After Paris, fudging climate change may become the default option

CLIMATE CHANGE, unsurprisingly, continues to generate headlines. However, it rarely makes the front pages anymore; like any issue, there comes a time when the peak has been reached and there simply isn’t the public interest ...

The future of farming – Bee careful what you wish for

LAST WEEK, the crop protection industry suffered a significant but not unexpected blow. A typical headline was EU member states support near-total neonicotinoids ban. In 2013, the use of this popular class of insecticides ...

The circular economy goes round and round

WHATEVER YOUR FEELINGS about the European Union, it’s undeniable that the bloc is good at setting ambitious targets. Many of these are definitely good ideas, but meeting the goals shows generally less success. In this ...

The evidence suggests Edinburgh will rise above Brexit forecasts

IF YOU HAVE ever wondered what the European Commission’s understanding of the UK’s negotiating position is it is best represented by the FT in the diagram below. For the UK to avoid all the “Xs” the only model ...

Health Secretary in last chance saloon

THE CREATION of the NHS seventy years ago was one of this country’s greatest achievements, mainly because it was a universal service based on clinical need rather than on patients’ income. With the passage of ...

How much is enough? Scotland puts the cart before the horse

SCOTLAND HAS one of the highest levels of public spending, per capita, and relative to the size of the state, in the developed world. Unfortunately this is supported by a small and relatively narrowly focused ...

How green transport threatens the Orangutan – and other consequences

UNDENIABLY we live in interesting times. Whether you consider that a curse or a blessing is probably down to your worldview but, in any case, we all have to cope with it. Nearly every change ...

Economic prospects following Brexit are not reliable

“GUNS OR BUTTER” used to be every undergraduate’s introduction to the economic analysis of the benefits of trade, but in Harvard’s Professor Mankiw’s Principles of Economics there is a more “fanciful” analogy: television commercials or grass mowing! 

Betrayal or awakening? Let’s applaud open minds that are willing to change

AT ONE TIME, many people could be neatly pigeonholed according to their beliefs. In the 1990s, the great majority of those categorising themselves as environmentalists could reliably be assumed to oppose the use of pesticides, ...

Why our electricity supply may become less reliable

THERE ARE THREE commodities that symbolise human success and achievements in manipulating nature to meet our needs – food supply, water and electricity.  No matter where we travel, apart from the most remote regions, we expect ...

Go stuff your Easter Turkey, I'd rather eat Tripe!

TURKEY FOR EASTER! Really? Did I miss something, I wondered, when I saw the television advert? Roast turkey for Easter – not spring lamb, not spring chicken or poached fish?

I have ...

GKN requires investment – not self-immolation by its own management

GKN IS A WORLD-RENOWNED British business but it is underperforming and its current management admits this is the case, having issued two profit warnings in 2017 and now panicking into sales of its assets.  In such ...