JOHN SWINNEY’S LATEST EPISODE, the brief flirtation with banning US military flights from Prestwick Airport, followed by a swift retreat when reality intruded, is a textbook case of nationalist hubris. It is not merely embarrassing; it is dangerous. In a devolved system where foreign policy and defence remain firmly reserved to Westminster, the First Minister […]
Day: 11 March 2026
Devolution reboot part 3: Fixing Scotland’s broken housing model
TWENTY YEARS AGO, with the Scottish Parliament newly established, a group of economists wrote about what it should do with its new powers. In this series on rebooting devolution, I have been dusting down the short paper written by the Harvard economist Edward Glaeser called Four challenges for Scotland’s cities. Glaeser’s central insight was that, […]