Are you local? Edinburgh's charity shops need a thorough clear-out

EDINBURGH is a rather special city. There is no other in the UK like it. A capital, a village, a tourist theme park, a financial centre. It has a lot going on and a lot ...

Rt Hon Sir Alex Fergusson – an appreciation

THE SAD DEATH this week of my great friend and former colleague, Sir Alex Fergusson, leaves the Scottish Conservatives – and Scottish public life – without one of its most significant, and well-respected, figures.  Alex ...

Spanners and Bananas – or how smart meters used a dumb approach

IT IS REPORTED that an expert adviser to the Department of Energy and Climate Change thought the civil servants in charge of the smart meter initiative were so technically ignorant that they “couldn’t tell the ...

Should we not be re-assessing who we defend and why?

THERE HAS BEEN considerable mission creep in NATO since the end of the Cold War. It has enlarged far beyond its original borders. It has taken on roles across Asia and is effectively now the ...

So, why do I feel we should leave the EU?

MY VIEW OF THE EU and the UK’s place in it has been in flux for some time but it has taken the last two years post the vote to evolve to where it is ...

The McNanny State: Scottish exceptionalism - and why Holyrood was born to be a bully

THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT was born to be different. Of course it was always intended to bring a greater degree of scrutiny and accountability to the elected ministers of the parliament’s new executive, who replaced ministers ...

A note to my son about our Brexit betrayal and what it means

LAST WEDNESDAY night, just before the big game in Moscow with Croatia kicked off, my son (also a William) called me from Sao Luis, Brazil. This is on the verge of the great rainforest. The ...

May is hell bent on terminating Brexit, we must terminate her premiership instead

LISTEN, and understand. That Terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until we ...

Boris – for He is an Englishman, for better or worse

BORIS Alexander de Pfefel Johnson, has done it. He's finally resigned. It is a shame that Downing Street and Northumberland Avenue issued statements on this before he did, but the usual manners seem to be ...

We did not vote for this

MUCH HAS BEEN written over the last few days of the Cabinet’s agreement on its negotiating position with the EU. Having reflected on it, over the weekend, I am not surprised.

It clearly is a ...

Battering the battery option

RENEWABLE POWER, particularly wind turbines, offer a very unreliable and unpredictable means of generating electricity.  Their output can vary over a range of 100 over two days ie from 5000 MW down to 50 MW.  The idea ...

The NHS needs radical reform – this is how I'd start

FOR TOO LONG the NHS has been treated as an institution instead of a service. The reason politicians do this is because by definition institutions are owned by the establishment ...