Pollsters are generally unloveable creatures but oftentimes they spot trends in public opinion that the rest of us miss. Some of these analysts are now warning that the Conservatives’ poll lead may not be all it seems. For instance, the current poll of polls has the Tories 11 points ahead of Labour, which sounds like [...]
Aspiring grown-up Ross Greer sprouted up like a green shoot
Halfway through First Minister’s Questions, Willie Rennie threw up his hands, shook his head, and sunk back in his seat. The Liberal Democrat leader had been defeated, as so many lesser mortals are, by Nicola Sturgeon’s superhuman capacity for waffle. The feisty Fifer had enquired about NHS waiting times, which everyone familiar with the First [...]
Scottish Labour has abandoned Scotland and the Union
Nicola Sturgeon is right. This marks the debut of that phrase in this column but, then, the First Minister hasn’t given me much to work with. Until now, that is. While stumping for votes over the weekend, she predicted that Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn would allow her a second referendum on Scotland exiting the UK, [...]
Sturgeon cares about power first and independence second
Politics has always been a ghastly business but at least there used to be ground rules. Families were generally considered off-limits (though, as Jacob Rees-Mogg’s son found out, not any more), as was an opponent’s health (Charles Kennedy learned the hard way that not everyone respects that convention). Knifing opponents in the back was fair [...]
Sturgeon: bounced on Brexit, adrift on Scexit
What with its daily twists and turns, parliamentary confrontations and legal intrigue, Brexit is the best drama the BBC has produced in years. It’s maybe outstayed its welcome by a season or two, and the audience remains divided on the casting of Boris Johnson as the hero, but it has certainly kept the nation guessing [...]
‘Crude populism’ decried by… *checks notes*… Nicola Sturgeon
As party conference speeches go, Nicola Sturgeon’s had all the force and originality of an afternoon telly repeat. And not a good series, either. We’re talking Doctors here. Highlights: Brexit? Still bad. Tories? Still evil. Scotland? Still oppressed. Even the Bay City Rollers managed new material every few years. First up was her much sought-after [...]
Derek Mackay delivers his first leader’s speech
This afternoon, Nicola Sturgeon will take to the stage in Aberdeen and deliver the second leader’s speech of SNP conference. The second, because no one who turned up for Derek Mackay’s address yesterday was in any doubt: this was a leadership pitch near-shameless in its blatancy. It was a speech perfectly calibrated to push members’ [...]
Scottish nationalists are not anti-establishment. They are the establishment
One of the most amusing tics of Scottish nationalists is their unshakeable conviction that they are in the vanguard of a daring anti-establishment movement. If you count bravely standing up to the powers that be and telling them they’re doing an absolutely smashing job, I suppose they are. The same party which came to power [...]
Rambo of Ross-shire throws red meat to rank-and-file
Seeing Ian Blackford speak is like watching as a steam engine chugs towards you. It’s a nerve-wracking experience but you assume, always with vindication, that this thundering behemoth will career off the tracks and into a ravine soon enough. Blackford is the pretendy SNP leader at Westminster, or, rather, that was the role of his [...]
Good intentions and bad laws
Ever notice how the exact same words can mean very different things depending on their context? Last week, when the Scottish Parliament passed the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) Bill, a Left-wing and a Right-wing newspaper both ran the same headline: 'Scotland becomes first UK country to ban smacking'. The implication of one was that [...]
