Common Weal director Robin McAlpine says the solution to political despondency is to take action – with the development of a Scottish National Energy Company the perfect opportunity to show Scotland can be better 

ONE of the most useful lessons I was ever given was very simple – when you're down in the dumps, do something useful.

Common Weal director Robin McAlpine explains why the organisation has moved to the Kinning Park Complex community centre – making the case for politics done from the bottom-up 

WE NEED to bring people back into politics or we're all in big trouble. That has been my conclusion from the rise of Trump and the far right, Brexit and all the rest. But this is a negative view, a defensive view. It reflects a history of failure.

Common Weal Director Robin McAlpine says compromise to agree a Scottish Budget would be a great signal that Scotland still has a shared project – but that opportunity may have been blown

THE problems the SNP seems to be having getting its budget through is a valuable reminder of something we've forgotten in Scotland – our democracy was designed with the expectation of at least a degree of 'togetherness'. We would all do well to remember it.

Common Weal Director Robin McAlpine argues that there is two wrong approaches to independence, both of which must be avoided – the passive approach and the politically immature approach

PHEW, thank goodness John Major won the 1992 General Election, because otherwise the devolution movement's patient 20-year plan would have been scuppered.

Common Weal Director Robin McAlpine says that mistakes have been made which have left the independence movement in a much weaker position than it should be – but there’s still time to turn it around

AT THE 2016 Scottish Elections, when there were strident calls that only 'Both Votes SNP' would deliver a second referendum, there were quite a few of us who mistakenly thought that meant a second indyref and not a 'People's Vote' on saving the UK from itself.

Common Weal director Robin McAlpine finds that the debate around Modern Monetary Theory can help the independence movement develop an economic case for independence far better than a redacted version of the Growth Commission

IT’S been really interesting to start the year with a debate over Modern Monetary Theory. I think it speaks well of the independence movement that we're even looking at these important issues, thinking which is woefully absent from much of the UK economic debate.

In his final column of the year, Common Weal director Robin McAlpine makes the case for eudemonic happiness, where we ditch searching for the latest consumerist high or even faddish political narrative, and instead embrace cost-free joy

MY FAVOURITE (and I think the most vital) album of 2018 is by a Bristol band called Idles.

Common Weal Director Robin McAlpine argues the Yellow Vests protests in France marks the end of a 40 years political empire that said it didn’t have an ideology but always ruled for the rich – Moderatism.

IF 2018 IS REMEMBERED by history, I suspect it may be as the year the political empire of 'Moderates' finally falls apart irreparably.

Common Weal director Robin McAlpine looks at questionnaire responses from the pro-independence movement about what the challenges it faces are – and finds there is a lot of work to do

IN THE last few months I've been immersing myself in the positive case for independence; there really is a lot to be optimistic about. But let's not kid ourselves on that we don't face some problems as well, or that we can dodge them.

Common Weal director Robin McAlpine argues that while unionists don’t want any comparison to be made between Scottish independence and Africa’s decolonisation process, a recent conference on the Canary Islands has convinced him that there are real and meaningful connections and parallels

IT IS an absolute rule when debating Scottish independence that it is never compared to the decolonisation process in Africa. As with all the debating rules of Scottish independence, this rule is set by the unionists.