John Kay

Financial markets are an effective discipline on profligate individuals and states because markets cannot easily be bullied or lobbied, and their threat to make the cost of funds prohibitive is effective.

If the eurozone had quickly recognised defeat in Greece, it would have suffered a manageable failure and learnt an important lesson for the future. Instead it has followed the martingale.

Groups make better decisions when the members are dissimilar than when they have a common background. I should not be prime minister, but I would like to imagine that I could be useful to someone who was. (Sorry David Cameron, I am otherwise engaged).

The eurozone’s difficulties have been created by member states not markets, giving members more resources to fight markets makes things worse, not better.

The skill of the statesman is to distinguish situations in which ambiguity makes coexistence possible from those that will make the future more troublesome. In this respect, politicians who have steered world affairs through the financial crisis have not served us well.

Few voters were ever much interested in the old rhetoric of socialism, and they have equally little interest in the new rhetoric of rights.

Sovereign debt repayment is more about politics than economics.

Failure is intrinsic to the market economy: but the legitimacy of capitalism depends in part on how it deals with the consequences of such failure.

The SNP’s victory in the 5th May elections, which delivered an overall majority of 69 out of the 129 seats, means that the party can now fulfil its commitment to push for a referendum on independence. But independence, if achieved, would bring complications—both political and economic.

The answer to the question ‘would an independent Scotland be economically viable?’ is plainly yes. But would Scotland, or the remainder of the UK, or both, be better off?