Episode 214 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, and for the final time for the podcast in this format, Craig talks to Robin McAlpine about the General Election results. How did Labour win such a massive landslide despite losing voterse, what happened to collapse the Conservatives, why didn't smal…

Episode 213 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Nadia Shaikh from the Right to Roam campaign, who are seeking the same right to access land in England as we in Scotland have enjoyed by statute for over two decades and by custom for many years longer than that. They discuss how 92% …

Episode 212 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, in lieu of a guest, Craig gives a presentation based on one of his public talks. He details what a Circular Economy actually means in contrast to the much more limited definition being used by the Scottish Government. Rather than merely "increasing …

Episode 211 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig is on holiday, so it’s Rory filling in. On today’s episode, Rory speaks to Dr Franziska Paul, Lecturer in Political Economy at the University of Glasgow about a project she is currently working on alongside Professor Thomas Marois of McMaster …

Episode 210 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Frances Guy, Chief Executive of SIDA, Common Weal Board Member and the Former UK Ambassador to Yemen. They discuss SIDA's new report looking at ways that Scotland and the UK can "shift the power" away from the Global North who have ca…

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 t…

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 …

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…

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 ho…

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 Insura…

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 al…

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 th…

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 …

About the Talk In this episode of the Governance podcast, our Director Mark Pennington speaks to Prof. William Easterly from New York University on liberal vs paternalist approaches to economic development policy. The Guest William Easterly is Professor of Economics at New York University and Co-director of the NYU Development Research Institute, w…

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 lo…

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…

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 …

About the Talk In this episode of the Governance podcast, our Director Mark Pennington interviews Dr. Matthew Mitchell on the socialist reality in Estonia’s history. This episode is part of Matthew’s co-authored publication as part of the Realities of Socialism series run by the Fraser Institute. The Guest Matthew D. Mitchell is a Senior Fellow in …

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 …

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…

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…

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…

About the Talk In this episode of the podcast, Prof. Mark Pennington interviews Prof. Adam Dixon on the contemporary relevance of the Scottish philosopher and political economist Adam Smith. The Guest Adam D. Dixon holds the Adam Smith Chair in Sustainable Capitalism at Adam Smith’s Panmure House, the last and final home of moral philosopher and fa…

About the Talk In this episode of the podcast, Prof. Mark Pennington interviews Prof. Bruce Caldwell, one of the co-authors of this recently published book Hayek: A Life. Few twentieth-century figures have been lionized and vilified in such equal measure as Friedrich Hayek—economist, social theorist, leader of the Austrian school of economics, and …

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 stra…

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 demonst…

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. Decision…

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 le…

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 f…

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 cha…

About the Talk Can a moral or divine law independent of contingency accommodate the social and economic complexities of circumstance? Does a defense of custom necessarily repudiate the idea of immutable law applicable to all peoples and cultures? Is transcendent universality and spontaneous order reconcilable? This episode explores this age-old ten…

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 mo…

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 Comp…

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) …

Episode 185 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Max Wiszniewski, reflecting on four years of the Revive Coalition, its campaign to regulate grouse moors in Scotland, their thoughts on recent developments in land reform and their upcoming conference to "Change the face of Scotland".…

Episode 184 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Laura Young about her campaign to ban disposable vapes in Scotland and in the UK. They discuss why these devices exist, how they are marketed and what impact their improper disposal is having. They also discuss the possible role of th…

Episode 183 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig plays with the format of the podcast slightly. Instead of just one guest, he's spoken to several members of the Common Weal team about last week's Programme for Government and what they would have added to it if they had written it themselves.…

Episode 182 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Mercedes Villalba MSP about her Members' Bill to apply a public interest test to anyone who owns or seeks to own more than 500 hectares of land in Scotland. They discuss the problems with Scotland's concentrated land ownership, how th…

Episode 181 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Barry Fisher from Keep Scotland Beautiful about their campaign to end litter in Scotland with a major part of that campaign now looking at Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) or the concept that the producers of devices and packagi…

Episode 180 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Colin Turbett, former social worker and member of Common Weal's Care Reform Group, about the history of social work in Scotland and what lessons we can learn from the fragmentation and privatisation of social work as we consider the u…

Episode 179 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, a pan-European project to map and track insecure labour, about a recent article he wrote about Karl Marx and his views towards the gig economy - known in his time as "piece wages". They discuss t…

Episode 178 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Common Weal's own Rory Hamilton about his research into land reform and community buyouts in the South of Scotland. His collating of oral history of land reform in several village communities shows the difference in attitudes towards …

Episode 177 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Ellen Joëlle Dalzell, activist and director of community design & campaign agency Artivism Scotland, about the Scottish Government's Independence White Paper on citizenship. They discuss the positives around Scotland's inclusive appro…

Episode 176 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Calum Hodgson from Green New Deal Rising about the current state of the climate emergency, what are the barriers to the solutions are are available but not being implemented fast enough and what should the Scottish and UK Governments …

Episode 175 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Graham Smith, CEO of pro-democracy campaign group Republic about their campaign to end the British monarchy and replace the head of state with an elected President. They discuss the reasons why we need an elected head of state, how Re…

Episode 174 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Prof. Richard Murphy of Funding the Future about the UK's inflation crisis, how the Bank of England has misdiagnosed the problem, how the IMF has correctly identified the cause but thinks we should keep doing the wrong thing anyway an…

Episode 173 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Alastair McIntosh, ecologist, activist, and author of a new paper on community rights in the face of carbon capture and capital, The Cheviot, The Stag and the Black, Black Carbon. They discuss the rise of the Green Lairds, the lack of…

About the Talk Lawmakers, activists, and academics, often, presume that enacting a law sends a (powerful) message about what is socially desirable and acceptable. At worst, it is presumed that it will stay as ink on paper and not create any change. Therefore, it is considered as a cost-less endeavor with potential for creating great change at low c…

Episode 172 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Kaitlin Dryburgh, Common Weal's Policy Communications Officer, about her new project for Common Weal. Common Weal Recreates is a monthly newsletter looking at sport, art and culture in Scotland with a specific focus on helping you fin…

Episode 171 of the Common Weal Policy Podcast You can download the episode directly here. This week, Craig talks to Tom Nockolds, member of Common Weal's Energy Working Group and co-founder of Loco Home, a community-led, not-for-profit, retrofitting strategy company who work with communities and suppliers to help advise and design home retrofit pla…