CommonSpace columnist and Common Weal director Robin McAlpine says there are three possible options for the independence movement. 

I know it will surprise many of you but I don't want to spend the rest of my life writing about constitutional politics. I've always been in this for social outcomes and constitutional politics alone does not deliver these.

CommonSpace columnist and Common Weal director Robin McAlpine says the independence movement must wake up

I'VE been wondering when to write this. Not everyone is going to like it; some may think it's unhelpful – disloyal even. But I'm going to argue that not talking about things is leading to serious mistakes.

We're a few days away from the third anniversary of losing the independence referendum. It is telling that there appears to be much less appetite for either celebration or commemoration this year. So I think now might be the time to bite the bullet.

CommonSpace columnist and Common Weal director Robin McAlpine says Scotland's future may just depend on a welcome new programme for government

THERE'S an abiding question that has been in my thoughts since the launch of the Scottish Government's programme for government on Tuesday; where would we be now if this agenda had been set out before or soon after the 2015 General Election victory rather than three years into the new administration?

CommonSpace columnist and Common Weal director Robin McAlpine says Scotland needs more than political parties to build the future

I PREDICT that in the coming months what we're going to observe is a protracted case study of why a nation must be something more than an argument between political parties about who gets to run a set of government agencies (in close cooperation with a series of multinational corporations).

An interesting wee 'mini-schism' seemed to open up in unionist Scotland this week.

Since lazy stereotyping of the views of opponents is standard practice in Scottish politics, I'll call them the fundamentalists and the instrumentalists.

CommonSpace columnist and Common Weal director Robin McAlpine says Scotland could become a global hero in leading the world away from nuclear weapons

MY grandpa was stationed just outside Hiroshima shortly after the bomb was dropped. As a child I remember the artefacts he brought back with him – a beer bottle, picked up a mile from the blast epicentre, melted and distorted, photographs of miles of rubble.

CommonSpace columnist and Common Weal director Robin McAlpine calls for a return to solidarity and kindness in the independence movement after a week of arguments and infighting

WHAT DO you want? What kind of Scotland do you want? What kind of independence movement do you want? What kind of world do you want?

CommonSpace columnist and Common Weal director Robin McAlpine says a centralised system steamrolling over local empowerment is destined to collapse 

I'M NOT long back from a very pleasant week-long break in the West Highlands and Argyll. Along with the joy of jaw-dropping beauty which seems to be around every corner, it just reminded me again that the form of politics we have just now is not very good at 'place'.

CommonSpace columnist and Common Weal director Robin McAlpine explains how the pitch for a Scottish National Investment Bank became a painful process

AT the risk of jinxing it by beginning to feel some real hope, could Scotland finally be about to get a national investment bank?

I think the possibility is much higher than at any time I can remember, but still this idea seems beset by obstacles and hurdles and attitudes which can perhaps best be understood through the prism of the dynamics of modern Scottish politics and policy.