In my long experience, politics is a short-term business. That is driven partly by participants, partly by the people and partly by the press, the mischievous media.

The focus, in a democratic system, is rightly upon the pending election. Voters understandably want immediate answers to their pressing problems, even when the solutions they crave may be contradictory. (More stuff, less cash.)

At the same time, many in the mischievous media exaggerate the transient. Who is up, who is down? What is new, what is demanding attention? Always eager to hasten to the next caravanserai.

This week, by contrast, there was a glance towards the longer term. Where are we going with our NHS, our services, our fiscal structure? What, an Edinburgh conference asked, will Scotland look like in 2050?

Now, even adopting such a perspective may be viewed as courageous, given the perils currently confronting our planet. As Israel and Iran trade missiles, as President Trump ponders, it may seem rash to contemplate anything other than our collective survival.

However, we cannot live that way. We cannot flee for the sanctuary of a dark corner whenever Donald J. Trump turns into King Lear: confused and uncertain yet insisting that he is the terror of the earth.

And so it is entirely right to cast an eye ahead. However it may appear at first glance that there is a faintly futile tinge to the entire endeavour.

Consider. In 1920, did the ravaged continent of Europe discern that, by 1945, they would have endured a second, bloody conflict? They did not.

More prosaically, in 1980, did we know that the passing of a further quarter century would lead to a transformation in Information Technology and the creation of a Scottish Parliament? We did not.

Yet contemplate a little more deeply. Were not the roots of the........

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