Monthly Archives: February 2019

I wasn’t sold on The Nine. We already have Good Morning Scotland, BBC Breakfast, the lunchtime bulletin and constant mobile alerts that have turned the nation’s offices into tinnitus breeding grounds. Then we get home to Jackie Bird and the Central Belt’s unique news service, The Slashing Forecast. Just as we start to doze off,Continue reading “The Nine lacks oomph but at least there’s no whoosh”

Where would Scottish businesses be without Nicola Sturgeon? Well, there might be more of them and none would be currently trying to flog their car park on eBay. But I am a dreadful cynic, for our First Minister is a champion of commerce. She is too modest to tell us this herself so the informationContinue reading “First Minister, with these foreign jaunts you are really spoiling us”

Jackson Carlaw was running on fumes. The Tories’ designated driver in Ruth Davidson’s absence had tried to rev up the rhetoric on the SNP’s car park tax. He was getting nowhere — until Nicola Sturgeon gave his sputtering performance a jump start. ‘I hope Jackson Carlaw had more success when he sold second-hand cars thanContinue reading “Sturgeon clamped by Tories’ designated driver”

Glaswegians are proud of their past so when they awoke last Wednesday morning, they were indignant at the news. During the night, an unknown vandal had set about a century-old war memorial in Kelvingrove Park, smashing in the face of the sandstone soldier and hacking off its feet. The statue was erected in 1906 inContinue reading “Hipster iconoclasm is a cowardly attack on Britain’s past”

Nicola Sturgeon is back in Scotland after her five-day tour of North America, though who can know for how long. There might be a trade mission to the Seychelles in the offing, or an important office supplies convention on the French Riviera. These are the excitements of having a Frequent Flyer First Minister. Sturgeon canContinue reading “Is there life after Sturgeon for the SNP?”

You can be sure of two things in life, death and taxes, and of one thing in political life: death by taxes. No matter how pure your intentions, no matter how worthily you propose to spend the cash raised, taxes almost always do for you. Injudicious rates cost George III a colony, the Poll TaxContinue reading “SNP parking tax is a political car crash”

There are many ways to follow First Minister’s Questions: on television, online and, of course, in the next morning’s Scottish Daily Mail. By far the most entertaining, though, is listening to Adam Tomkins’ mordant interjections throughout. John Swinney’s first attempt to put a brave face on the car park tax was punctured when Tomkins pipedContinue reading “Swinney the street-fighter who can’t say No to six dismal Greens”

Watching Derek Mackay rattle out a battery of new taxes in last week’s Budget debate, as Nicola Sturgeon nodded along beside him, I was reminded of a scene from the Oscar-winning crime biopic Bonnie and Clyde. Our hoodlum heroes introduce themselves to a gas station attendant with Faye Dunaway’s immortal line: ‘I’m Miss Bonnie ParkerContinue reading “Daylight robbery Budget would shame Bonnie and Clyde”

To Holyrood for the celebration of ‘The Greens Might Not Back the Budget — Oh Look, They’ve Backed It’ Day. It comes round earlier every year. One day out of 365, Patrick Harvie gets to bask in the flash of photographers as TV cameramen capture his bold strides through the corridors of power. His phoneContinue reading “Roseanna Cunningham lost her seat… good practice for 2021”