Drunk on power, why have politicians in charge of the driving wheel?

AS PUBLIC DEBATE TURNS, no doubt prematurely, to when any release on our lock-down might begin I am reminded of an old Shetland tale.  A drunk in a bar hears that one third of car accidents ...

Who’s been fishing in our backyard? Someone's Herring a laugh!

AS PART OF ITS ANALYSIS of the EU’s database of fish catches has mapped landings for each of the EU members fishing in the UK for each of the ICES rectangles in the NE. Atlantic ...

Woke thugs terrorise Edinburgh University

APPLETON TOWER is a striking sight on Edinburgh’s skyline and its five lecture theatres alone can house 1,200 students. It also serves as a hub for the University’s informatics students and is decked out with ...

Solving Scotland’s policy sclerosis and spendthrift ways

COMMENTARY on our present viral predicament is turning towards what happens when lockdown measures are released.  The left, predictably, is calling for the end of global capitalism as we know it, suggesting its replacement with a ...

Ausnahmezustand anxiety in St Andrews

AT LAST MONDAY’S Coronavirus briefing Housing Minister Robert Jendrick announced the UK was now on “an emergency footing” in a way “unprecedented” in peacetime.

Even “unprecedented” is rapidly becoming old hat. “It ...

Planning Edinburgh's future in the time of Coronavirus

WHEN Edinburgh Council went into an early recess and cancelled Committees, emails started coming in from a few constituents asking whether the current consultation Choices for City Plan 2030 would be extended.  My initial, optimistic, response was to ...

ThinkLockdown: a right Royal misjudgement?

EVERYTHING IS GRIST to the nationalist mill, and there is no reason to think that the Covid-19 pandemic would be any exception. The weekend’s influx of visitors to the Highlands and islands brought cries to ...

ThinkLockdown: before the Tsunami

OVER THE WEEKEND, hordes of townies flooded into the countryside in search of refuge from the coronavirus. Curiously, however, no-one seems to have predicted this mass evacuation.

The spectacle brought to mind ...

(Tempers) flaring at Mossmorran

YOU DON’T NEED ME to tell you that media coverage in Scotland has been hijacked by two major topics recently. The first, and most important is, of course the Covid-19 virus pandemic which has captured ...

Covid-19 has us guddling for reality

IF YOU HAVE EVER tried guddling for trout you will understand the trials of an observing economist in these strange times.  We’re trained to stand away from received opinion and slowly put together our intellectual feelers, ...

Black swans and oil shakes… why the maths for Scotland seceding just got worse

THE SNP MAY HAVE its troubles in the courtroom but that is not the party’s only problem.

Frankly the SNP’s sums have just gotten a whole lot worse as the price of ...

Opposing the false assertions of the statists will make us all better off

I HAVE STARTED to read the Guardian; lucky me, but my journalism tutor always said we should “read the opposition” and not sit in the comfort of our own silo for ideas. 

Leaving ...