Scotland

Also elsewhere today, I've a piece for the Scotsman arguing that Andrew Adonis was the third-most important person in the Blair-Brown governments and that, by god, Scotland could do with some of his reforming zeal too. Most sensible people in England agree academies have been a success (though there's still a long way to go); unfortunately most people in Scotland seem to think there's precious little need for reform. This complacency is unwarranted. Adonis has written a memoir – Education, Education, Education: Reforming England’s Schools – that should be read by every MP and MSP. It’s probably the most important political book of the year.

Donald Trump and the world's first 'professor of carbon capture' clashed last night in the Spectator's first debate in Edinburgh over the motion :  as they sparred over the contentious motion - Scotland's Energy Policy is Just Hot Air. Andrew Montford posted his argument on Coffee House earlier, and I thought CoffeeHousers may like to know how the rest of the debate went, Trump could not, alas, be there in person but he sent in a video message in which he supported the motion. It was, as you'd expect, a coruscating attack on the SNP administration's pro-wind farm policy. He is a well-known opponent, having been campaigning against a proposed off-shore wind farm which, he claims, will ruin the views from the golf course he has just built on the Aberdeenshire coast.

On balance, Iain Duncan Smith's spell as Tory leader can't be remembered as an unmitigated success. Be that as it may, sometimes there are second acts in political lives and, just occasionally, these are worth celebrating. IDS is one example of this. Nevertheless, even a man as palpably decent and well-meaning as IDS doesn't always pitch his argument about welfare reform in the best, most sensible or plausible fashion. This is unfortunate, not least because it allows his opponents to question his good faith. And good faith matters in politics. Especially when you're attempting to overhaul welfare. At the best of times this is a sensitive issue requiring a deft touch. And these are not the best of times.

Well, probably neither actually. But there's every reason to suppose that just as some Unionists are fooling themselves when they discount the possibility of dear old Scotia thriving as an independent entity so some backers of independence may be deluding themselves if they think independence is a one-way ticket to a socialist paradise. That's the premise of this week's Think Scotland column, written in the aftermath of Jim McColl's decision to be out for independence. McColl, Heid Neep at Clyde Blowers and reckoned worth a billion pounds or so, is Alex Salmond's latest boardroom success. Admittedly McColl's support is less than whole-hearted. It's predicated upon Unionist reluctance to move much beyond the recent Scotland Bill. Independence is McColl's preferred second prize.

In a recent piece Stephanie Flanders, the BBC's economics editor, pondered how the UK economy could be adding jobs while, according to the figures, shrinking by 0.7% during the second quarter of this year. As she put it, this is a conundrum that "Britain's finest economic brains simply cannot explain". Well, I can't explain it either. But, perhaps because I'm not any kind of economic brain, I wonder if all this measuring and collecting of information now does as much harm as good. In one sense, of course, it seems obviously good that government collect data so it knows what's going on. But that comes at a price: it encourages governments to tinker and interfere even more than they might already be predisposed to tinker and interfere.

Sorry folks, but you'll not have me to kick around these next two weeks. I'm away to the Isle of Jura this week for Midge Fest 2012 (and the 62nd edition of the Ardlussa Sports). Thence to Ireland for a week of cricket as a member of Peter Oborne's annual travelling circus. See you here next month.

Lloyd Evans rounds up the highlights of this week's Spectator debate on the future of the union. The motion was 'It's time to let Scotland go'. Margo Macdonald, MSP, opened on a friendly note and declared that she had no plans to fall out with anyone. She wants to preserve Scotland’s ‘social union’ with England. But her country can no longer ‘shackle itself to the shell of a declining empire’. Nor should Scotland send ‘broad-kilted laddies’ to fight wars in foreign lands, ‘using armoured vehicles that are more dangerous to our servicemen than to the enemy.’ England, she claimed, uses Scotland to maintain its ‘magic seat’ on the Security Council.

Past experience demonstrates that Rangers supporters won't find anything funny about this: As I say, Rangers fans are immune, even at this late stage, to even gallows' humour. Everyone else? Well, not so much. After all: If this - and sending Rangers into the stygian depths of Scottish football - constitutes success in the corporate restructuring world one scarcely dares contemplate the horrors of failure.