Mike Vickers' Blog

Discussion today, 21 August 2103 on the Common Weal at the Fringe.  If you would like more on the Jimmy Reid’s Foundation: Common Weal go to http://reidfoundation.org/common-weal/.

Also Lesley Riddoch has just published a book ‘Blossom’ on the Future of Scotland published by Luath.

The points I picked up at the discussion are;

Robin McAlpine

• Buildable, share more.
• Not big state, rather radical decentralisation.

In Scotland.

• The majority of the population earn less than £20,000.
• There is effectively no labour market.
• Increase quality of jobs and the tax problem goes away
• Start to start again from first principles.
• New set of Institutions
• Independence is not an identity problem
• At present the Independence debate is more like Civil War.

Lesley Riddoch – the Nordics.

• 80 years of Hydro, land ownership by the communities.
• Communities are empowered.
• In Sweden anyone earning less than £30,000 does not pay tax

Looking at Scotland;

• ‘Stand there till I fix you’.
• Cameron cherry picks the bits he likes
• Forget average shift, rather shift average.
• Human capacity..

James Meadway.

• Sharpest fall in living standards in England for generations.
• Papers say that England is booming, housing market overheated. In practice only London is booming.
• The rest of the UK is suffering; the government in Westminster pays only lip service to the North East , North West.
• Councils in England are without any authority, everything is centralised in Westminster.
• We are only 20% through the crisis

Robin McAlpine again

• Corporates v the Individual
• Throw away the Tax Code  – start again
• National Investment Bank

Lesley Riddoch again.

• What is required is common sense.
• Too many armchair theorists – get out there at the grass-roots
• Good things are happening in Glasgow
• It’s a question of self-help.
• Scotland does not make use of its women, compare the Nordics.
• It’s all about owners of assets

The points I took on board are:

All agreed that we need decentralisation desperately -whether in Scotland or the whole of the UK.

The Left has been asleep – Rumpelstiltskin.

We are not using our human capacity.

There was no good feeling that Independence would bring decentralisation. In my opinion Independence could lead to more centralisation; the government will claim that only that way can they save the economic problems they have inherited.

The problem is that major change as suggested by the Common Weal will only be brought about by major active political intervention. Unfortunately none of the political parties at Westminster at least are willing to take on radical reform. It was tentatively suggested that the Jimmy real foundation should form its own party.

We are looking at 50 years of hard slog.