Businesses must unite in telling Scottish Government to focus on growth

SINCE BEFORE THE ACTS of Union in 1707, England has been Scotland’s main trading partner. The United Kingdom is one of the largest economies in the world and Scotland has always played a key part ...

Visiting Brussels is enough to make anyone a Brexiteer

ALTHOUGH I was in favour of remaining in the EU, I have never been a particular fan of the European project. It always seemed to me that there was a self-perpetuating bureaucracy in Brussels which ...

Chequers could cost Welsh Conservatives five MPs in a general election

IT’S NOT JUST IN SCOTLAND that Conservatives face a humiliating rejection over Theresa May’s Chequers policy. The same goes for Wales too.

The Welsh Conservatives face a humiliating loss of five MPs ...

Chequers could cost Scots Tories eleven MPs in a general election

SCOTTISH CONSERVATIVES face a humiliating loss of as many as eleven MPs if the UK government does not accept its proposed Chequers Deal fails to deliver the Brexit voters were expecting. 

That ...

Will likeable Sweden recover its mojo?

SWEDEN, the land of proverbial calm, faces an uncertain future because of an ill-advised drive by the previous two governments (one centre-right, the other on the left) to take in large numbers of refugees and ...

Sturgeon’s re-launch fails to take off

IT HAS BEEN something of a nightmare of a summer for Nicola Sturgeon. The last parliamentary session ended in June with a botched reshuffle, the First Minister not only having to sack her closest friend ...

TEN things that could be done to improve our NHS

CRISIS, CRISIS, oh the humanity, it's unprecedented I tell you, the roof is caving in, urgent care is broken... actually none of this is true. 

The NHS is doing its job as ...

Rail nationalisation? Our railways are in better shape than before franchising

NO ONE who advocates the current, part-privatised model of railways that currently exists in Britain can expect to receive an easy ride. I found this out last week when I published a report– commissioned ...

Alex Salmond: Did it take a new code of conduct for the complaints to be made?

WORLD WAR I started in no small measure because of the miscalculations made by several of the Great Powers following the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 2014.  They misinterpreted the mood ...

"Free" Scottish universities are discriminatory and unsustainable

I AM SURE l am not the only MSP in recent days to receive letters from parents of young people seeking a place at a Scottish university but who are being turned away. One parent ...

Is Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on Boris Johnson's side?

IT’S TIME as a Eurosceptic to wave my Johnson proudly again. Boris recently had a rough week following his comments on the niqab and burqa. Some accused him of being the ultimate hypocrite after previously ...

Two modern blockades – an ancient form of warfare is back in fashion

A LEADER in Berlin styling himself “Emperor of the French and King of Italy” issued a decree on 21 November 1806. The British Isles were to be blockaded, and “whoever deals on the continent in ...