The SNP government in Scotland is in trouble. The coalition agreement with the Greens in Scotland (who are a different party to the Greens in England and Wales) has collapsed over the admission that the Scottish government cannot meet its 2030 climate targets. The SNP is a minority government now. Former SNP MSP, Ash Regan, now with Alba, is setting out her terms for supporting the SNP. And there is a real risk that Humza Yasouf might lose a confidence motion shortly before a general election, which can hardly help the SNP’s electoral prospects in Westminster polling. None of this is good news ..read more

This is how the US police treat professors who ask what they are doing on the campus where that professor teaches: It is worth watching this CNN video from the moment Emory Econ Professor @CarolineFohlin came across the violent arrest of a protester on campus and asked the police, with shock, "What are you doing?" That's all that prompted an officer to hurl her to the ground and handcuff her. https://t.co/QKNRqOoIiS pic.twitter.com/3wzSIOcD6U — Robert Mackey (@RobertMackey) April 26, 2024 I have little doubt such behaviour will be copied here in due course. Labour has supported Tory laws on ..read more

As the Guardian has noted: New figures show more than 150,000 unpaid carers are now facing huge fines for minor rule breaches, as MPs, charities and campaigners demanded an immediate amnesty. They added: The Guardian can reveal 156,000 unpaid carers are repaying severe penalties – in some cases tens of thousands of pounds – for often unwittingly overstepping the £151-a-week earnings limit while caring for a loved one. 11,600 carers hit by the penalties are paying back sums of more than £5,000. About one in five unpaid carers in work breached the strict weekly earnings limit last year ..read more

I posted this video, which explains why more government spending in the UK is likely to require more tax revenue to be raised, at least whilst the benefits of that spending are generated if infaltion is to be avoided, on YouTube this morning: The transcript is: Do we need to raise more taxes if the government is going to spend more? It's a really important question and one that people are asking me because I've written the Taxing Wealth Report. That shows that the government could, by simply changing the rules on some of our taxes with regard to the way that they impact on the wealthiest peop ..read more

I posted this video on YouTube this morning: The transcript is as follows: Freedom from fear is one of the things that every politician should seek to provide. And I don't think it's a priority for any politician, from the major parties at least, in the UK at present. And that, to me, is incredibly worrying. Freedom from fear was one of the four fundamental freedoms that US President Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Second World War leader of the USA, outlined in a speech in 1941, not that long before the US joined the Second World War. He said there were four fundamental freedoms. The f ..read more

The FT has offered an an analysis in so-called sick note culture today. Its conclusion is that there is no such thing. The data on sick notes shows that. The situation now is no worse than in 2019. Short term sickness rates have not changed. However, as the FT notes, this is due to the reason why sick notes are requested. They are only needed to claim statutory sick pay and that is miserably low in the UK, meaning that we have very low numbers of days off work on average in this country as a result. So, if there is a sickness problem in the UK it is not due to people off work in the short ter ..read more

Labour has said it plans to renationalise almost all of Britain’s railways. I welcome that. The simple fact that it is willing to acknowledge that in a sector previously privatised the state might be a potentially better supplier of services is clearly good news. It is also very obviously true. Before we get too excited though there are observations to make. Firstly, rail is easy to renationalise because all Labour has to do is let rail franchises expire and then not re-let them. There is no similar model elsewhere. Second, they are not planning to renationalise the rolling stock companies tha ..read more

I have out up Marsh family videos here before. This one is very good ..read more

This was Stephanie Kelton on The Daily Show in the USA last night, talking about modern monetary theory: In case the link does not work (and YouTube seems to be unreliable this morning), it's also here ..read more

One of the strangest consequences of running a blog that has quite a high volume of traffic is that I receive a great many press releases a day. Most go straight into the electronic bin, but there are exceptions that demand that I read them. One of those came in from Extinction Rebellion this morning. It said, and I unashamedly quote: Extinction Rebellion, BBC Wildlife legend Chris Packham and tens of thousands of members of the public will ‘unite for nature’ by joining a legal and family-friendly demonstration on the streets of central London on Saturday 22 June 2024. Backed by a wide-range ..read more