Daily Business / December 7, 2025 Ministers need to reverse self-inflicted damage to the economy, says IAN RITCHIE W HEN THE CURRENT UK government overwhelmingly won last year’s general election it was on a manifesto which identified five key priorities or missions. The first and most important was to “kickstart economic growth” which it defined as “to secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 – with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making e

Daily Business / November 9, 2025 Amid sky-high valuations for big technology stocks, IAN RITCHIE asks if expectations of the AI revolution are overdone B ACK IN 1999 , I was invited to attend a Credit Suisse investment conference in Cannes and I was happy to attend as I fancied a bit of sunshine on the Côte d’Azur. The World Wide Web had arrived in the mid nineties and by the end of that decade there was huge excitement about the opportunities for new businesses enabled by t

Daily Business / October 20, 2025 Holyrood’s next intake must look to small nations like Estonia and Denmark to solve Scotland’s inefficient public services, writes IAN RITCHIE A S POLITICIANS CAMPAIGN for the right to govern at Holyrood next year a key question they face will be how cost-effectively public services are being delivered by the devolved government. The answer, unfortunately, is quite poorly. Cuts and even higher taxes may be the preferred response, but one sol

Daily Business / September 18, 2025 Despite the city’s enviable record for innovation, value is often gained elsewhere, writes IAN RITCHIE W HEN I VISITED the Japanese research headquarters of Panasonic a few years ago in Osaka, I noted the roundel at the front of the building which featured statues commemorating a dozen famous scientist and engineers. The group included Newton and Einstein, but there was a key scientist missing – James Clerk Maxwell. When I mentioned this t

Ian Ritchie  / The Herald Business HQ / August 2025 W HEN THE NEW Labour government was elected a year ago, it declared that its top...

Ian Ritchie  / The Herald Business HQ / July 2025 T HE WELL-KNOWN phrase “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance” is being...

Ian Ritchie  / The Herald Business HQ / June 2025 T HE ARRIVAL of the internet in the mid-1990s completely revolutionised the world of...

Ian Ritchie / The Herald Business HQ / May 2025 WE HAVE ALL heard that Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to destroy lots...

Ian Ritchie / The Herald Business HQ / April 2025 A MAJOR STUSHIE is currently brewing between our government and the UK creative...

Ian Ritchie / The Herald Business HQ / March 2025 "THE LAW IS AN ASS, an idiot” said Mr Bumble in Oliver Twist, and that was absolutely...

Ian Ritchie / The Herald Business HQ / February 2025 THE TRUMP 2.0 administration has declared an ‘America First’ policy, inevitably...

Ian Ritchie  / The Herald Business HQ / December 2024 F ORTY years ago in 1984, I had to negotiate a deal to commercialise software...

Ian Ritchie  / The Herald Business HQ / November 2024 R ECENT YEARS have seen lots of “war on” campaigns, an odd term for things that...

Ian Ritchie  / The Herald Business HQ / October 2024 W HEN I WAS struggling to raise investment to fund our start-up software company...

Ian Ritchie  / The Herald Business HQ / September 6th, 2024 F ORTY YEARS AGO, in the early 1980s, the University of Edinburgh won a...

Ian Ritchie / The Herald Business HQ / August 1st 2024 THIRTY years ago, back in 1994, the largest companies in the world were automobile...

Ian Ritchie. The Herald Business HQ. Friday 5th July 2024 In the last few weeks, graphics chip manufacturer Nvidia briefly became the...

Ian Ritchie  Business HQ / The Herald December 21st 2023 It's one of the biggest challenges for the Scottish economy: where do business...