Today's Thinking
Can we just be left to choose for ourselves?!
ARE THE WAVES of collective hysteria that wash across social media from smart phones and tablets making us lose our marbles? Does the heightened sense
Brian Monteith
February 7, 2025
Why so many nationalists disparage experts in Scotland
MANY WILL REMEMBER Michael Gove, as a cabinet minister, saying, in relation to Brexit, ‘I think the people of this country have had enough of
Jill Stephenson
January 16, 2025
As an agent of change, Reform UK has no peers
CHANGE, the title of its manifesto, was the stand-out slogan of Labour’s campaign earlier this year against a lost fourteen years of Conservative rule. But
Linda Holt
January 2, 2025
Scotland’s political circus as we approach 2026
THE LEGENDARY words of Harold Macmillan – “Events, dear boy, events” – have never felt so cuttingly apt as Scotland stumbles towards the 2026 Holyrood election. What we’re
Annemarie Ward
December 26, 2024
Think Politics
Twelve months of Stormont restored has achieved next to nothing
ONE YEAR AGO this week, the Stormont Assembly was restored, after the DUP struck its Safeguarding the Union deal with Rishi Sunak’s government. The unionist
Owen Polley
February 7, 2025
Farmers’ protests need to avoid hacking off the public
I HAPPENED to be travelling along Edinburgh’s City Bypass last Saturday on my way to Glasgow at the same time as the farmer’s protest against
Stuart Crawford
February 7, 2025
How Reform can now say “Vote Tory – get SNP”!
TWO STRIKING – and related – news stories have hit Scottish headlines this week. A Survation poll for Holyrood Sources on the 2026 Holyrood election
Linda Holt
January 18, 2025
Rachel Reeves and the parable of the last one holding the parcel
IT SEEMS people like parables. Even those not familiar with the Bible can probably tell you about the parable of the Prodigal Son, or the
Ewen Stewart
January 15, 2025
Think Culture
The more you know, the more you know you don’t know
A new biography of Alexander von Humboldt WE HAVE JUST celebrated approximately the fourteen billionth New Year that the universe has enjoyed since it came
Ian Mitchell
January 15, 2025
How to do nothing without getting bored
The sound of silence: Angus Martin and the Mull of Kintyre MY CONTRIBUTION to the festive spirit this year will be to abstain from thought
Ian Mitchell
December 26, 2024
The link between Ukrainian democracy and Scottish socialism
Life, death and planning policy in fighting Ukraine and socialist Argyll NOW that the soft, amnesiac blanket of caring, north-London socialism has fallen again on
Ian Mitchell
December 21, 2024
When the end of the world was nigh
Revealing a climate scientist who believed in a new ice age, and why, despite the fact that he went on to become one of the
Ian Mitchell
December 1, 2024
Think Business
Rod Stewart was right: Every picture tells a story…
SYMBOLISM MATTERS. Rachael Reeves choosing to ditch a picture of Nigel Lawson for Ellen Wilkinson, one of the founding members of the Communist Party of
Ewen Stewart
October 31, 2024
Budget Briefing: What would a good Government do?
WE HAVE SEEN how Britain is failing. Its growth rate per head has collapsed to the worst in 200 years and the country is in
Ewen Stewart
October 17, 2024
Budget Briefing: What might Labour do?
THE SHORT ANSWER is your guess is as good as mine, save for raising yet more tax. Rachel Reeves has claimed there is a £22bn
Ewen Stewart
October 17, 2024
Budget Briefing: Why has our decline been so precipitous?
THE UK’s relative and material economic decline can be pinpointed almost exactly to the onset of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) starting in 2008. As
Ewen Stewart
October 15, 2024
