Scotland PLC cannot be invented

THERE’S A LOT to learn from the Growth Commission Report, but not about growth.

Rather, its importance is to illustrate how to dig a hole and then fall into it; it’s a ...

The Growth Commission’s recipe for recession

THE SNP’S ‘Growth Commission’ – designed to recast the economic case for breaking up the UK – proposes measures that would restrict growth and damage business and jobs. As Chairman of Scottish-Business.UKit is clear ...

The Growth Commission should be renamed the 'Recession Commission'

ANDREW Wilson’s Growth Commission is finally with us. After reading it I feel as though I’ve just woken up from a bad dream in which I’m struggling to find answers to problems that in reality ...

Why we need more robots and less robotic thinking

RECENTLY I was disconcerted to read that Scottish trade unions were ringing alarm bells about the impact they fear robots will have on the employment prospects of Scottish workers – because not having enough robots ...

Is economic growth the elephant in the room?

THIS is the question I posed when speaking at a Scotland in Union meeting in Edinburgh last month.

We’re facing a bit of an oxymoron here in Scotland. We have a fantastic ...

Disinformation is a weapon we should be aware of - not fall for

THERE HAS been quite a bit of coverage of defence issues in the media recently, ranging from the US/UK/France missile strikes on Syria via the Israeli-Iranian exchange of fire over the Golan Heights to the ...

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 ...