Sir Tom Hunter and his five egos are I believe genuine but they fail to inform us how they are to remove all the many quangos and civil service red tape that exists in Scotland today.

So Lord Stevenson wants a smoother regulatory path for the big banks does he. Is that so they can invest in the technology that Ian Marchant is saying we need.... No - of course not.. Stevenson needs to start to understand that the culture of the financial services sector is part of the reason we're in the mess we are.

As to a new business school the chap must be joking surely... There are already well over 50,000 people in the UK with MBAs... Anyone noticed any improvement ?

You remove the quangos by firing them, the civil servants by not hiring more when they retire, cutting index linking on pensions & giving them only productivity based increases & red tape by repealing itunless it has a clearly proveable benefit greater than its cost.

On all of these I suspect Tom Hunter would do better than the current incumbents.

What is proposed is not a new Enlightenment. A nation opened up to and driven solely by the Market will ultimately fail the Scottish people. We rightly rejected Thatcherism, we hate the coporate cronyism and sleaze of New Labour. Scotland is much more that a little wheel in someone's corporate adventure.

How about Sir Tom Hunter - and plenty other people with ideas and commitment to Scotland - PLUS INDEPENDENCE?

Its not obvious that Enlightenment is actually what's being talked about here so much as economic liberalism.

Kant asked 'What is Enlightenment' in the 1770's and concluded that it was a question of the human will, not merely reason. To be enlightened one should have the courage to be daring, to overcome fear, to be rid of the attitude of dependency, and to act.

Scotland constantly finds itself publicly scourged for its dependency on the UK; for its conservatism (almost tribalism) in the public sector, including its politicians; for its fearful attitude towards bold thought and action; and its craven attitude to power.

There's not the remotest sign that there will ever be an enlightenment in Scotland while these are the dominant attitudes of its leaders and the majority that support them and certainly not when these are passed off both as positive qualities and common sense.