With worries about the impending UK Budget having been to the fore during the past week, it is important to focus on the positives, writes Business Editor Ian McConnell.

These positives have included further good news on inward investment for Scotland and something very encouraging on Arran.

At the end of a week which brought plenty of downbeat mood music about the impending Budget, it seems worthwhile to focus on some of the positives.

However, dealing first with the Budget, the picture of course remains largely the same: somewhat bleak. Then again, it was hardly going to change, or certainly not for the better.

Labour has tied itself in knots with fiscal rules way too much like those of the Conservatives, from which it inherited a great deal of woe that built up during the Tories’ 14 years at the helm, a period which included a disastrous hard Brexit.

UK growth remains weak and the fiscal rules mean that the UK Government finds itself in a position where it has to take short-term action, which might be to the economy’s long-run detriment, to shore up the public finances.

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© Herald Scotland