Stephen Daisley

When news of Jackson Carlaw’s victory came through on Friday, I was in a dentist’s waiting room nursing a jackhammer of a toothache. The announcement was welcome since it provided me with someone other than myself to feel sorry for. After Kezia Dugdale won the Scottish Labour leadership in 2015, I told her my first [...]

The next leader of the Scottish Conservatives will be announced on St Valentine’s Day, though there hasn’t been much love in the air during this campaign. The contest between Jackson Carlaw and Michelle Ballantyne has been unnecessarily acrimonious and key figures on either side given to intemperate outbursts. More than enough knives have been plunged [...]

A round-up of articles you might have missed this week. Sturgeon can deliver every vote save the one that matters My Scottish Daily Mail column on Nicola Sturgeon and independence. Boris Johnson’s greatest challenge is nothing to do with Brexit My Spectator piece on how the Prime Minister should begin responding to the threat of [...]

There was no anger in the First Minister’s voice but her face wore the weight of her frustration. As the questions came, she cast razor glances from her notes to Jackson Carlaw and back, gurning and muttering as she did. Carlaw was making it all so much worse by posing measured queries in a measured [...]

Nicola Sturgeon has had more comebacks than Cher, ripped denims and Boris Johnson. The SNP leader’s time in the spotlight has been declared over many times already and each time she finds a way to remain centre stage. Write her off at your peril. We cannot, however, ignore the speech she delivered on Friday or [...]

A round-up of articles you might have missed this week. Triumph of patriots and the ruin of a nationMy Scottish Daily Mail column on the toll nationalism has taken on Scotland. You’re a grand old flag, you’re a politically useful flagMy Scottish Daily Mail sketch of the European flag debate at Holyrood. Boris Johnson must start [...]

Was that it? Nicola Sturgeon assembled the world’s press yesterday to outline her next steps on independence, only to send them away with a two-word story: ‘Not yet’. ‘My job is to lead us down a credible path that can deliver independence,’ she said, ‘and that is what I am absolutely determined to do.’ There [...]

This week, a report concluded that SNP ministers had okayed £9bn worth of PFI contracts without understanding them. This was a scandal and there was no getting out of it for Nicola Sturgeon. Step forward, Richard Leonard, and onto a rake. When Sturgeon reminded the Labour leader at FMQs that his party had introduced PFI, [...]

Holyrood seldom gives off the air of a hallowed chamber of deliberation but yesterday was an especially low point. From every crack and crevice oozed a sense of entitlement, a slithering slime of self-regard that tackied up every surface. It was in the tone, too; those trim vowels that announce in kindergarten teacherly admonition: shush, [...]

This week, Nicola Sturgeon will deliver another statement on independence to the Scottish Parliament. It will be a response to the Prime Minister’s letter rejecting a request from the SNP leader to grant a second referendum on separation. She is expected to set out her next steps in pursuit of Scexit. This week, Nicola Sturgeon [...]