ThinkBusiness

Miles Saltiel

Is there a change in the Brexit weather?

IN One hundred days we pointed to “high” and “low” roads for the new government to follow to change the parliamentary arithmetic. This would be encouraging us with new possibilities, in particular trade deals; or ...

Ewen Stewart

How some unionists are abetting the nationalist cause

THERE SEEMS A STRANGE COALITION is developing between the forces of Scottish Nationalism and elements of Unionism in Scotland that no-deal Brexit may break the UK union. Some of the claims of the SNP are to ...

Miles Saltiel

Are we in a Brexit Silly Season?

AS WE ENTER the silly season of August, first let us examine the success of the new government in meeting the three objectives in my last column. They were:

Thwarting Commons opposition ...

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Stuart Crawford

Restaurant review: Lochindaal Seafood Kitchen, Port Charlotte, Islay

IT’S NOT OFTEN you come out of a restaurant and think “that’s the best meal I’ve ever had”, but that’s exactly what happened to me when I dined at Iain MacLellan’s ...

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Miles Saltiel

Boris's Golden Age playbook is opened...

LAST WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, Boris’ Downing Street speech followed the playbook set out in previous post, not so much “Silver Linings” as “Golden Age”. He reached out to the country, encouraged it to discount alarmism and ...

Miles Saltiel

How the Brexit interregnum becomes a roller-coaster

UNTIL TUESDAY 23 JULY when the Tories announce their decision, we are stuck in an interregnum. May’s spending commitments have scant purchase upon her successor; her ribbon-cutting on the world stage counts for similarly round ...

Calum Miller

Exposing the truth about Scottish exports

SORRY, but we need to talk about Scottish exports. The stuff we throw over our border is being used by all political parties to bounce us into supporting their positions on Brexit. Project fear is ...

Linda Holt

Austerity? How the SNP holds back Westminster funding

AS THE CHANCES of a no-deal Brexit on October 31st grow inexorably, COSLA, the Council of Scottish Local Authorities, has just announced that the Scottish Government is awarding £1.6 million to councils for “resilience work” ...

Miles Saltiel

The Channel 4 debate and Brexit

POSSIBLY YOU SAW last night’s “empty chair” Punch and Judy show, visited upon us by the ambitions of the reliably reach-exceeding-grasp programmers of Channel Four and the desperation of the Tory also-rans? It made me ...

Jonathan Stanley

Boris Johnson's West End Tax is a menace to Conservatism and the Union

THE TORY LEADERSHIP contest is well under way. It could well be an episode of The Magic Roundabout given the surfeit of drug-fuelled characters.

First there's that bloke on coke Michael Gove. Then ...

Joshua Curzon

Venezuela’s tragedy: Shortages are a feature of the system, not a design bug

DESPITE A NEAR-TOTAL economic collapse and against expectations, the Chavista regime in Venezuela endures. How so?

In a centrally planned economy, the ruling class can use goods in short supply as a ...

Frankie Hutcheson

May's trashing of Davidson's strategy makes attacks on Brexit Party look facile

IN COMMON with the UK Conservative Party, the Scottish Conservatives have not issued a manifesto for tomorrow’s EU election. Campaigning on the ground by the Conservatives has been virtually non-existent in Scotland, as if party ...