My advice to the new First Minister

Last Friday I found myself in the magnificent Carnegie-funded Central Library in George IV Bridge, Edinburgh. I was due to speak at a Scotonomics conference and, after glancing at some of the more challenging questions that had been sent in advance, concluded that an hour or so’s revision was urgently called for on the respective attributes of new monetarism and wellbeing economics. Entering the reading room, I was asked by the kind library staff if I had a reading card. ‘Well, I was a regular user as a student,’ I ventured. ‘When was that? Our records go back a fair way,’ they said helpfully. ‘1973,’ I answered. ‘Please fill in the form.’

The conference itself was an erudite and fairly serious affair – as befits a group of people who study the economics of independence on a liquid Friday night in Dundee. I told the assembly that my three favourite economists were Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes and J.K. Galbraith,