Between the lines: Why the Calman Report leaves business cold

CALMAN, leaking and dribbling to the last, is finally out. It has greatly excited the political classes. For the past week the chatter inside the Holyrood bubble seems to have been of little else. But in the business realm – that real world of getting, spending and investing – its 266 pages have landed with the dullest, groan-inducing thud.

The problem with Calman, and the exhaustive discussion over taxing , spending, "assigned revenues" and the like, is that it has been dwarfed by the greatest accumulation of government debt and borrowing ever amassed by the British state outside of wa...