How do we solve the threat to devolution?

I BELIEVE a simple one paragraph Act of Parliament to tidy up the Scotland Act would ensure the devolution we voted twenty-three years ago is delivered. Having seen all the twists and turns of Brexit ...

No region of Scotland should be dragged out of Britain against its will

THE 2014 INDYREF required only a Scotland-wide simple majority of valid votes cast.  If there were to be a repeat an IndyRef2 should, conversely, require a simple majority of the registered electorate.

In ...

The Mummy Diaries – Christmas Crafts and murder’s afoot!

I’M PROBABLY going to get on your parenting nerves straight away here. It’s actually been a good week. A nice week. Yes, we’ve had a few minor spats but in general, everyone has got on ...

Humza’s Hate Bill – will you be criminalized for someone else’s emotion?

MUCH has been written by legal experts and others about the vagueness within the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill. Vagueness in law is certainly dangerous. If the state is going to use power ...

Labour’s road to perdition – Devolution for Scotland

THE DISTINGUISHED American historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. once wrote a fascinating book entitled ‘Cycles in American History’, which analysed how America went through periods of reform followed by periods of reaction. He would have done ...

New defence spending has the potential to revive British shipbuilding

CREDIT where credit is due. The predicted announcement by Boris Johnson that the UK will launch its largest investment in defence since the Cold War, with a call to end an “era of retreat”, and ...

Hong Kong’s future relies on democracy being relevant and trusted

SOME DAYS AGO, the Government of Hong Kong and the Government of Singapore confirmed creating an air travel bubble between the cities that they govern. This air travel bubble effectively means tourists and expatriates can ...

A once envied reputation trashed – why Scotland's Curriculum for Excellence is anything but

THERE CAN BE very few people left in Scotland who consider Curriculum for Excellence to have been a positive step forward for the Scottish education system.  Those who do are wilfully blinding themselves to the steady ...

Unionism is dead – long live Unity

SLOWLY the Scottish commentariat is beginning to acknowledge the grassroots movement Alliance for Unity as a force to be reckoned with at the coming Holyrood election. We have come a long way in a few ...

It is time to call out the Scottish Government’s Voodoo Data

WHAT IS WRONG with Scotland? For many ThinkScotland readers, the short answer will be nationalism and/or the SNP. But even if the SNP weren’t running Scotland, would we really be alright? Would the rest of ...

Taking out the trash: some thoughts on International Men’s Day

FOR SOME TIME, the concept of an International Men’s Day, which, at time of writing, it still is, was a bit of a joke used only to shut down the cretins who would respond to ...

A Scots Pound shows the folly of abandoning Scotland’s historical scepticism

ANYONE who has been on Twitter will recognise the strong resistance to logical discourse among the “cluckeratti”; there is a vast cohort of Twitter users who stick close to consensual prejudices like a brood of ...