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 ...

Unite’s grandstanding and divisiveness should not be rewarded

THE PROBLEM with public discourse in Scotland is how so much of it is crowded-out by the two dominating spectres of Independence and Brexit. To try and have a reasonable debate, by which I mean ...

Transition details: some victories, some concessions – and lots of long grass

THE HEADLINES on the draft withdrawal agreement between the UK and the EU have to be –  that first, it happened; and second, it went further than expected to pave the way for a Free ...

Electric cars: are we being too optimistic?

"The number of electric cars sold in Britain has fallen by a third since the start of the year, amid concerns that motorists are being put off by high prices, limited battery range and a lack ...

The great fallacy of prediction

WHO DOESN’T want to know the future? Mankind has a strong aversion to uncertainty and the future beyond the next few months is the least certain in life. Astrology, palmistry, crystal balls, oracles or even ...