Scottish Independence Podcasts

Commonweal policy podcast ep 102 : Media Matters

This week, Craig talks to David Patrick, author of recently published book Front-Page Scotland which looks at how stories about Scottish independence were reported in the newspapers throughout the 2014 independence referendum campaign. They discuss how the framing of stories on topics such as economics depended largely on whether the points favoured one side of the campaign or the other, which topics were given a disproportionate amount of time in coverage and which people and personalities saw more coverage than others. Finally, they discuss lessons to be learned from the last campaign that could be applied now such as how activists can better examine news stories to assess if the issues are being reported fairly.

The UK Government‘s Green Savings Bond

The Green Savings Bond.
There are a whole host of ways that a government can take to encourage a shift to a greener economy. The Green Savings Bond, the latest idea from the Westminster Government, is not one of them.  Over the summer UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a plan to direct £15B of funding towards green projects to help decarbonize the UK economy. 
To achieve this he has chosen the good old Bond market, but with a wee twist, rather than using the traditional bond market where institutional investors look to hedge their riskier investments, by buying risk-free bonds from the government, he is after the publics’ savings. 
In the most basic terms, the Green Savings Bond scheme will direct some of the great British public’s savings towards green projects. 
So we have the headline: £15B of funding towards green projects. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
But we all know never to believe the headline. 
That £15B of funding towards green projects is across two years and will only be invested if the great British public chooses to hand that amount over to the government; there is no government top-up. 
So this headline figure is a maximum figure: it could, of course, be much smaller, and considering the callosum mismanagement of public funds during the pandemic by the conservative administration, I expect they will fall well short of that figure. 
To really understand the lameness of this initiative we have to delve a bit deeper into Bonds and the Bond market.
https://scotonomics.scot

SNP conference - Nicola Sturgeon Speech

Nicola Sturgeon's speech from the SNPs virtual conference Sept 2021

Alba inaugural conference - Alex Salmond‘s speech

The weekend of 11th Sept saw two party conferences.  Here is the closing speech from Alex Salmond at the Alba conference held at Greenock Town Hall.
 

James E interviews - Joy McNaughton

James E chats to Joy McNaughten, mother of Olympic Champion swimmer Duncan Scott about the making of a champion, the cost and the frustrations of the lack of media coverage for a sport in which Scotland excels.Scots are 8% of the Uk population yet make up 14% of the British Olympic Team, 21% of the Olympic swimming team and achieved 25% of the medals. Yet the sport barely gets any coverage in mainstream media.Next on the sporting calendar is the International Swimming League which you can follow on youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBoEDuW0Lg7AmCkts1j8LyQ and next year will be another busy year with European Championships and Commonwealth Games.You can find out more about the Scottish Swimming team here https://www.scottishswimming.com/compete/swimming/national-squads.aspx
Duncan Scott is the ONLY British Olympian to win 4 medals in a single games and he is still only 24 . He is also an ambassador for the Learn to Swim programme - an essential life skill for Scottish children in a country with 90% of the UK's fresh water supply. Find out more here https://www.scottishswimming.com/learn-to-swim.aspx
We are grateful to Joy for joining us to help promote Scottish sport and once again, our congratulations to Duncan and all those who took part in the Olympic Games 2021.
#DuncanScott #ScottishSports #Olympics2021

Commonweal policy podcast #97 - Thinking outwith the box

In the week collectively known across Scotland as "GERSmas", when the estimated accounts of Scotland as an administrative region of the UK are published,  Dr Craig Dalzell urges us to think outwith the box.  
This week, Craig talks to SNP Policy Development Convenor Chris Hanlon and Agnes MacAuley from SNP Greenock & Inverclyde about the latest GERS figures and what they mean (and don’t mean) for Scotland, independence and the post-pandemic recovery. They then discuss up and coming motions to the SNP conference that have been influenced by or based on Common Weal policies including one for a National Transport Company designed to help decarbonise our cars and other vehicles. Finally, they discuss the role of non-party think tanks in Scottish politics and what they can do that party affiliated policy groups cannot.
You can find out more about Commonweal, including access to all the policy papers in their policy library on their website   https://commonweal.scot/
 
 

The Locker Room 20th Aug

This week's episode of the Locker Room including Olympic action, swimming and yet more football

Indylive.Radio Team Talk - July-august issue

Hi, welcome to the Indylive.radio team' audio newsletter for July and August!  Find out what we've been up to as Covid restrictions start to ease and meet some new team members.  Also, hear about our plans for the next few months
Get in touch with us studio@indylive.radio if there is anything you would like us to cover in the next issue
You can also see the video version of this newsletter on our Youtube channel if you're curious about the faces behind the voices!