Grasping the Thistle: How Scotland Must React to the Three Key Challenges of the Twenty First Century Paperback – 25 Sept. 2006

It gives a greater understanding of the socttish education system. it helps to uderstand the challenges and diffculties along the way.

An interesting book by authors I knew little about.I found the contents especially the chapters on Government expenditure and their size in relation to the country's GDP especially interesting. As I was reading this book a long time after publication it made me wonder how well or otherwise it had been received in political circles.From my perspective as the 'Yaboo' nature of the party political system both in Westminster and Holyrood has not changed in the last few years it must have had little impact on this. It does not appear to have done Mike Russel'S career any harm however in view of his recent appointment as Scottish minister in charge of Brexit negotiations. I did also wonder if the authors should have made critical observations about labour politicians especially in view of the pleas in the book for consensus and non adversarial politics

Grasping the Thistle is an uplifting account of how Scotland could brace itself to face some of the political, economic and environmental challenges of the 21st century. Its proposals are, I believe, sound and the authors make their case well. Unfortunately the layout and format of the book, with its annoying habit of leaving a blank line after every paragraph, breaks the flow of the writing. Despite this minor criticism, if you are interested in how to improve Scotland you should read this book.