Last Wednesday saw the 10th anniversary of the Scottish independence referendum.

In some ways, it seems like it was not that long ago.

However, in other ways, especially given the amount that has happened since, it seems as if it was in the distant past.

From a business and economic perspective, we have seen plenty of turbulence and mistakes since.

Chief among the foolishness has been the incredibly damaging hard Brexit from the Conservatives. The Brexit vote, of course, was in June 2016 and it took until the end of 2020 for the Tories to drag the UK out of the single market in the most damaging of ways.

Labour is carrying this hard Brexit torch now, as the new Government refuses to contemplate rejoining the European Union, single market, or even the customs union.

The Brexit vote seems like an excruciatingly long time ago.

Of course, we have had the coronavirus pandemic in between, which caused great economic turbulence as well as taking a terrible human toll.

In the 10 years since the independence referendum, there has been much focus on the Scottish Government’s performance.

One of the main points of attention, not surprisingly, has been Scotland’s devolved income tax.

This is not surprising because it is one of the key devolved powers, and income tax policy in Scotland has in recent years diverged significantly from that in the UK as a whole.

While the spotlight has often been on........

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