Battery storage has a long way to go before it will make a difference to wind power inefficiency

A BATTERY of 1MWh connected to Hywind's 30 MW of offshore wind turbinesdoes not represent a landmark in making wind generation reliable. These two numbers tell the whole story. The turbines can produce 30 ...

The European Council - what needs to be said...

MOST THINGS are what they seem to be. Brexit suffered a stumble three weeks ago, with the lamentable “Technical Note on Temporary Customs Arrangements” and its last minute weasel-words about “intentions” and “backstop”. On the ...

Just what did Jim Sillars say to the Scottish Secretary?

FOR THE AVOIDENCE OF DOUBT Jim Sillars has kindly given us the letter he sent to David Mundell…

21stJune , 2018

The Rt. Hon. David Mundell, Secretary of State, 

Potholes ARE politics!

IT’S A LONG-HELD JOKE that the way to get elected is to start a local pothole campaign. It’s a political love-hate relationship with something that recurs year after year.  It’s British politics through and through; satirical, ...

Growth Commission, really? Here's how to create new Scottish growth

MY FIRST REVIEW of the Sustainable Growth Commission revealed its inherent centralism; a stance that forces it into the error of trying to improve innovation, growth and productivity by state planning.  Economic experience tells us ...

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 ...