The township of 12 people
which sells four million
cans of beer a year
Scotland
in the
heat
We have the capacity
to be a European leader in energy
Andy Hall, a delegate at the Young Scotland Programme, writes for SR
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The
death
of depth
Chris Holligan
says that deep reading
is becoming a thing of
the past. We’ve all
gone shopping
Lockerbie
An overview by Morag Kerr of the Justice for Megrahi Committee
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The Cafe
The Cafe is our readers’ forum. Send your contribution to islay@scottishreview.net
Today’s banner
Within a few hundred yards of Commonwealth House, Glasgow
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
Those who died for the
vote would be horrified
to see what they died for
Malcolm Hutchinson
We are back in recession, officially. The Treasury is briefing that it is because of the EU, to which 40% of our exports go because it is barely growing. They don’t mention that the rest of the world, who take the other 60%, is growing at an average of 6%. Indeed, despite all the blame that was formerly placed on the ‘world recession’, the world economy has been growing consistently at 5% overall since the alleged world recession started.
Even the politicians, approved pundits and civil servants dare not dispute that it would be perfectly easy to get out of recession and into at least world-average growth any time they actually wanted to. All that is needed is for politicians to get out of the way and let the free market operate. 93% of electricity prices are political parasitism. 75% of the cost of housing is political. Since regulators increase business costs by 20 times their own earnings, government inspectors are robbing us of the productive labour of more than four million workers.
Adam Smith said: ‘Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: All the rest being brought about by the natural course of things’. The corollary is that nothing else is required to ruin a country than politicians who insist on controlling everything and ensuring that no competent and free economic decisions can be made.
Neil Craig
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