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When Scotland Voted Leave 78

Posted on July 28, 2017 by

Last month saw the first meeting between the UK Brexit delegation and the EU’s, and by many accounts it fell far short of the UK’s expectations. David Davis spent months drumming up the “strong and stable” approach which would see both the divorce deal and the subsequent post-Brexit trade deal negotiated simultaneously. He was told by everyone that this wouldn’t happen, but simply brushed off the warnings. When push came to shove, he finally accepted that he’d have to negotiate the divorce deal first.

This is just the latest in a long string of failures and ineptitudes over the course of the UK’s handling of the whole farcical process and it got me thinking. If Scotland had voted Yes in 2014, what would it have looked like if the Scottish Government had handled that vote the way the UK has managed Brexit?

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Category analysis, comment, scottish politics, uk politics

Gazing into the black hole 93

Posted on March 09, 2016 by

Economics: The art of explaining why all of your models fail to accurately predict either the future or the past.

It’s the time of year again when everyone glances at the first page of a dense booklet of complex economic data and immediately starts using it to make wild forecasts and proclamations despite the long-known problems with doing so.

gers16

So it’s also, once again, time to try looking a little further to tease out some details that others might have – let’s be generous here – accidentally missed.

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Tags:
Category analysis, scottish politics, stats

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