Monthly Archives: March 2018

The 1980s was a mixed bag as decades go. There was Depeche Mode, shoulder pads, and glorious cat fights on Dynasty. Alas, there was also Phil Collins, Swatch watches, and Hi-de-Hi! But the most egregious sin of the Eighties — worse even than mullets or Arthur Scargill — was management-speak, that soulless jargon of boardroomContinue reading “Too few answers in this too-long question session”

When I heard they’d formed a chain at Holyrood, my heart leapt. Finally, someone had taken up my idea of bulldozing the joint and sticking a massive Starbucks in its place. Alas, not. It was a human chain, forged on Friday by demonstrators who say the UK Government is attempting a post-Brexit ‘power grab’. TheContinue reading “The SNP is sinking and outrage over a fake power grab can’t right the ship”

She walked into the parly like she was walking onto a yacht. A cerulean streak of polyester cut a businesslike stride to the First Minister’s seat. There enthroned she exuded the easy confidence of a star arrived on the lot, ready for her close-up, and keen to remind these B-listers why she was still topContinue reading “Shades of Maggie as Nicola loses control of classroom”

She’s back. After a year of drift, our doughty, no-nonsense Prime Minister seems to have returned. In the wake of the Salisbury poisoning, Theresa May has reminded the country of the qualities it once admired most in her. She has been firm, resolute, decisive – to borrow a phrase, strong and stable. Her package ofContinue reading “Auntie Calamity is gone and it’s Mrs Strong and Stable confronting Putin”

The SNP is a bit like a Russian doll. Every time you strip away a layer, you find another (usually more sinister) one underneath it. At First Minister’s Questions, Ruth Davidson tried to test the Nationalists’ unity on the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a Russian spy who defected and who Theresa May says was targetedContinue reading “Putin the boot in to Comrade Alexei and his telly show”

MSPs will be back at Holyrood tomorrow for the start of another parliamentary week. This time all 129 of them will be there because, for the first time in almost four months, Mark McDonald will turn up too. The former childcare minister hasn’t been seen in parliament since he was suspended from the SNP amidContinue reading “Want to restore faith in Holyrood? Give voters a right of recall”

Dundee is the City of Discovery and Labour is learning all sorts during its conference weekend there. Early on, they announced the winners of the Keir Hardie Awards, given in honour of the party’s founder and enduring hero. Only this year they had been renamed, according to the legend beamed onto the conference backdrop, theContinue reading “That’s another fine mess Jeremy & Co have got themselves into”

If you are thoughtless enough to have been born into that pestilent segment of the population commonly referred to as blokes, fellas, or ‘are you going to get round to fixing that bathroom shelf some time this year?’, International Women’s Day is an annual test you are doomed to fail.  Whatever you say, it’s sureContinue reading “Men in hiding as Sturgeon and Davidson dominate International Women’s Day”