A nation in trouble

Bill Jamieson is the Executive Editor of the Scotsman and regularly writes about Scotland's economy. Today he exposes the damage done when politicians get it wrong.

He mentions:

the appalling economic conditions in which the mass of the population have been forced to live.

and he exposes the:

socialist regime (that) has bankrupted a country.

The nation:

should by rights be one of the most advanced and successful economies in the world. It has the means to boast first-class infrastructure and the best schools and hospitals that money can buy. It should also have manufacturing, service and knowledge industries to compete with the best.

Bill asks:

Where has the money gone?

Well, the politicians have screwed things up:

Corrupt state ownership of the country’s vast ..... resources and central planning and control of industry and trade have wrought economic devastation.

On schooling, Bill says that:

One can only hope that wiser teachers might now explain how freedom has to be fought for

Absolutely correct. A pro-liberty intellectual revolution is needed.

However:

More important, it will require a legal system, an open and transparent civic culture and an opening up of economic ownership.

At this point I expected Bill to condemn our Parliament's attack on property rights under the new "right to roam" law that will bankrupt much of the rural economy. Poor old Scotland.

Only then did I realise that Bill had been writing about Iraq.