The ongoing delay to the new Edinburgh Sick Kids Hospital is a scandal but one with no ready political remedy. Ordinarily, the health secretary responsible could be expected to resign, but Nicola Sturgeon shows no sign of turning in her ticket. The First Minister was cabinet secretary for health back in 2012, when she first [...]
Emergency Ward When?
‘Egg production is another of our successful food and drink sectors that will be negatively impacted by a no-deal Brexit’. We were eagerly awaiting First Minister’s Questions when Fergus Ewing came to a boil. The Rural Economy Secretary was fielding a query from colleague Joan McAlpine and claimed the UK Government’s ‘reckless’ approach to post-Brexit [...]
In thwarting Brexit, Parliament risks populist backlash
The Brexit soap opera has been chock full of twists but a crossover with Prisoner Cell Block H is one no one saw coming. Lord Macdonald, the former Director of Public Prosecutions, has raised the spectre of Boris Johnson being banged up for pursuing a no-deal Brexit. The Prime Minister says he is determined the [...]
Brexit, Scexit and the future of the Union
Nationalists are everywhere in political life these days but patriots much harder to find. The once prevailing belief that self-interest be sacrificed where necessary to the interests of the country may have been starchily old-fashioned but it reflected a sense of duty. It is, with varying degrees of magnitude, what Peel did on the Corn [...]
Greta Thunberg of Govanhill turns eco-warrior for the day
She made a dig at his ruddy complexion. ‘At least I’ve still got a full head of my own, uncoloured hair,’ he shot back. Not, dear reader, a provincial watering hole after one too many sherries have been taken but the hallowed chamber of the Scottish Parliament. Peggy Mitchell used to bar folk for less. [...]
No easy answers for leaderless Scottish Tories
Anyone who wants my phone can have it. Ever since word dropped that Ruth Davidson intended to resign, it has been ringing, purring, buzzing and chirping non-stop, as contacts from all perches in the Scottish Tory pecking order get in touch to tell me What Must Happen Now. Some suggestions would make for real change. [...]
A modern Tory who took the fight to the SNP
After the Glasgow launch of her party’s 2016 Holyrood election manifesto, Ruth Davidson hopped in a car and zoomed along the M8 back to Edinburgh. Suddenly, a tyre blew out and she and three male aides found themselves on the hard shoulder. The trio of sharp-suited millennials knew their way around an iPhone but had [...]
Ruth Davidson leaves the stage with smile of relief
Bang on 11 as advertised (she is ex-TA, after all), Ruth Davidson strode through the doors and over to the podium with martial resolve. Her expression was neither anguish nor joy, but stoic relief, as though she had climbed more or less unscathed from the wreckage of a plane crash. The stiff upper lip wobbled [...]
A Tory of gut and grit
Ruth Davidson was never destined for greatness, her trajectory guided by an invisible hand of history like some politicians’ careers seem to be. Everything she has achieved, she has achieved through hard graft and determination. Everything she has done, for good and for ill, has been shaped by a personal ethic that moulds her Toryism [...]
Realignment: Can Jo Swinson change the face of UK politics?
Jo Swinson has had quite the summer. She was elected the first female leader of the Liberal Democrats, became the face of Britain’s anti-Brexit movement, and was even touted as caretaker Prime Minister of a government of national unity. All I got was torrential rain and stung by a wasp. Amid the chaos, there hasn’t [...]
