Lights, Camera, Salmond!

REMEMBER THAT “whom the gods would destroy they first make mad” said Prometheus, as he learned of Alex Salmond’s new RT-backed television show. 

After more than twenty years Salmond’s thespian need for attention ...

Playing Poker with Bourbons

THE PRIME MINISTER continues to play poker with herself, upping her own offer to the EU in return for absolutely nothing. The magic money tree is growing like topsy and we are now up to ...

Lessons from Varoufakis should not be ignored

A MONTH OR TWO AGO, I noticed that a pro-Remain correspondent to The National, Hugh Mclean, had claimed that the EU Commission was "the civil service of the EU". Describing the EU Commission as a humble ...

Who really pays tax today?

HERE ARE some facts that need to be taken into account when considering all that is flying around about who pays taxes and who doesn't.

Tax cuts focussed on lowest paid by ...

Theresa May should bring back David Cameron

Splutter your coffee all ye may, ol’ Dave is coming back to play.

SUCH IS the nursery rhyme that will bewilder future generations if there is any truth to it. Shock at ...

Corbyn's contradictions on Brexit are visible if you look hard enough

THE POLITICAL TIDAL WAVES that have lashed over the government, unleashed first by Hurricane Boris and then the wet Tsunami that is Chancellor Hammond have in the last month served to draw attention away from ...

Let's make the EU an offer it cannot refuse?

PROFESSIONALS risk manage. They plan and perform duties with care and diligence. Brinkmanship is not in their quiver because negligence is a career killer.

Politicians are not professionals by nature. Civil servants ...

One Blair was more than enough!

Theresa May is under pressure from her own party - but was it not ever thus for Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron, et al? This blast from the recent past of February 2013 is worth reading in the light of what we know now – and how subsequent events turned out...

The right cats to catch the right mice

JIM SILLARS puts forward socialist notions with eloquent objectivity.  What a change from slogans and vituperation about “Tories” conspiring to dreadfulness.  His thoughts deserve a similarly ameliorative response – if not full agreement – in ...

Is a smacking ban practical or reasonable interference?

THROUGHOUT MY TIME in Holyrood I don’t think any constituent has ever approached me about the issue of smacking children. I suspect most of my colleagues across the political divide will be in the same ...

Phil Hammond may not back Brexit, but he's backing global Britain

A DEAL, a deal, my kingdom for a deal....said no Tory ever.  As vital as Brexit is, the long term consequences are even more so.

The Tories are working out fast that ...

Aspiring to prejudice – against Scottish commerce

FOR SOME YEARS now we have come to recognise that the SNP prefers to announce aspirations rather than engage in practical policy measures. In recent weeks, however, we have at last seen some policy decisions ...