CommonSpace reports from today’s [23 June] SpyCops conference, where a victim pushing for Scotland inquiry says ‘sinister, state sponsored method acting’ was one piece of a disturbing puzzle designed to crush dissent

“IF YOU can imagine a really good method actor, someone like Christian Bale, who can change the way he looks, or Robert DeNiro, and they become someone else and they live it, I think it’s a little bit like that. A really sinister, state sponsored version of method acting.”

Coalition of activists and campaign organisations presents a new vision for community empowerment at Glasgow’s #Democracy21 conference

MAJOR POWERS should be devolved to local communities, argues a new declaration launched today [23 June] at the #Democracy21 conference in Glasgow.

CommonSpace examines the impact of Universal Credit on four of the most vulnerable demographics to be hit by the benefits change

AS the full roll-out of Universal Credit in Scotland gets closer calls for it to be halted or reformed by charities and politicians are getting increasingly louder.

Ahead of ‘Spycops’ conference, Ellenor Hutson tells of how her environmental activism saw her mysteriously blacklisted from an industry she’d never worked in

“THE THING that sticks with me is that he was the person we wanted him to be. In our wildest dreams, he was who we’d want to attract to the movement.”

Ahead of new Amnesty report on humanitarian crisis in Yemen, former cabinet secretary says that the UK Government is “on the side of the perpetrator”

AS the Saudi-led military coalition in Yemen continues its assault on the rebel-held port city of Hodeidah, the UK Government faces fresh pressure to end its complicity in the conflict and cease UK arms to Saudi Arabia.

Professor Abby Innes found that the debt which led to the collapse of Carillion is built into the business model of big outsourcing firms, which received 73 per cent of all procurement contracts last year

AN ACADEMIC at the London School of Economics has published a paper which finds that Carillion-type outsourcing firms in the UK have a lot of the same inefficiencies as old state-owned enterprises in the Soviet Union, but are more unstable due to their financial model being based on Ponzi scheme-like debts.

The Scottish Economy Committee stated that the Scottish Government should set a growth target on co-operative and employee-owned businesses

SUPPORTERS of the co-operative movement have welcomed the finding of a new Scottish Parliament committee report which argues that the economic potential of employee-owned businesses is huge and the Scottish Government should have targets on growing the number of co-operative businesses in Scotland.

New research by Totally Money shows Edinburgh is one of the best places in the UK at the moment to be a buy-to-let landlord

FIRST MINISTER Nicola Sturgeon faced questions about what she would do about rent rises in Edinburgh at First Minister’s Questions today [21 June], as an SNP MSP highlighted new data showing Edinburgh is one of the best places in the UK to be a buy-to-let landlord.

The United States has long defined its enemies as ‘rogue states’. Is the world starting to realise that Trump’s America fits the bill?

UNTIL the advent of the Trump administration, the idea that the US could be a rogue state was counter-intuitive to the common wisdom of mainstream political discourse in the West. The US accused such troublesome nations of that tag; the republic commonly regarded as the last remaining superpower could not, by definition, become one itself.

Local council leader: “My previous position was in favour of the principle being established but then looking at the detail at the later stage it no longer made sense.”

CAMPAIGNERS have branded the proposed development of a new tourist resort at Loch Lomond a “land grab”, after a packed out local meeting about the Scottish Enterprise plan changed the local council leader’s mind.