Dr Craig Dalȝell

Process over policy was never a route to Indy — Common Weal The recent inquiry by the Scottish Parliament’s Constitution Committee into the lack of a legislative roadmap to independence told us little that Common Weal hadn’t already predicted. The real questio...

My article in this week's Common Weal newsletter.

The recent Parliamentary Committee looking at a legal route to a second independence referendum told us nothing that Common Weal hasn't been saying for years and told us less about what to do about it.

www.commonweal.scot/articles/mag...

The House of Lords Digital & Communications Committee just published their report on AI, copyright & the creative industries, and their conclusions could not be clearer.

🧵 1/5

David Pratt: America is hell bent on dragging the unwary into Iran attacks A LITTLE side story, but still one of real significance, caught my eye in the Israeli press this week

‘That the CIA has been courting Iranian Kurds to take the fight into Iran on America’s behalf, I can’t help feel that once again the Kurds are about to be taken for geopolitical mugs and served up as US cannon fodder.’- Today’s column 👇 👇
www.thenational.scot/politics/259...

Oh no. It's a disaster. They're going to only earn a profit of £36k per house they build instead of £40k because house prices haven't inflated by as much as they thought they would. ¬_¬

See my article on their last profit update: www.thenational.scot/politics/256...

It’s a lack of will, not consensus, that prevents Council Tax reform — Common Weal The Scottish Government’s failure to reform Council Tax has gone on far too long. It must be a defining mission of the next Parliament to reform it in the only fair way possible.

Read our policy paper: www.commonweal.scot/policies/a-p...

And my recent article on the Scottish Government kicking fair property taxation into the long grass again: www.commonweal.scot/articles/mag...

Assuming Carr treats this as is first home and pays Council Tax, he'll likely be paying about £3,650-ish per year (plus water rates).

If we got rid of bands and all paid based on a percentage of the value of our properties (we suggest 0.63% to be "revenue neutral" with CT), he'd owe over £20k/y

A senior Home Office official, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive policy details, estimates the changes could extend to thousands of individuals. They would not rule out asylum seekers deemed to have broken the law being forced into destitution and rough sleeping in the process.

And you wonder why so many Home Office policies are successfully challenged in the courts...

www.politico.eu/article/brit...

<Taps the Big Book of War Crimes>

"Grave breaches...shall be those involving any of the following acts:...extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly."

ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treat...

"Warfighters", you say Pete?

Are they presently fighting a war?

Did the UN and Congress legally approve that war before they started fighting it?

Did you issue illegal orders to them to fight that war?

It’s a lack of will, not consensus, that prevents Council Tax reform — Common Weal The Scottish Government’s failure to reform Council Tax has gone on far too long. It must be a defining mission of the next Parliament to reform it in the only fair way possible.

'The debate on Council Tax reform has gone on far too long. Everyone agrees that things need to change. No-one, it appears, wants to be the one to take the responsibility of making that change happen. This isn’t good enough.'
Dr Craig Dalȝell, via Common Weal

Gambling: addiction is not freedom — Common Weal A report today raises an issue which has quietly become one of the most pressing elements to address in pursuit of the wellbeing of a large part of society; gambling. It highlights the entirely uneq...

Today's Common Weal Daily Briefing:
Gambling Addiction is not "Freedom".
www.commonweal.scot/daily-briefi...

Sign up for our daily and weekly newsletters here - www.commonweal.scot/subscribe

Donate to Common Weal to support this and our other work - www.commonweal.scot/donate

1/ Experts issued some pretty dire warnings about Trumpian tariffs and Brexit, and the result was not nearly as bad as it could have been.

Now they're issuing dire warnings about Iran.

A much smarter friend asked me how I was thinking about the difference.

My short answer: control.

🧵(1/2): Last week, Shabana Mahmood toured Sjælsmark return centre as the UK eyes Denmark’s hardline asylum model.

I went there in 2024. It may not be a prison — but it certainly feels like one

JD VANCE: "There's just no way Trump is gonna about this country to get into a multiyear conflict with no end in sight"

TRUMP HOURS LATER: "Wars can be fought 'forever,' and very successfully"

A chart of heating oil prices for Scotland showing a dramatic spike from around 75p/litre yesterday to 95p/litre today - the shock the result of the US's illegal war against Iran.

This one goes out to Starmer for supporting another illegal war and to SNP members in Aberdeen right now campaigning for Starmer to remove oil profiteering taxes.

And in half-forgotten cases, Trump finally backs out.

The American people deserved to get a clear explanation of why servicemembers lives are at risk and why their gas prices are about to skyrocket. Instead, they got this.

Scotland could lead the UK by upholding International Law — Common Weal With the US no longer a demonstrably reliable ally and the UK demonstrably unable to stand up to them, Scotland should do what we can to protect ourselves from the recent shifts in geopolitics and act...

As the US increasingly decides that international law no longer applies to it, Scotland should start enforcing it within its own jurisdiction.

www.commonweal.scot/articles/mag...

Capitalists hate free markets. They always push for cartels, then monopolies...which inevitably fail.

www.commonweal.scot/articles/mag...

"No stupid rules of engagement" means no Geneva Conventions or other international humanitarian laws, which the U.S. signed and supported for more than a century.
Hegseth and Trump are pro-war crimes.

Hegseth Orders End to Pentagon-Funded Attendance at Several Elite Universities Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Pentagon to end military attendance at several elite universities, expanding a prior move cutting academic ties with Harvard.

But, of course, Hegseth cancelled military education programs, didn't he.

www.military.com/feature/2026...

"To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of empire; they make a wasteland and call it peace." - Tacitius - Attrib. to Calgacus

One of my MP followers should ask him at PMQs this week if unquestionably and blindly following the Americans into war is the wrong thing to do.

The irony is Topping & Company’s Edinburgh book shop is located in a former Royal Bank of Scotland branch, one of 1,536 that the banking group now known as NatWest has axed since 2015.

NEW: The Lib Dems are demanding MPs get a vote on allowing the US to use UK air bases.

Leader Ed Davey says:

“No matter how the Prime Minister tries to redefine offensive as defensive, this is a slippery slope. He must not let Trump drag Britain into another prolonged war in the Middle East.”

UK will allow US to use bases to strike Iranian missile sites, says Starmer The prime minister says it remains the case that the UK will

If you were wondering why the UK Government refused this morning to say whether the US had breached international law with its attack on Iran, well now we know why.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Just your regularly scheduled share of this masterpiece by @tomgauld.bsky.social

Quite clearly the US-Israeli attacks are in breach of the prohibition of the use of force. There are two exceptions: a UNSC resolution (which we do not have) and self-defence /1

"President Peace" has started another illegal war.

I mean, it's this, or we just send chatbot-written e-mails back and forth to each other forever