As the Scottish Parliament elections gather pace, the Londoncentric media are faced with a country not playing by the austerity rule book. And they don't like it. Last Sunday's 'The Politics Show' took the market dogma line, presenting Scotland as a dependency state refusing to acknowledge the eco
The method by which AV votes are counted makes it impossible to assess which winning candidates enjoy the genuine support of the majority. Therefore the parliamentary majorities produced by AV will be more unreliable, contestable and illegitimate than under the present system of First Past the Pos
The Black Bloc ‘tactic’ used at the March 26th anti-cuts demonstration is an entirely counterproductive dead-end.
We are told that a healthy happy citizen must enjoy "meaning, mastery and autonomy". Cameron's Big Society requires citizens to be innovative and not averse to risk. Yet can we become happy and playful in a climate of economic insecurity?
The fallout from the TUC demonstration on March 26th, which saw the mass arrest of peaceful UK Uncut activists following the police’s failure to deal with the controversial black bloc earlier in the day, has lent added urgency to debates about the nature of networked activism, its limits and poten
The campaign against the privatisation of England's public forests succeeded due to a powerful sense that we, the people, own our woodlands. Yet why stop here? Isn't the land itself a common asset of the nation? Julian Sayarer argues for the imposition of a land value tax.
openDemocracy and Our Kingdom are proud to serialise The Skinback Fusiliers, a fast, funny and deeply disturbing novel about life in the British army today seen through the eyes of three young men. The book is available on Kindle and through Amazon here.
The route to English democracy may be via its transport system
Lord Adonis sets out a vision for Birmingham in this Lunar Society lecture. The former transport secretary suggests that the city is facing a crisis, and argues its potential might be unleashed through the election of a Mayor, high-speed rail, and academies.
The film 'Oranges and Sunshine' tells of the thousands of British children forced into migration to the Commonwealth in the 1880s. Barnardo's had a role in this practice - but has it learned from past mistakes? Today, the children's charity faces accusations of collusion with the government over c
