Douglas Fraser

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It was Friday 4 May 2007, at 5.20pm, when the Scottish parliamentary result for the Highlands and Islands result was finalised. David Thompson filled the last vacant seat. The SNP had one more MSP than Labour.

On that tiny margin, Alex Salmond built a minority administration. Ten years later, and now dominant in Scottish politics, how does the Scottish National Party's economic record look?

I've been asking that question for a forthcoming book of essays: 'The Nation Changed? The SNP and Scotland 10 Years On'. This is a shortened version.

For eight years of a new devolved parliament, the economy had been a problem for the Scottish National Party.

Without government experience, the party was perceived as untested and risky. Little of the business community was on board. And the economy was changing. Scotland had moved on from a narrative of post-industrial collapse.

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The numbers are looking up for retail, but for the wrong two reasons. One: inflation has picked up. Two: consumers are borrowing more when, collectively, we are already overstretched.

Mixed news from Scottish retail is that it has had a bad year, compared with the rest of the UK, but a better start to 2017.

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The setting: our local burgh hall. The event: six out of eight candidates at a hustings for our four-member council ward.

Over 90 minutes, this was less of a contact sport or debate than a job interview. Some were a lot better prepared than others.

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It's one thing for a chief executive to leave in his own time and on his own terms (and much rarer if the boss is a she).

It's really rare to do so after taking on a company that was not expected to last as long as a decade without succumbing to structural change or hostile takeover.

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A memorial for Lachlan Macquarie remains a little piece of Scotland which is forever Australia. It is on the isle of Mull, near his birthplace on the tiny island of Ulva, on the MacQuarrie clanlands.

The soldier turned colonial governor is known to some as "the father of Australia", making many of the key moves that helped it turn from penal colony to a new country.

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The Westminster election on 8 June will be about lots of things. They always are. But as a national debate, my hunch is that it is likely to be mainly focused on Brexit and who gets to occupy 10 Downing Street.

The wisdom of James Carvel, the Ragin' Cajun' strategist for Bill Clinton back in 1992, was that the electoral battleground "is the economy, stupid". And so it goes in most campaigns.

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Back in the top flight of Scottish football, at least some pride restored, the fans at Ibrox might still hope that normal service has now resumed.

They're to be sorely disappointed again, and not only because an imminent criminal court case can be expected to bring back some painful memories.

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Two businessmen, generations apart, tell us a story of entrepreneurial Scots.

So what, if anything, do James Watt and Sir Arnold Clark have in common?

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There may be one positive that comes out of the negative number issued on Wednesday morning by the Scottish government.

With a decline of 0.2%, October-to-December output from the Scottish economy certainly grabs attention - because if there's another quarter of contraction, it's called recession.

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Deals done in the offshore oil industry are, generally, a good sign.

They signal that there are still buyers who think they can get more value than existing owners out of these maturing assets, and still have enough left over to pay for decommissioning.