Why have SNP MPs nominated a forced labour programme for the Nobel Peace Prize?

IS IT POSSIBLE to find a more unsuitable candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize than a forced labour programme of a communist state that is used to fund its efforts to repress its own citizenry ...

Scotland Matters means taking the message to the people

“IT’S JIST GREAT to see folk coming round wi’ oor side’s leaflets son”. So said an old woman in Brickfield, Stonehaven, a few weeks before the referendum in 2014. She had been bombarded by Yes ...

Look! There’s a dead cat bouncing out of Bute House…

IRONICALLY enough it was a former campaign manager of the then Mayor of London Boris Johnson who first coined the name of the political strategy that’s probably had the biggest influence on the Scottish Government’s ...

The EU’s bloody mindedness towards the whole UK requires Britain to go to court

LAST WEEK saw some unwelcome headlines. ‘Amsterdam ousts London as Europe’s top share trading hub’ crowed the Financial Times. 

At one level the headline is shocking as London’s position in financial services is ...

Ban compound interest? Why cash stupidity of SNP dreamers would destroy wealth

ONE OF THE THINGS that I love about Scotland is our cultural tradition of thinking creatively. We seem to be blessed with a distancing that is not available to more urbanised communities living with more ...

There’s no excusing it – the SNP lays waste in Scotland

FAILING AND DELAYED procurement projects are burning a very big hole in Scottish taxpayers’ pockets – SNP ministers’ can’t seem to stop themselves from scuppering contracts they oversee themselves. 

Take the scandal ...

The fatal conceit of Scot Gov planners can't overcome kitchen table realities

A LOT OF HEAT can be produced from economic forecasts, but as we know from the Brexit debate such modelling efforts do not really shed light on the future. Events have a habit of taking ...

Little England Vs Global Britain? Scotland must support the latter

AT JUST THE MOMENT when post-Brexit Britain should be seizing global opportunities – not least in the long-neglected Commonwealth – the spectre of Scottish (and Northern Irish and Welsh) independence is on the march again. ...

Covid-19 makes mentoring vital to help discuss young people's futures

YOUNG PEOPLE face more than enough challenges these days without also having to cope with Covid-19. The pandemic has shattered their world in so many different ways principally by reducing or, in some cases, ...

The separatists cannot be appeased – more devo is not the solution

THE UNION OF SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND has been a force for good, not just in Britain but globally over the last three centuries. It has helped provide mutual prosperity, security, benefits of scale, cultural creativity, ...

Take Junction 3 off the road to Hell? That’s the choice ahead on lockdowns

NOW THAT we have satnav, it’s rare to feel the frustration of travelling in a car where the driver resolutely heads in the wrong direction despite being told repeatedly that ‘it’s the other way!’

Pros and cons of Trump’s Twitter termination

WHAT MUST it be like to be Donald John Trump at this very moment? Imagine, if you can; you have lost an election that you guaranteed you would win, have seen a mob organised in ...