Month: June 2024

The UK’s Democracy Is Broken – Why Does No-One Want To Fix It?

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 1 Comment

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” – Alice Walker

(This is an extended version of an article that previously appeared in The National. You can throw me a tip to support this blog here.)

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Given the audience likely to read this column, the statement “UK democracy is broken” isn’t going to feel uncontroversial or even particularly objectionable, but it is one that is being forced into sharp relief by the ongoing UK General Election campaign. We’re are all, regardless of our political leanings, being ill served by it.

This column started with a thought around the claims that the UK Labour Party are eyeing the potential of winning a “supermajority” after next Thursday with the loudest complainants of such a result being those in conservative circles. Understandably so as it would mean Labour winning a majority so large that they can’t possibly be challenged by the Opposition and so large that they don’t even need to worry about a rebellion on the back benches or the inevitable trickle of by-elections triggered by scandal, illness and the march of time threatening to flip the balance of power.

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A National Care Service Worthy Of The Name

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” – Leo F. Buscaglia

(This blog post previously appeared in HealthAndCare.scot. You can throw me a tip to support this blog here.)

woman in black crew neck shirt wearing blue earbuds

Common Weal has spent four years campaigning hard for a National Care Service (NCS) that would be as worthy of that name as we all believe that the National Health Service should be of its name.

When the initial National Care Service (Scotland) Bill was published and introduced we were so concerned with the lack of vision and purpose and with the massive ministerial power grab contained within it, we successfully campaigned alongside the Scottish Trade Union Congress to get the Bill paused so that we could have a thorough period of co-design with various care stakeholders to bring the Bill up to worthy standard.

Despite many hundreds of hours spent collectively by dozens of organisations across Scotland, progress from the Scottish government remained slow and even at times counterproductive.

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A Workers’ Gala

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

(This blog post previously appeared in Common Weal’s weekly newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here.)

Band

One of the highlights of my summer growing up involves a tradition that appears a wee bit strange to many of my friends living in other parts of Scotland, across the UK, or beyond. And that’s our annual village gala day. It’s usually marked by the council coming around the week before to tie plastic bunting to the lampposts (the section directly outside my house is red, white and blue in contrast to the standard rainbow of the rest of the street. I’m absolutely sure that has nothing to do with the prominent pro-indy sticker in our window…) and then on the morning itself – usually a Saturday – when some of the houses flagrantly breach copyright and trademark laws by decorating their houses with various cartoon characters, superheroes or some other commercially exploitable symbol of Capitalism directed at kids this year before finally, just after most folk have probably woken up…the band starts playing.

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Can An Economy Be ‘Big Enough’?

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

“Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” – Kenneth E. Boulding

(This blog post previously appeared in The Morning Star. You can throw me a tip to support this blog here.)

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Those of us on the left have rarely been truly excited by the prospect of the Establishment crowning their next temporary placeholder, though I don’t know about you but this upcoming general election seems to offer even less in the way of actual choice or a chance for change than usual.

The Conservatives are in freefall, ejecting ballast as fast as they can (personnel as well as policies), Keir Starmer’s “changed Labour Party” seems to be trying to do as little as it can to uphold the traditions of the middle word in that catchphrase and even in Scotland, where for the last several elections, the SNP provided some sense of counterpoint (either as a credible voting option or at least as an anchor against rightwards triangulation), that party seems to have hit the end of its road in terms of ideas.

This time around, all of those parties (and several others) have congregated on a single line when it comes to how to manage the economy. Growth at all costs, no matter who profits from it or how much damage is done to the planet in the process.

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Selling The Earth

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 5 Comments

“Privatize everything, privatize the sea and the sky, privatize the sea and the sky, privatize justice and the law, privatize the passing cloud, privatize the dream, especially if it’s during the day and open eyed. And finally, for the embellishment of so many privatizations, privatize the States, surrender once and for all their exploitation to private companies through international share offering. There lies the salvation of the world…” – José de Sousa Saramago

(This blog post previously appeared in The National. You can throw me a tip to support this blog here.)

Private

“Natural capital is our geology, soil, air, water, plants and animals.”

Remember that definition, for it is the one the Scottish Government uses to introduce their “Market Framework for Natural Capital”, which they are consulting on at the moment.

Not content with their previous attempts to privatise nature in Scotland (see their “PFI For Trees” scandal last year and their “Green Investment Portfolio” a few years before that), the Government now wants to expand the remit of potential privatisation to all aspects of Natural Capital:- our geology, soil, air, water, plants and animals.

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What Happened To GB Energy?

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

“In a world where vows are worthless.Where making a pledge means nothing. Where promises are made to be broken, it would be nice to see words come back into power.” – Chuck Palahniuk

(This blog post previously appeared in Common Weal’s weekly newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here.)

voltage

One of Common Weal’s most important policy successes has been how we’ve pushed the debate in Scotland and beyond on the issue of publicly owned energy. Energy is absolutely vital to our entire economy regardless of which side of the left-right spectrum you believe that economy should serve (as Prof Steve Keen puts it: “Capital without energy is a sculpture; Labour without energy is a corpse.”) and in the UK we, unlike many other states, have decided to sell off our energy sector to the point that more of our energy is owned by the public sectors of other nations than is owned by our own, never mind the vast swathes owned by private multinationals that are the size of countries.

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UK General Election 2024:- The Manifestos

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 3 Comments

“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

(This post and the research underpinning it is undertaken in my own time and outwith other political work that I do. It is presented here free to access as a public service but if you’d like to throw me a wee tip to support this work, you can here.)

Vote

The campaign for the 2024 UK General Election is underway and parties are now laying out their positions and are courting your votes. As I have with every other election since I started this blog, I’ll continue keeping a place here for party neutral information, including a post aimed at first time voters on how to vote in the elections and how that vote is translated into seats. I have written a guide on how to vote in the upcoming election and how your vote is translated into MSPs’ seats. You can read that guide here.

As a voter, it can be difficult to find information on what each of the parties are promising you – their websites can be confusing and there may be a lot of them. In this post I intend to gather as many of the political party manifestos as I can as they are published so that you can find them in one place. Unfortunately, I can’t cover independent candidates fairly and whilst I would like to be as inclusive as possible I may miss a few of the smaller parties or they may not be publishing a full manifesto (particularly if they are a single issue party). As this is a Scotland-focused blog my general rule is that for inclusion the manifesto must from from a registered political party that is standing at least two candidates across at least two constituencies in Scotland. However, I shall try to include manifestos from parties campaigning outwith Scotland but elsewhere in the UK. If parties release a distinctly Scottish version of their manifesto in addition to their UK version, I shall link to both. If you spot the publication of a manifesto before I do, please let me know and I’ll add it. I shall also welcome advance notice from party representatives themselves of when they plan to publish their manifesto.

All of the manifestos below are presented for your information and the presence or absence of any of them should not be taken as an endorsement or otherwise of any of the parties or of any of the policies that they may be promoting.

Note:- Parties marked in square brackets are placeholders for now and the prospective list may change as manifestos are published, parties emerge or, indeed, parties drop out of the electoral race.

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How Scotland Votes: A Guide to the 2024 UK General Election

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 1 Comment

“Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.” – Terry Pratchett

(This post and the research underpinning it was undertaken in my own time and outwith other political work that I do. It is presented here free to access as a public service but if you’d like to throw me a wee tip to support that work, you can here.)

Vote

Disclosure and Disclaimer: Although I am politically active – albeit not a member of any political party – this guide is intended to be objective and politically neutral. This is a guide on how to vote and is written with a first time voter in mind. It is not a blog to try to convince you to vote for or against any particular person or party but to help you cast your vote and to understand how that vote translates and contributes to the final result.

For the first time since 2015, the UK has managed to complete a relatively normal length of time between General Elections, though since the repeal of the Fixed Term Parliament Act, a “normal” period of time is no longer the fixed period of five years but may be called at any time by the incumbent Prime Minister so long as not more than five years has passed. The absolute deadline for the current term was January 2025 but Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pulled the trigger a little earlier than that (and a little earlier than most commentators expected as many thought we’d see an election around September or October). Whatever his reasons – and he doesn’t strictly need any – Parliament has been dissolved, all of our MPs have lost their jobs and many of them – as well as a slew of other potential candidates – are now courting your vote to try to win a seat in the House of Commons. This vote will take place on Thursday 4th July 2024.

If you want to take part in this election, and particularly if it’s your first time ever doing so or if it’s not but you’d like to know how your vote translates into seats and MPs, then this guide is for you. If you’re looking for someone to tell you who to vote for, then I won’t do that here but please do check out my list of all of the published party manifestos which may help guide your vote.

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“Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.” – Terry Pratchett

(This post and the research underpinning it was undertaken in my own time and outwith other political work that I do. It is presented here free to access as a public service but if you’d like to throw me a wee tip to support that work, you can here.)

Vote

Disclosure and Disclaimer: Although I am politically active – albeit not a member of any political party – this guide is intended to be objective and politically neutral. This is a guide on how to vote and is written with a first time voter in mind. It is not a blog to try to convince you to vote for or against any particular person or party but to help you cast your vote and to understand how that vote translates and contributes to the final result.

For the first time since 2015, the UK has managed to complete a relatively normal length of time between General Elections, though since the repeal of the Fixed Term Parliament Act, a “normal” period of time is no longer the fixed period of five years but may be called at any time by the incumbent Prime Minister so long as not more than five years has passed. The absolute deadline for the current term was January 2025 but Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pulled the trigger a little earlier than that (and a little earlier than most commentators expected as many thought we’d see an election around September or October). Whatever his reasons – and he doesn’t strictly need any – Parliament has been dissolved, all of our MPs have lost their jobs and many of them – as well as a slew of other potential candidates – are now courting your vote to try to win a seat in the House of Commons. This vote will take place on Thursday 4th July 2024.

If you want to take part in this election, and particularly if it’s your first time ever doing so or if it’s not but you’d like to know how your vote translates into seats and MPs, then this guide is for you. If you’re looking for someone to tell you who to vote for, then I won’t do that here but please do check out my list of all of the published party manifestos which may help guide your vote.

Continue reading →