The West Bromwich question

Following the Scottish independence referendum, the ‘West Lothian-West Bromwich problem’ needs an urgent answer, says Simon Wilson. But is there one?

Has the Union been saved?

Perhaps not for long. PM David Cameron hailed the result (55.3% against independence) as a declaration of "the settled will of the Scottish people". But Scotland's first minister, Alex Salmond, who is to step down in November, only noted that Scots had decided against full separation "at this stage".

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Simon Wilson’s first career was in book publishing, as an economics editor at Routledge, and as a publisher of non-fiction at Random House, specialising in popular business and management books. While there, he published Customers.com, a bestselling classic of the early days of e-commerce, and The Money or Your Life: Reuniting Work and Joy, an inspirational book that helped inspire its publisher towards a post-corporate, portfolio life.   

Since 2001, he has been a writer for MoneyWeek, a financial copywriter, and a long-time contributing editor at The Week. Simon also works as an actor and corporate trainer; current and past clients include investment banks, the Bank of England, the UK government, several Magic Circle law firms and all of the Big Four accountancy firms. He has a degree in languages (German and Spanish) and social and political sciences from the University of Cambridge.