Monthly Archives: March 2015

Gordon Brown is all substance and no style. We know this to be true because lots of people say it over and over. It’s said by his admirers (“unlike You Know Who” they often add) and by his detractors, who deem him insufficiently image-friendly for modern, media-driven politics. His final speech to Parliament on ThursdayContinueContinue reading “Gordon Brown bows out in style, with substance”

A hysteria grips this fair country of ours. It is not a feverish fandom for a footballer or a pop group or a shiny new gadget. It is not the 950,000 signatories to the petition to reinstate Jeremy Clarkson to a job from which he has not been fired. (Though these are profoundly odd peopleContinueContinue reading “Anti-immigrationism has poisoned politics in Britain”

Budget statements are pretty dull affairs. Amidst a blizzard of statistics and percentages, most voters just want to know how much more they’ll have to pay for a pint, a pack of smokes, and a gallon of petrol. What little fun stuff there once was has been purged, such as the customary dram of whiskyContinueContinue reading “Is the Budget good news or bad news for your pocket?”

Thank God for the SNP. They may be whiny at times, populist all the time, and social authoritarians even in their sleep but they’re not Ukip. Whatever your constitutional politics or your thoughts on nationalism, we are blessed in Scotland to have a nationalist party that is driven more by jobs and public services thanContinueContinue reading “Nigel Farage isn’t a racist but some of his best lines are”

Someone has drawn a cartoon and a lot of people are angry about it. Don’t worry, it doesn’t depict the Prophet Mohammed. No one needs to go into hiding. It’s just a standard comic strip by the Guardian’s Steve Bell and pokes fun at a couple of politicians. The strip shows Nicola Sturgeon and AlexContinueContinue reading “Taking offence at a cartoon is a caricature of nationalism”

Ed Miliband is a much more impressive speaker in the flesh than he is on TV. That’s not much of an endorsement but it merits noting for what it says about the tyranny of the visual in our politics. Mr Miliband is sincere, bright, policy-focussed, and has ideas for achieving the kind of Britain heContinueContinue reading “Two leaders but only one Prime Minister at Labour conference”

The latest glut of Lord Ashcroft polling data is nothing short of horrendous for Scottish Labour. It’s also terrible for the Liberal Democrats but we don’t have time to deal with their problems right now. The polling of five Labour-held seats, along with two Lib Dems constituencies and the sole Tory outpost in Scotland, showsContinueContinue reading “Labour can only stand by and watch their electoral destruction”