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The publication last week of the annual UK migration figures sparked the usual depressing ill-informed rhetoric. The headline figures showed that in 2022 net immigration topped a record 900,000, and that last year this fell back by 20%.

Sir Keir Starmer called an impromptu press conference to blame the Tories and to promise effective action by the new Labour government to drive the figures down. The Tories did a mini mea culpa and then claimed their polices had led to the drop since 2022. Farage went radge as per. Everybody agreed that immigration is bad, and too much of it is very bad.

They are so wrong.

The first thing to say is the Office for National Statistics’ figures are a poor measure of whether the population is  growing or declining. They use a UN definition of migrant as someone who has moved from one country to another for more than 12 months, irrespective of whether that person has the faintest intention of staying there.

90% of all the people who come here do so to study or to work. Their plans – and their visas – are time limited. These people are either paying massive university fees or paying taxes whilst doing a job which their employer cannot find anyone else to do. The figures even include 58,000 Brits who’ve been abroad but are now returning home.

To suggest such people are a drain on the economy is an abuse of the English language. The truth is that people coming here to work is not just a sign of a buoyant economy, but in itself contributes to economic growth. That’s why in every instance migration has been to the net benefit of the country to which people move.

Casual xenophobia aside, it’s probably not the foreign students and skilled workers that rile the racists. It’s the one in ten who come here seeking sanctuary, most now forced into dangerous and illegal passage.

They give up everything. Make arduous journeys in perilous craft. Get exploited and abused by organised crime. And finally, they make it here. Desperate. Vulnerable. Alone.

They are what most people mean when they talk about immigration. The people who seek sanctuary from us are met with hostility and indifference. They are put into a system which is so mismanaged that it creates new problems all by itself.

The political debate om immigration rarely asks who these people are and why they come here. But that’s where policy needs to start.

The world is a shit place for many, many people. The global economic system has overseen the looting of the southern hemisphere and the impoverishment of its peoples. The inequality is staggering. Combine that with civil war, religious and sexual persecution, starvation and increasing natural disasters as the climate changes, and its little wonder that those who can afford to will try move give their loved ones a better life.

The countries of the earth seem incapable of action to deal with the drivers of mass migration, as seen recently in the half-hearted commitment of COP29 to compensate the poorest countries for the tribulations visited upon them by the consumption of the richest. So, people do what they can themselves.

We know that vast majority of asylum claims are justified. Three quarters are granted on first application, and currently half of those rejected are granted at appeal.

Yet the Home Office regards asylum claimants as fraudulent until proven otherwise. So, people are kept in specialist accommodation, prevented from joining relatives and forbidden to work. The government long ago ran out of designated accommodation and over the last few years has looked at disused hotels, old army camps, and floating dormitories in which to house asylum seekers.

Three things have happened as a result. One, already vulnerable people, often with young children, have been detained in unsuitable accommodation for long periods, isolation and idleness forced upon them. Two, crass and insensitive decisions about inappropriate placements have incited local populations and provided ammunition for racist campaigns. And three, it has cost a fortune – almost five and a half billion pounds at the latest count. A price which ironically is being paid by the world’s poorest people as most of the money is diverted from the overseas aid budget.

When people do get through this wretched system, the four out of five who are granted asylum are pretty much evicted from wherever they have been billeted for years and dumped without preparation or support into the hands of local authorities unable to cope.   

It is crap and depressing. But it doesn’t have to be this way. There is a simple alternative. Once you have made a claim for asylum and after an initial period in a reception centre, you should be given a temporary resident permit and a temporary national insurance number. That way most people could choose to join the families and communities they already know in this country, get work, pay tax, contribute.

This is exactly what happens in other countries. In Spain, asylum-seekers get a “red card” after six months of their application which allows them to work across the country. To help facilitate their social and labour insertion, reception centres organise vocational and language training.

We hope to see backlogs decrease, applications speed up, detention centres closed in the months ahead. We hope, but given the Labour PM’s macho stance on this, that hope might be in vain. In the meantime, as part of plans for independence we need to think through how we can play our part in alleviating humanity’s suffering in a way which allows a new Scotland to prosper.

Time to check in on the SNP’s journey back from its biggest ever electoral defeat. A clutch of recent polls and by election results give us an immediate insight into the public’s perception of the political choices before them.

The story is not of SNP recovery but Labour implosion, with the latest poll suggesting the party has lost fully one third of the voters it had in July. It took the SNP five years to lose that amount of support. Labour have done it in less than five months.

Against this haemorrhaging of support for Labour, the SNP’s performance looks relatively good. But it is a chimera. The improving fortunes are illusory, and do not show lost voters returning to the fold.

Actually, the people who can take most comfort from votes in recent byelections are Reform UK, who have come from nowhere to establish themselves as the fourth party in Scotland. Some of these new Reformers will be Tories disillusioned by Douglas Ross switching to a more robust champion.

The most worrying thing, however, is that the combined vote of Tories and Reform is considerably higher than Conservative support over the last decade. So, it looks as if Reform are attracting people not just from the Tories, but from supporters of other parties – and none. This means that Reform is acting as a gateway to reaction, building support for anti-immigrant anti-independence views. Bad seeds which could germinate and bloom if and when the right in the UK and Scotland get their acts together.

But the biggest story of the spate of recent byelections is the abysmal turnout, ranging from 20% to as low as 12%. This means that between eight in ten and nine in ten people don’t give a toss about who will represent them in their local council chamber. It is that absence of motivation, of even the lamest political conviction, that undermines our flawed democratic system. And without changing it, there’s no basis to win an election – never mind set up a new country.

It is difficult to inspire people when the official government line is things can only get worse. The new Labour government, elected on a single word mantra, Change, is determined to change very little. Worse, it has so constrained itself by ruling out policies that might offer real change, that it now says little can be done. It’s the political equivalent of tramadol, taking the edge off aspiration and hope. If you can’t do anything about it, why bother trying?

It’s clear Labour’s Scottish lieutenants know there’s a problem. But the response of flipping from support for Starmer, to promising Labour in Scotland will overturn his polices, is unedifying to say the least. And it will just double down stoking cynicism and disillusion.

The SNP needs to do better. And to rebuild hope it must take care to challenge Labour from a radical perspective, not join Tory attacks from the right. There is, for instance, much that needs to be done to support Scottish agriculture but protecting millionaire farmers from inheritance tax isn’t part of it.

In the aftermath of the general election, I identified three key tasks for the SNP. Get better in government with the powers and money we do have. Be very clear about the limits of devolution and show how in every area of policy independence allows us to do more. And provide a viable and believable strategy to challenge the denial of the right of people of Scotland to choose an independent future. These challenges are all still there.

The coming budget will an opportunity to move forward on two of these fronts. It can embody decisions that reflect the priorities of people here for social justice and equity. It can offer policies that are different from those south of the border – different because a different government, with different priorities, is making them.

But it must also explain what cannot be done and how Scotland’s choice is heavily constrained by others. It should exemplify what could be done if a Scottish government had the same fiscal powers as the UK. The power to tax corporate profits to protect small businesses whilst realising greater revenues from global monoliths. The power to invest in and take public control of our vast green energy reserves and accelerate the drive to renewables. The power to tackle the housing crisis with a social housebuilding programme the like of which has not been seen for generations.

It is by making these arguments that we present the case for independence as an opportunity to improve the lives of ordinary people. Not an abstract notion. But real power. Real change.

Unless we do that, why would anyone want to drag themselves out the despond of disillusion. And in doing it the Scottish government will also have the tools to face down their own critics, snipers and hypocrites who will try to make us take the blame for the constraints and constrictions of devolution.

Things aren’t going well for the new Labour government. The figures for the first quarter of their tenure of the economy say it is pretty much flatlining – growth of one tenth of one percent. Not good news for a crew whose only mantra seems to be growth, growth, growth.

Some have pointed out this might in part be a consequence of Labour’s talking up economic gloom and doom. One big factor in the economy is the willingness and capacity of people to part with their money in shops and elsewhere. The things can only get worse message will induce caution in even the most enthusiastic of consumers as people hold on for rainy days ahead.

The UK economy is integrated into a global capitalist system. So, it will be affected by world events the same as other developed countries.  But individual countries can take decisions which either mitigate or worsen the effects of worldwide economic turbulence. That’s why there are variations in economic performance and relative national wealth between countries.

So why is it that the UK economy is currently growing at a quarter of the European average? What possible decision might have been taken here to make things worse? The answer is Brexit.

Brexit is bad for us. Not really an argument or discussion anymore but an uncontested fact. Just how bad is a matter of disagreement. Opinion is divided. The well-respected National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) reckons the UK economy would be 2.5% bigger now if we had remained in the EU.

In fairness, that’s probably at the lower end of the estimates. According to Goldman Sachs, Britain’s decision to leave the European Union has hampered the economy to the tune of 5% versus other comparable countries. Loads of other experts have pitched in too. None of them have suggested that the economy has got better.

So, a hit of somewhere between 2.5 and 5 percent of GDP. In real money that’s between £55 and £110 billion. Call it five black holes.

The damage done by Brexit results from three key factors: reduced trade; weaker private investment; and lower immigration from the EU. All of these are damaging the Scottish economy too. Last week’s Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee of the Scottish Parliament heard just how much.

Boris Johnson’s Trade and Cooperation Agreement came into force in May 2021 and allows free trade without quotas or tariffs. But it doesn’t do anything about non-tariff barriers; checks and paperwork which make a once frictionless process costly and cumbersome.

The EU requires all imports to meet their quality and safety standards. Not unreasonably. Since Brexit the only way to make sure they do is to physically check what is passing across the border. That takes time and money. And it is this that is pushing up prices and slowing down exports.

Salmon Scotland, for instance, reported that while over 53,000 tonnes of Scottish salmon was exported to the EU in 2019, this had reduced to around 44,000 tonnes four years later. They estimate this represented a loss in export value for Scottish producers in the region of £80-£100 million.

The Governor of the Bank of England pointed the finger at Brexit last week. The Chancellor agrees. And yet she refuses to countenance not only rejoining in years to come, but ever participating in the Single market or Customs Union. God only knows what particular demons she is still trying to exorcise from the Labour playbook, but Labour’s stance on Brexit defies common sense, the wishes of unions and business, and even popular opinion.

It is really hard to know what Labour are scared of. I get that it would be difficult to get back into the EU but the process of building the goodwill that will enable it to happen in the next decade ought to begin now. One way to do that would be to commit to alignment with single market standards so that a deal might be struck as the TCA is reviewed to dispense with paperwork and cut costs. But even this seems too Europhilic for the new Labour Government.

The Scottish Government is committed to align with the European Union where appropriate and has commissioned experts to report on how it can. In two reports over the last year Dr Lisa Whitten from Queens University Belfast says there has not been significant divergence between Scots Law and EU Law. The problem is this that only refers to devolved matters, which of course, exclude trade. So full implementation of the alignment policy in Scotland could only ever partially mitigate, any regulatory divergence between the UK and the EU.

Which is of course an argument for control over these matters passing to the Scottish parliament through the process of political independence. With Labour so firmly set against any formal participation in European trading arrangements, this option offers Scotland’s exporters the best hope for the future. And with Trump about to implement a fortress America policy with protectionist barriers erected against us, Scotland looking eastwards to the European mainland makes more sense and is more urgent than ever.

Tomorrow the Court of Session in Edinburgh will begin a three-day deliberation on an application to stop the development of the Rosebank oilfield. The case, brought by two environmental charities, Uplift and Greenpeace, argues that the UK government acted unlawfully last year in granting a license without considering the effects on our climate of burning the oil and gas extracted from the field.

The Rosebank field lies 80 miles off the northwest of Shetland, and it is by some measure the biggest ever to be discovered in the North Sea. This week’s legal move is             the latest in a series – both in the UK and abroad – which has seen the courts take an increasingly robust attitude on the environmental impact of new drilling. For the sake of the planet, we must hope it is successful.

At school in the 70s, we were told that the biggest threat to human survival was that oil and gas would run out. Economic infrastructure would collapse as finite supplies dried up. Famine and global conflict would be the consequence.

But as the century turned it became clear this was bollocks. In fact, there was a new reality. Not that we would run out of fossil fuels, but that the atmosphere couldn’t afford for us to burn them. To survive we would have to leave them in the ground.

That’s a hard message. One that still has not been absorbed by many. In particular those who have got rich from the exploitation of hydrocarbons. It is, as Al Gore observed, the ultimate inconvenient truth.

But truth it is. For millennia humanity thrived on this planet. The earth existed in an organic equilibrium. Carbon was oxidised through fire and decay, and then extracted from the atmosphere and reconstituted into living matter through the phenomenon of photosynthesis. But in the last hundred or so year we have destroyed that balance as carbon gases have been pumped into the air at unprecedented levels, principally by burning oil and gas.

As result the ability of our atmosphere to protect the planet from radiation has been compromised and the earth has become warmer. This in turn has seen sea levels rise as the icecaps melt and dramatic disturbance to weather systems. Climate change is already killing many thousands of people every year, the latest victims in Florida and Valencia. If the process continues that becomes millions and the very existence of our species will be in doubt.

This is the context in which the future of our oil and gas industry must be planned. The only plan that is compatible with survival is to stop. The only future that works is a managed decline and replacement of fossil fuels with clean renewable energy from the elements.

None of this is even that contentious anymore. The science behind understanding climate change and the role of carbon emissions in it is universally accepted. Well, perhaps not in the new White House. And yet the world seems capable of knowing that it is on a path to destruction whilst equally incapable of getting off it. 

The oil companies have a vested interest. They are the last people who should be anywhere near energy policy. Governments are meant to take a wider view.  On paper UK policy is clear. The legislation is in place. We need to phase out oil and gas. That’s official.

Yet, this time last year, then PM Rishi Sunak announced over 100 new licenses for oil and gas exploration and extraction in the North Sea.  Rosebank sits at the top of that list.

The government turns logic and common sense on its head. It claims you can phase out something by having more of it. Any number of falsehoods are marshalled to bolster this deception. They claim that Rosebank will make UK energy supplies more secure. Not true, 90% of its output will go for sale abroad and never be used in the UK. They claim it will bring down bills and help with the cost of living. Not true, Rosebank oil will be sold on the international market where prices are rigged by a cartel of producers. And it is far more expensive than renewables.

The SNP opposed Sunak’s bonanza and believes there should be no new extraction in the North Sea unless compatible with net zero targets – something it would be impossible for Rosebank to achieve. Last year Labour too said they would oppose any new licenses but adopted the bizarre policy of not reversing any already agreed. That provided a powerful incentive for the Tories to push through massive expansion in the year before the election.

The new UK government has got itself in a weird position now. It has said it believes that the licensing of Rosebank was unlawful by not taking climate effects into account and it will not therefore contest the court action. But bizarrely, it will not reverse Sunak’s decision. It seems it will be up to campaigners and the Scottish courts to do the job for them.

All of this begs a bigger question. Why is it that the Scottish government can issue licenses for onshore energy production in Scotland, but not offshore? Independence means that control over the exploitation of Scottish waters would lie in Scotland, but even whilst that it being debated there is an overwhelmingly case for these licensing decisions to be devolved. If they had been, I’m pretty sure tomorrow’s court case would not be necessary.

As the right-wing media go apoplectic about what they describe as the biggest tax rise in history its worth getting a sense of perspective on last week’s budget. Increasing the proportion of a country’s wealth spent in the public realm is always a good thing. It’s a measure of just how civilised a society is.

But by their own admission less than half of Labour’s proposed £40Bn uplift in government revenues is a real increase. The real increase is more like £18Bn. That’s a big number. But it is only about one and a half percent of total public spending. Indeed, it is less than one percent of the annual turnover in the economy. Maybe best not to get too carried away.

The problem is not how much is being raised by the exchequer, but how they are raising it, and who from. The new Labour government tied its own hands in a ridiculous manner before the election by making promises not to increase income tax, NI or VAT – the things that raise most of the money.

So, it had few targets to pick when looking to increase revenues. Some changes are welcome but small beer – VAT on private school fees, scrapping non-dom status, and changes to capital gains tax.

Predictably those in the firing line are squealing unfairness and victimisation. Scotland’s millionaire landowners are joining the fightback against inheritance tax now being applied to farmland. Its hard to feel sympathy. A better question than why is inheritance tax being applied to farms might be why farmers get a tax-free allowance three times that of anyone else.

The blunt instrument of raising employer’s national insurance contributions and extending it to many more part time workers is more of a problem. Some of the reaction is hyperbole with owners of pubs claiming it’ll put 70p on the price of a pint. How could a 1.2% increase in payroll costs mean a 15% hike in prices?

It is true that hospitality and retails sectors which rely on a greater number of part timers will be disproportionately affected. An odd target given they have already borne the brunt of the Covid and cost-of-living squeezes. Harsh too to bring the changes in all at once without any phasing or with no regard to the ability of small businesses to pay.

Any reforming government ought to try to rebalance the split between profits and wages. I’ve heard some Labour spokespeople suggest this is what the employer NI hike is intended to achieve. But it won’t. Business will simply pass the charge on in the form of higher prices to consumers or reduced wage increases to their workers. Either way profits will be protected.

The way to ensure that profits serve a social purpose is to tax them. Yet that is exactly what Labour has ruled out.

Labour’s Britain is the most unequal country in northern Europe. You might have thought that in their first budget Labour might want to do something about that. Not a bit of it. The two groups of people least affected by this budget are the poorest and the richest.

People living on the breadline have seen their subsistence incomes fall sharply during the Tory years. Rachel Reeves has dashed any hopes they might have had of restitution from Labour. Not only are benefit cuts not restored, but she also talks the same talk of benefit fraud and the need to get people back to work as if they were workshy wastrels.

And Britain’s three and a half million millionaires can rest easy with this budget. Money may be tight, public services in crisis, but there’ll be no additional obligations on the rich. The absurd ruling out of income tax increases even for the likes of Chris O’Shea, the CEO of British Gas who made £8.2m last year, means others will have to pay.

Moreover, new Labour’s refusal to countenance any levy on accumulated wealth leaves the structural inequality of the UK intact and unchallenged.

There is nothing inherently bad about tax. It is the membership fee we pay to be part of civil society. But tax policy must be seen to be fair to command widespread support. One that protects extreme wealth whilst increasing pressure on the majority will ultimately fail.

Clearly, Scottish ministers will be preoccupied by the effect of this budget on public funds in Scotland. We shall have to see what is left once consequentials are given with one hand and extra costs levied by the other.

But those of us who believe that Scotland should become a new independent country need to do more than simply rail against the decisions and the indecision of Westminster. We want all of these choices about tax and spending to be made here. To win support for that we need to show how we would do it differently.

We need to make the case for an economy regulated in the public interest with a fair system of reward and obligation. For progressive taxes on income with top rate of 50% for the super wealthy and improved allowances at the bottom end. For new taxes on wealth and assets which allow the country’s capital to be deployed in the interests of us all. And for a progressive approach to business taxation too, with bands that protect small businesses with low profits and raise more from the largest corporations. 

“The smell of death is everywhere as bodies are left lying on the roads or under the rubble. Missions to clear the bodies or provide humanitarian assistance are denied.” The words of Phillipe Lazzarini, the head of UNWRA last week, describing what is happening in northern Gaza.

The siege of the Jabalia refugee camp is now in its fourth week. The Israeli army is allowing no food, water or medicine through to tens of thousands of starving civilians. Meanwhile bombs drop daily on what shelter remains as drone footage shows desperate people scurrying like insects to avoid their blast.

On the ground Israeli soldiers empty people out of school buildings and set them on fire. Testimonies of those leaving the camp tell of families separated by the army, women and children sent south beyond the camp and the men beaten and detained. Everyone, including elderly and wounded, tells of abuse and beatings by the soldiers, including children shot in the legs for trying to pick up food.

As Israel’s latest war on Gaza enters its second year it has taken a distinct turn. Although not officially admitted, strategy and war aims have changed. This is now about much more than defeating Hamas.

The Israeli right, personified by security minister Ben Gvir and finance minister Smotrich have long advocated the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, demanding a new Nakba to displace Palestinians to the deserts of Sinai. Now this approach commands broad political and military support.

The strategy is spelled out in a document called The Generals Plan which was spearheaded by veteran army commander Giora Eiland. He has been critical of current IDF command saying “The fact that we are breaking down in the face of humanitarian aid to Gaza is a serious mistake… Gaza must be completely destroyed: terrible chaos, severe humanitarian crisis, cries to heaven…”

He is now getting his way. Under this plan Gaza will initially be split in two with the Netzarim corridor, recently fortified by IDF engineers splitting the strip to the south of Gaza city. Civilians will then be displaced from northern Gaza through an armed perimeter and those remaining will be eliminated. A massacre is being planned before our eyes which will make even the horrors of the last thirteen months seem tame in comparison.

As Blinken talks of exit ramps and the day after, those in charge of Israel are already planning their own future. It is one of occupation, settlements, and strong fortifications with no room for Palestinians. And it depends upon the genocide currently underway in Gaza being successful.

Last week a conference was organised just three miles from the Gaza border to plan this for real. Under the sound of shelling settler leader Daniella Weiss said Palestinians have “lost the right” to live there, and that thousands of Israelis stand ready to move there “from north to south.” She claimed there were six settler groups and more than 700 families looking to settle in Gaza.

This is happening before our eyes in real time. Yet it is all but ignored by our politicians and media. The BBC reports Gaza from Jerusalem through an Israeli prism and with an absence of Palestinian voice. When deaths are announced the information is qualified as coming from the “Hamas controlled health ministry” as if to suggest this might be terrorist propaganda rather than material fact.

Every time a Gazan school, hospital, apartment block is bombed by missiles the BBC report offers the Israeli explanation that they were targeting Hamas fighters. Even as they show the corpses of infants shrouded in linen.

For more than a year now Israel’s global guarantor, the United States, has supplied the weaponry of genocide on the one hand, whilst bemoaning off the scale civilian casualties on the other. With a week to go until the US election, Netanyahu is clearly taking advantage, calculating he can get away with pretty much anything. And he is.

But why is the UK still in the grip of this hypocritical paralysis when it comes to Israel’s genocide. We’ve had our election. What domestic political advantage is served by the UK’s continued complicity in continuing illegal military occupations and the war of Palestinians?

Last Wednesday, Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, called for more humanitarian aid and a ceasefire but saw fit to add “That does not change our position of steadfast support for Israel’s security.” She perpetuates the myth that what is going on are just a few adverse consequences of Israel exercising its right to self-defence. We are way beyond that. And anyone who still justifies what is happening now in northern Gaza by reference to a right to self-defence is actively trying to deflect and distract attention from genocide.

Angela Rayner was once the champion of the left. She is kept in cabinet by the new, new Labour hierarchy as a cover to appease the trade unions. That she too is engaged in minimising this humanitarian outrage and justifying British inaction against it shows just how pitiful Labour’s foreign policy is.

The truth is Netanyahu, and the dominant Israeli establishment will not stop until they see the total destruction of Palestinian capacity to create their own state in the place they once lived in peace. Not unless they are stopped. That is now clear to most countries in the world, including Spain, Norway, and Ireland. In the months ahead we shall need to re-double our efforts to make it clear to Keir Starmer’s government too.

Shelter is one of the most basic human needs. But in our society a roof over your head is far from being an established right. When Holyrood gets back to work next week it has the chance to move things forwards. The new housing bill, published in March and included in September’s Programme for Government, moves into its next stage.

The bill aims to increase tenants’ rights in the private rented sector, and for the first time establish a regime or rent controls across the country. For those who make money from tenants these proposals are the work of the devil and are being fiercely contested by powerful interest groups.

First, let’s get a bit of context.

A generation ago, renting from a private landlord was either a legacy arrangement or the preserve of younger people starting out on their own. The sector had declined to just five percent of all households in Scotland and was widely regarded as a short-term option for a transient section of the population.

That’s all changed. Choking off public sector housebuilding and the right to buy saw social housing decline. Meanwhile rocketing house prices shut off the option of buying for many on average incomes. As a result, private renting has tripled in the last twenty years and now accounts for one in six of all households.

A lot of people have become landlords who would never have considered it before. Buying and renting property seemed like a good, even lucrative, investment. Not only do you get a return on your investment through annual rents which beats pretty much any other savings option, but the capital value of your asset increases as house prices rise. Yes, once in a while values might drop, but over time they always go up. It’s the ultimate win-win.

A home needs to provide two main things to allow society to flourish. First it must offer security, which is why tenants’ rights matter.

Secondly, it must cost an amount that means you can live a reasonable life with what you have left. This is important not just to individual quality of life but to society as a whole. If your rent is so great that you cannot afford to buy stuff, the local economy suffers.

However, when it comes to costs, the sector is unregulated, and tenants have zero protection against major hikes in their rent.

Private landlords are meant to register with their local council and have to answer a great many questions about their property. The rent they charge is not one of them. And since there is no public record of rents, there is no way to say for sure what the increases have been, or should be, on any given property.

The online rental network Canopy has just published a report on affordability of private rents. Overall, UK rents now equate to 35.7% of average incomes, over 40% in Edinburgh. That’s higher than ever. And most people earn less than the average. Try renting in Edinburgh – where average rents are now £1192 – on a minimum wage. It’ll cost two thirds of your full-time take-home pay. Simply put, it’s impossible.

This is why the central objective of the new housing bill is to create the architecture for a system that regulates rents throughout the country ensuring that landlords can get a reasonable return but protecting their tenants against exorbitant increases. It’s the sort of decent policy that many other European countries already have and yet the suggestion has been met with apoplectic fury by those representing would be investors in the sector.

We are told that even the possibility of rent controls means that pension funds will switch investment in build to rent schemes from Edinburgh to Manchester. They claim that the new bill means they can never put up rents, citing the emergency rent freeze during the pandemic as evidence.

It’s nonsense, of course. No-one has said that rents can never go up, just that they can’t rip people off by jacking them up by more than anything else. Long term controls that allowed owners of a development to increase rents year on year by the rate of inflation are not only possible, but likely under a regulatory scheme.

People with loads of money always seem to resent social controls on how much more they can make by investing their wealth.  Large investors now claim that rent controls will actually reduce the supply of new rented accommodation, because landlords will opt out of the sector choosing to sell instead. But the truth is the house is still there and someone will still live in it – overall housing supply is unaffected. Indeed, former rental properties going on sale will increase supply and put a brake on house price inflation.

The very same argument was deployed against the minimum wage. We were told it would reduce the number of jobs available because employers couldn’t afford higher rates. It didn’t. They were wrong then and they are wrong now. There are plenty of places around the world where rents are regulated, and all the evidence suggests it has no affect on the supply of homes for rent. Let’s hope the parliament has the backbone to resist the exaggerated claims and threats of a self-interested investor lobby, and base policy on the evidence.

I was in Westminster last week for only the second time since the election, avoiding the commute between our capitals being one of the major compensations for losing it. Meandering though the colonnades and corridors to make my lunch rendezvous I had a stop and chat with three former colleagues from the Labour Party.

All three are decent people I’ve worked with on cross party campaigns. None were Corbyn supporters, and they would all describe themselves I’m sure as loyal party members. And all were thoroughly fed up and depressed at the situation they have found themselves in.

They, like us cannot understand how a Labour government so quickly lost whatever way it thought it had. Admittedly, being friendly with the likes of me probably means these three former comrades are atypical Labour MPs, but nonetheless there’s seems a deep disquiet with this new government.

Perhaps the despair is compounded by an apparent impotence when it comes to doing anything about it. The majority is massive, enough to withstand another round of suspensions of anyone kicking against the traces. Meanwhile, the Tories continue to self-destruct having got rid of the affable Cleverly from their leadership race.

So, it looks as nothing is going to change anytime soon. Perhaps in time what’s left of the left in England may repurpose themselves, but for now all they can do is suck it up.

We are witnessing the excision of social democratic influence on public policy by this new new Labour government. And the process has more urgency and purpose that it did with the old new Labour government. At its heart is an assault of the notion of universalism.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” wrote Karl Marx. In truth he nicked the first part from the bible where the idea of living and survival being a shared human endeavour underpinned Christian morality. How to put that dictum into practise, and specifically whether it can be achieved by the regulation of capitalism as opposed to its abolition, has divided the left for generations, but the objective has been widely shared.

The idea that we all pay for stuff society needs and each of us get the services we require underpinned the growth of the post war welfare state, its apotheosis being the NHS. Apart form doing the right thing, there are a range of practical reasons why this approach works.

For starters it is a much more efficient use of money and talent to organise services within a single system, allowing an economy of scale not possible if we all fend for ourselves. It also means that more, maybe even all, members of society can access services, whereas large swathes are left behind when you get only what you can afford. This matters for social stability with mental illness, violence and crime all diminished by the erosion of inequality.

Crucially, allowing everyone access to what they need means everyone has a stake in the system, which builds political and philosophical support for being asked to pay for it. It is important that rich people can use libraries and travel on buses for free as well as the poor. If only some people received these social benefits the case for collectively paying for them is undermined.

The alternative to universal provision of services is to ration them so that people who are deemed to have the means to do without them are excluded. Under this system social provision becomes not a system of social solidarity, but a safety net to catch the very poorest who are unable to help themselves.

Those in favour of means testing argue that scarce resources should be targeted at those most in need of them rather than being given to those who do not. But it is entirely possible to recoup universal payments from wealthy people through the tax system – which is exactly what happens in the case of child benefit.

Applying a means test allows government to set the level above which support will be withdrawn and as we have seen with the winter fuel payment for pensioners this is an arbitrary rather than scientific judgement. Unless people are living below the basic subsistence level at which pension credit is paid then their support is withdrawn. And whilst it is true that rich pensioners will have no great difficulty with this, there are millions of households with a fixed income between the pension credit level and the average income where real hardship is the result.

Shifting the proportion of our wealth which is deployed in the public realm rather than reserved for private consumption is a pretty fundamental yardstick by which we can measure just how civil our society is. That objective now seems to have been abandoned by all major players in the UK political firmament. It is time we brought that ideal home and made it a central tenet of our ambition for self-government.

At the weekend it will be one hundred days since the election of the new Labour government. It’s usually a milestone where a new administration can point to immediate achievements and exciting plans for the future. A chance to remind the public of the differences with the past and how right they were to make the change.

Dear oh dear. I don’t think anyone could have thought it would be this bad. As MPs shuffle back to Westminster after a dismal round of party conferences, they’ll find a government elected with low expectations has driven them down further. Things can only get worse now the official mantra.

Labour’s fall from grace has been spectacular. Elected with just over a third of the votes in an abysmal sixty percent turnout, it has even fewer supporters now. Starmer is less popular than Sunak was when he called the election.

Most of this is of their own making. Inexplicably the first two targets were low-income families with more than two children, and the majority of pensioners not on income support. With the first, at least they promised no different. Labour were clear they were going to keep the Tory two child limit. A different story with pensioners. There was not a peep about cutting the winter fuel allowance before the election.

To compound matters these choices are defended with a bullish machismo that exudes arrogance by the governors and contempt for the governed. Cabinet ministers behave like Masters of the Universe and dissident voices are trampled and marginalized.

Anyone hoping for at least a more enlightened foreign stance will be equally dismayed. Starmer doubles down on support for Israel, even after a year of continuous slaughter of innocent civilians, as they are portrayed as the victim not the occupier.

For a government elected on a slogan of change they have remarkably little appetite to make any. Expect it to get worse as austerity formally returns in the budget. Labour loyalists, what few remain, insist they have no choice, the economic rules dictate how they must act. This is nonsense. Always has been.

It is not a rule that rich people cannot pay more tax. It’s a policy. It is not a rule that Covid debt must be paid down over a fixed term. It’s a policy. It is not a rule that a country cannot borrow more for public spending. It’s a policy. The sad truth is that Labour is making the same choices as the administration it replaced.

This matters. Real people will suffer real hurt. But the effect on the general psyche of the public will be even worse. Trust and confidence in politics was already at an all all-time low in the run up to this year’s election. Instead of addressing that alienation and disillusion Labour are making it worse.

I worry at the effect of this in England. If what was once the mass party of social democracy fails so badly what comes next. The far right is better organized, funded  and supported than for a generation. They are waiting to capitalise on Starmer’s inability not just to change things, but to offer hope and inspiration that it might even be possible.

Here in Scotland, disaffection with Labour has seen their support drop and the SNP recover its position as the country’s most popular party.  Whereas a year ago the party was losing council byelections now they are winning the latest crop created by Labour councillors heading to Westminster. Suddenly all bets are off on Labour winning Holyrood next time round.

The problem is that all this represents is movement within the two thirds of the electorate who could be bothered. It shows some people who switched allegiance from the SNP to Labour in the forlorn hope that we might get a change have switched back again. And that’s not enough.

The pro-independence voters who held their nose and voted Labour in July were part of the reason for the SNP’s massive defeat. But not the main part. Far more important were those who’d voted for the party before and decided to sit this one out.

To get them back we can’t just wait for Labour to fail and hope people will pick us by default. We have to be better than the least worst option. So that means all the hard work we talked about in the election aftermath is still to do.

We need to get better in government, picking things where we can deliver and rebuilding confidence through competence. We need to reimagine the case for independence and illustrate what it means by pointing out the constraints of devolution which prevent Holyrood delivering what people want. And we need to re-assert and widen the consensus behind the principle of the Claim or Right; the Scottish people’s right to choose their own future.

This gives us the framework on which to build for the 2026 election. Most of all it means re-asserting the hope that things can get better if we take control of them ourselves.

As regular readers will know this column usually contains Monday morning musings on the state of the SNP and the Independence campaign. Not this week.

The King deigned to visit his Scottish subjects this week. It’s an event that happens rarely and deserves to be marked.

To make a personal contribution I got myself to the foot of the Royal Mile at 10am on Saturday morning to join a small but purposeful protest against the monarchy. The event was organised by the Edinburgh branch of Republic.org.uk and drew a couple of dozen people who made themselves highly visible and vocal.

One or two onlookers were clearly upset by our presence. But very few. And then it struck me. Actually, most of the assembled public were neither republican nor royalist but visiting tourists anxious not to miss out on a promised royal spectacle.

Typical was a group of five French visitors standing beside our protest with whom we got chatting. They explained they had been told the King was visiting and were simply on a celeb hunt. They supported our stance, they said, adding with just a hint of national pride, that they had dispensed with their own monarchy some time ago.

The royal visit was ostensibly to mark the silver jubilee of the Scottish Parliament with a special event. There were plenty of MSPs in attendance, a goodly few of whom probably wished they could be anywhere else. But the constraints of office mean you have to take the fun events with the ones the make you boak. I don’t envy my colleagues the task.

This was also an exercise in the Palace making it clear who’s top dog. That the devolved Scottish parliament exists as part of a constitutional framework that has the UK firmly in charge – and at the head of that sits the Royal Family, the ultimate vestige of Britain’s empire. 

This does not mean we should not exploit every opportunity that devolved powers give us. On the contrary, we must. But it does mean we need to have our eyes wide open about the potential and limitations of the Holyrood assembly. Indeed, making afresh the case for political independence means explaining how those limitations will always constrain the aspirations of the people and the capacity of their representatives to act on their behalf.

Back to Charles III. His visit took place at the end of a week which saw the publication of a new report on the cost of the royals. When the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall are added in, and massive security costs covered, we now have a half a billion pound monarchy. The British royals are now by far the most expensive monarchy the world has ever seen, with even some loyal supporters arguing it’s time to slim down the firm.

This level of public funding to the wealthiest people in the country would be a matter of concern at the best of times. But these aren’t the best of times. The new Labour government is cutting heating support to all but the very poorest pensioners this winter. It is no exaggeration to say that many will face extra hardship and the risk of hypothermia as a result. And why? Because they say the public purse cannot afford it. You could almost forgive King Charles a quiet smirk when he hears Keir Starmer say we are all in this together.

A chunk of that taxpayer support was spent on Saturday on what seemed a pretty over the top security operation. There were a great number of police officers at an event that attracted only a few hundred. Surrounding roads were closed with no inconvenience spared to allow the royal visitors an uninterrupted drive the 200 metres from the palace to parliament in armoured vehicles. Snipers on the roof of the parliament seemed a particular piece of overkill given the royal personages never were exposed to the actual public. As an aside though, the PCSOs delegated to watch our protest were courteous and professional. 

There were remarkably few people present on Saturday to demonstrate support for the monarchy. And if that’s the case in Edinburgh, you’ve got to assume it would be even fewer elsewhere. Which somewhat explodes the myth of their popularity.

This is not the 1950s. The deference and uncritical compliance of loyal subjects can no longer be taken for granted. Public opinion towards the monarchy in Scotland is turning with a majority favouring abolition. And little wonder. It represents with knobs on a class-ridden unequal society most of us want to escape. And it is a constitutional outrage that the head of a state in what purports to be a twenty-first century democracy should be unelected by and unaccountable to its citizens.

The times are they a changin’.  The monarchy won’t last for ever. The only question is if Scotland will get rid of it first.