Today's Thinking
From the Barnett Formula to the Barnett Fund?
FOR DECADES, Scottish politics has argued over how much money Scotland receives. The debate has revolved around the Barnett Formula, fiscal transfers, oil revenues and
Jonathan Stanley
June 18, 2026
When Makerfield votes, it will choose the UK’s future
BY-ELECTIONS are straws in the wind – a side-show that cannot change the Government of the UK, but give people a free hit to express
Jonathan Thunderbridge
June 4, 2026
The elephant is still in the SNP’s room
Peter Murrell, collective denial, and the reckoning Scotland hasn’t had THE SOCIOLOGIST Eviatar Zerubavel observed that denial is never merely a personal act. It is
Dean M Thomson
June 3, 2026
Is the SNP’s cash flow management a cover for false accounting?
First published on 17 June 2021 WHEN Nicola Sturgeon was pressed by an STV journalist for comment on swirling allegations of a missing £600,000 independence
Dean M Thomson
May 26, 2026
Think Politics
Jeremy Hunt: Long on diagnoses, short on answers
Can We Be Rich Again?: The Surprising Potential of Britain’s Economy, Jeremy Hunt Swift Press, 304pp SIR JEREMY HUNT’S ambition was to make a million
Patrick Benham-Crosswell
June 19, 2026
Where now for the Defence Investment Plan?
This article was first published on Sunday 7th June. It looked bad for the Government then – with today’s resignation of the Defence Secretary it
Patrick Benham-Crosswell
June 11, 2026
Green policies don’t cater for everyone, especially taxpayers
THE CITY CHAMBERS is a wonderful, historic building and one of the ways it serves the Edinburgh public is through hires for corporate events, weddings
Iain Whyte
June 9, 2026
Murrell’s Tartan Special Brew is more than Bad Manners
THE ADMISSION of embezzlement by the leader of House Murrell compounds a resignation across Scotland that the SNP has some serious issues with integrity. It
Jonathan Stanley
June 4, 2026
Think Culture
Obituary: Mike Nevin, the gentleman applied economist
An applied economist whose work delivered substantial developments globally MICHAEL NEVIN, who has died aged 70, put his shoulder and keen mind to improving peoples’
Brian Monteith
June 18, 2026
Jiggery-pokery in the London art world in the 1950s
AS BRITAIN SLIDES ever more quickly into bureaucratic authoritarianism, it is important to remind ourselves that what is new is simply the scale of the
Ian Mitchell
June 10, 2026
Unionists should offer greenery, not greenwash – through Garden Crofts
FOR YEARS, much of Scotland’s environmental debate has revolved around targets, regulations and government strategies. Carbon figures are announced, consultations launched, deadlines set. Yet for
Jonathan Stanley
June 9, 2026
In the league of India’s rulers, the British appear benign
An interesting account of the long history of the Indian sub-continent WRITING OF THE FIRST European conquest in India, Audrey Truschke says in her fascinating
Ian Mitchell
June 3, 2026
Think Business
With party finances – as with everything – the fish rots from the head down
First published on 22 March 2021 WHEN WRITING about the ongoing saga in Bute House it is difficult to know when and where to begin.
Jonathan Stanley
May 26, 2026
Dumping EU regulations on the UK will not boost our growth
The Bank of England Governor ought to understand this. NOT SO LONG AGO, the head of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said of EU financial
Catherine McBride
May 26, 2026
Do the British people REALLY want to rejoin the EU?
HEADLINES from recent opinion polls suggest that a majority of Brits now want to reverse Brexit. But a deeper dive shows that this support is
Julian Jessop
May 20, 2026
Debunked! The dodgy stats used by Project Rejoin
A cut-out-and-keep summary of the claims most commonly made about the harm that Brexit has supposedly done to UK GDP, their sources, their methodology and
Julian Jessop
May 13, 2026