Simon Jones, Author at Public Seminar

Democracy

Scotland Is Stuck

The Scottish National Party is more popular and powerful than ever – but also boxed in to a constitutional stalemate with the UK

September 3, 2020 • by Simon Jones

------------- “Stick with it Scotland,” say the billboards in Glasgow. It’s a slogan applying both to the continued need to keep wearing masks and to practice social distancing, as the country enters a phase of localised measures to restrict movement in the ongoing Covid-19 crisis after a comprehensive lockdown in spring and ...

Europe & Central Asia

A Year of Boris Johnson

Only a handful of people would be mad enough to covet being prime minister at this particular point in British history, and one of them now inhabits Downing Street

July 27, 2020 • by Simon Jones

Thursday saw the United Kingdom pass an important milestone: one year of life under the leadership of Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson. What was supposed to be a fascinating year of unpredictable political events has been rendered utterly dystopian through the COVID-19 crisis. Still, it’s worth looking back on what ...

Politics

Is Social Democracy Viable?

If it is, it will need better arguments, organization, and leadership, according to a U.K. Labour Party post-mortem

June 24, 2020 • by Simon Jones

The U.K. Labour party recently released a report that analyses their defeat in the 2019 election. The results should alarm anyone interested in the future of social democracy. The report concludes that the crushing failure of the 2019 Corbyn campaign had been years in the making. Shifting electoral demographics, organizational dysfunction, ...

Europe & Central Asia

Letter from Glasgow

Labour renewed in a Britain unchanged

May 14, 2020 • by Simon Jones

But then in late April, the blossom trees awaken in the resurgent sun, their brilliant petals a thrilling antidote to the months of grey. Within days of their fading arrives the full vibrancy of the parks and countryside around Glasgow, a reminder that the trade-off for living somewhere so apparently ...

Politics

The Corbyn Mirage

With little leadership experience, Labour’s leader consistently failed to deliver

February 12, 2020 • by Simon Jones

Labour’s election campaign was an evisceration, handing the Tories an 80 seat majority in the House of Commons and, with no opposition ever having overcome such a deficit in a single electoral cycle, a presumptive decade in power. The party’s heartlands in the North of England were smashed by the Conservatives and ...

Feature

Charity Workers, Organize!

A guide for the overworked and underappreciated

April 20, 2018 • by Simon Jones

If you work in a charity, chances are you are not in a union. Which is unfortunate, because you will almost certainly have seen things a union can fix: low morale, poor conditions and pay, infringements of labor rights, discrimination, poor or malicious management, and work-related illness. This is a guide ...

Psyche

Mental Wealth and Hellbeing

Pitting the productive against the human

April 15, 2017 • by Simon Jones

When the Scottish Government announced its ten year strategy on mental health at the end of March, bureaucrats would have known exactly how it would be received. The first draft mapped the next 120 months of life for citizens affected by mental ill health, and ran 12-pages. It was roundly criticized for ...