Author Archives: Editor

Lockdown is a contract. Not one we entered into voluntarily but we understood the terms. If we played by the rules and did as ministers and medics asked, we would eventually reap the rewards. After two months of patience and forbearance on our part, government is upholding its end of the bargain.  This week willContinue reading “There is no easy way out of lockdown”

There is a peculiar phenomenon taking place in Scottish public opinion. Scots hold drastically different assessments of the performance of two governments which have handled coronavirus in broadly similar ways with broadly similar results. An Ipsos-MORI poll for the BBC shows that more than four in five Scots approve of Nicola Sturgeon’s handling of theContinue reading “Does Sturgeon deserve her Holyrood halo?”

‘We indicate the phases in which service industries might reopen,’ Nicola Sturgeon said, outlining her blueprint for taking Scotland out of lockdown. Waste dumps and garden centres would be reopening from next Thursday and golf, tennis, fishing and bowls got the green light. But what about the things that really matter: grub, booze and doingContinue reading “Sturgeon outlines slow path out of lockdown”

Jackson Carlaw was ‘seeking to make it political’ – the ‘it’ being that trifling matter of the First Minister covering up an outbreak of Covid-19 in Edinburgh almost a month before lockdown was put in place. Imagine thinking there’s a place for politics in a subject like that. First Minister’s Questions, which is held everyContinue reading “A big English boy did it and ran away”

‘The cover-up is what hurts you,’ Richard Nixon can be heard growling on a scratchy White House tape, ‘not the issue’. The 37th president was speaking to his aides three days after the Watergate burglars were indicted. Two years later, he would become the only US president to resign from office. Nixon learned his ownContinue reading “Scots deserve the truth about coronavirus cover-up”

The ‘four nations’ strategy on Covid-19 was only going to last so long. Tensions have been showing for some time but a point of departure is now evident. With its new ‘stay alert’ slogan the UK Government is edging towards an exit strategy while the First Minister believes it is too soon. She says herContinue reading “Nicola Sturgeon goes her own way on coronavirus”

Nicola Sturgeon is not a crying/hugging/thanking Jesus kind of politician. She would get nowhere in American politics. Maybe she is naturally reserved; maybe she feels that, as a woman in leadership, she can’t show too much emotion. Whatever the reason, she has fronted her government’s response to Covid-19 with stony stoicism at a time whenContinue reading “Nicola Sturgeon’s very human moment at FMQs”

Human beings have the capacity for great cruelty, and we know all about that. A skim through the paper or a glance at the nightly news is all you need to remind you of man’s inhumanity to man. What, though, of man’s benevolence to man? We hear much less about that. Coronavirus has brought outContinue reading “In this time of darkness, everyone can be a beacon of hope”

Good intentions often make bad laws and the Scottish Government’s Hate Crime Bill is chockfull of good intentions. Introduced by Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf on Thursday, the Bill seeks to drive out hatreds in our midst, whether long-understood prejudices such as racism or more modern and contested concepts like ‘transphobia’. Yousaf says his legislation isContinue reading “Law is a blunt tool for fighting hatred”

Nicola Sturgeon said she wanted to have ‘a grown-up conversation’ with us. That didn’t sound good. Politicians are never candid if they can help it. But when the entire country has been turned into a minimum-security prison – one hour of exercise and the occasional day release to Tesco – keeping mum is not anContinue reading “Uneasy lies the head that sets a lockdown”