re-framing the American dream
I was sitting on grubby floor of Edinburgh's student union when Ohio suddenly went blue. There was no big cheer yet, and mostly people just carried on chatting. But I…
Are we seeing the end of coal?
Just a very brief post to say well done to Patrick Harvie for securing a vote in Holyrood against Hunterston coal power station - and to cross-party back-benchers for supporting…
Why I’m not complaining (much) about Vice Chancellors’ pay
The annual story about university Vice Chancellors' pay rises is in the papers again today. I have to admit that some of the stats are a little eye watering. The…
Why should the biggest party govern us?
All this hung Westminster chat recently allows us Scots to suddenly feel experienced. The idea of confidence and supply was, I think, first discussed at Holyrood by pre-2007 Greens. It…
Students preparing to bite back
This time last year, I wrote a comment piece for "the Herald", arguing that today's students are the most politicised for a generation. The main (though not only) piece of…
Tories propose corporate tax break?
It wasn't just Greens keeping a close eye on our spring conference. Tory candidate for Brighton Pavillion, Charlotte Vere, was regularly tweeting about the event. This particular one caught my…
The 5 best bits of Green spring conference.
(Green Party of England and Wales) Spring Conference fun is over, so I thought I'd write my top 5 things from the weekend, for those of you who missed it.…
If Robin Hood tax is stealth tax, then banks must be broken up
So, the Financial Times reports today that the Robin Hood tax - or Tobin Tax to it's old chums, may be a 'stealth tax'. The argument, which comes from Oxford…
21 hours a week: time to aspire to fun?
In 1930, the great economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by the 21st century, we'd be working an average of 15 hours a week. The argument was a pretty simple…
bailed-out RBS lead near billion pound deal for Uganda war zone oil company
Yesterday I posted a story about how we had just launched a legal action against the Treasury over their failure to stop RBS misusing public money. Right after I posted…