The SNP’s budget choices – which way will Derek turn?

ON MONDAY we will have the UK Government’s Budget from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This is eagerly awaited in Scotland, because it will help identify the overall size of the Scottish Government’s budget for ...

The Single Market remains the wrong answer to the UK’s future prosperity

IT IS A CLICHÉ but Britain is a trading nation. Last year the UK exported £615bn of goods and services to the world. Trade is the lifeblood of the nation and the historic UK referendum vote ...

Venezuela's tragedy: education now in a state of collapse

MOST VENEZUELAN schools are now empty of children and teachers, in a major crisis for the poverty-stricken country.

Former President Hugo Chavez used to boast that he was improving the education system, ...

Venezuela’s tragedy: sanctions are not the cause of Venezuela’s difficulties

SANCTIONS ARE OFTEN TOUTED as a significant factor either in Venezuela’s decline or its current crisis.  Neither is true. US and EU sanctions mainly target corrupt individuals, such as top minister Tarek El Aissami, who has ...

Scots4Leave arrives to fill the void

ON JUNE 23RD 2016 over one million Scots voted to leave the European Union. This simple fact, however, seems to have been forgotten. The narrative – thanks due to a lack of parliamentary support from ...

Venezuela's tragedy: how the US helps Venezuela survive

A COMMON refrain among defenders of the Venezuelan regime is that the country’s problems are somehow caused by the USA. Precisely the opposite is true. The USA is the main source of the hard cash ...

Ten years since Lehman Brothers: and it’s still playing out…

ON SATURDAY 15th September 2008 the collapse of Lehman Brothers was the eye of the storm of what became the financial crisis. Ten years on, while the sun continues to rise the world is a ...

Irish border? Ditch the dogma – do the deal

IN THE IMAGINATION of remainers, the Tory European Research Group is a cadre of irreconcilable Brexit ultras, determined to wrench the UK from the EU in chaotic fashion. It’s ironic then, that the ERG’s latest ...

Fishing entitlement must be reformed if communities are to boom following Brexit

FISHING FOR LEAVE welcomes some areas of the UK Government's fisheries White Paper more than others. One thing we are adamant that must be fulfilled is that all repatriated resources are held as a national ...

Grievance Scotland will soon have its own quango

TRYING TO SWIM through the treacle of Scottish Government policy pronouncements can sometimes feel like an out-of-body experience. While trying to give our politicians the benefit of the doubt that they have something valuable to ...

There's good news about UK plc if you ignore the doomsayers

IT IS COMMON GROUND that Brexit is going badly. Remainers deplore their country’s theft by rascals who bamboozled an innocent electorate. Leavers lament the betrayal of their hopes by a cabal of duplicitous Brinos. The ...

Small-scale power plants – are they a solution?

THERE HAVE BEEN regular warnings in recent years – especially during the drought – that the UK needs new policies to reduce carbon emissions – i.e. to decarbonise.  The sectors with greatest emissions are transport, domestic ...