affecting everyone should not be solely left to the "adults in the room". They also discuss the progress Scotland is making in embedding...

Episode 191 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Stuart Donald, an electoral reform campaigner who particularly focuses on the systematic inequalities caused by the UK's First Past The Post electoral system. They discuss how this system disenfranchises voters, leads to them being less well represented in Parliament and leads to parties pulling in majority power rather than governing by consensus. They then discuss the...

Episode 190 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Nick Kempe who many of you will know from his work with Common Weal on care reform. His life outwith care though is spent exploring the hills and mountains of Scotland and Europe. In this podcast, he talks about the problem Scotland faces with frequent landslips and how they have been exacerbated by Government policy and by the lack of land reform in the country. You can read...

Episode 189 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week Craig presents another in his series of public talks. He updates his long running study of the Demographics of Independence, looking beneath the headlines in the regular independence polls to see how the landscape of the independence campaign has changed even despite an apparently lack of change in the headline polling numbers. You can read his 2021 Demographics of Independence paper here:...

Episode 188 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week Craig talks to Iain Black, Prof of Sustainable Consumption at Strathclyde University and Common Weal Board Member, about his latest paper on the misuse of the term Wellbeing Economics. He discusses what the wellbeing economy actually means and how moving towards one means doing more than than minor changes at the edges of the economy or continuing to push GDP Growth but trying to make it...

Episode 187 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week Craig brings you a slightly different podcast. Rather than interview a guest, he debuts an "extended edition" of a presentation he gave to XR Inverness on Scottish public owned energy in which he describes various ways to create a "Public Energy Company" in Scotland as well as several ways of bringing existing energy generation into public ownership. You can read Common Weal's paper on...

Episode 186 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week Craig talks to Common Weal's Robin McAlpine about his new policy paper on a strategic approach to gaining Scottish independence. They discuss why the focus on process (that is, the debate between which kind of referendum vs which kind of plebiscite) has not just kept the indy campaign static but actively led it down a blind alley that needs to be backed out of. He claims instead that the end...