Ray Perman
Stale old news from Hume and Salmond
It’s the silly season, so before turning to Alex Salmond’s wishful thinking about the inevitability of a second referendum on independence for Scotland, here is an amusing story about David Hume.
Too early to privatise the Green Investment Bank?
The “greenest of all” UK government’s signal it wants to privatise the GIB adds weight to the suggestion it is not a long-term investor in renewables after all.
The profligacy myth that stymied the UK and EU economies thrice over
The myth that Labour over-spending “caused” the financial crash and recession of 2008 has had damaging consequences for the British and European economies. Ray Perman examines three deleterious side-effects.
Kilts and gilts and Scottish debt
The Scottish Government can now, as of April 1, raise its own debt – via bonds or ‘kilts’ as they’re known. But there’s been no fanfare so far and no evidence the government wants to…
The SNP’s total but pyrrhic victory?
The 56 SNP MPs will soon get their first taste of powerlessness in Westminster as David Cameron uses his majority in Parliament to shun their demands across the board, argues Ray Perman.
Parliamentary reform: Westminster shows Holyrood the way
Anyone who watched the BBC2 documentary series Inside the Commons would agree that it is not only the crumbling building which needs repair. A democracy that depends on its representatives mastering a 45 chapter tome…
Restoring trust in bankers? Start by breaking up RBS
Shortly after my book on the collapse of HBOS came out I was speaking to a meeting of savings and post bank executives from Europe and further afield. These are institutions which have largely disappeared…