Author Archives: stephenjdaisley

Anyone who watches First Minister’s Questions and still wants an independent Scotland deserves one. Jackson Carlaw’s weekly waltz with the latest strawman fashioned by the First Minister was made more miserable still by severely inflamed vocal cords. The Tory leader had lost his voice more brutally than those seven seats he misplaced in December. He […]

If you’re anything like me, you will have found yourself in more than one conversation over the past week in which someone uttered the words: ‘It’s the Queen I feel sorry for.’ Her Majesty may be fortunate enough to head a royal family but even she must wonder from time to time why it has […]

Nicola Sturgeon’s loudest critics usually come from the Right but the first question time of 2020 was Revenge of the Lefties. She was in the midst of fending off an education-themed broadside from Jackson Carlaw when a chalk-haired gentleman got to his feet in the public gallery and tried to unfurl a banner against fossil […]

If you’re already struggling to keep your New Year’s resolutions, spare a thought for Nicola Sturgeon, who is resolved to get a second referendum on independence out of a Tory government in the next 12 months. Since inheriting the SNP leadership from Alex Salmond in 2014, Sturgeon has been forced into a series of increasingly […]

Wednesday will bring 2020 and with it the SNP’s 13th year in devolved government. It is unlikely to be the party’s last, a state of affairs which ought to prompt soul-searching among the Nationalists’ opponents. When Alex Salmond eked out a narrow win in 2007, there was a vivid conviction in Scottish Labour that this […]

Back when there were still rules to politics, one of them was this: a government in power for a long time with nothing to show for it is a goner come the next election. By that logic, Nicola Sturgeon should be savouring her remaining time in Bute House before the removal men come to pack […]

MSPs gathered on Tuesday for Holyrood’s annual Indyref2 Statement Day. I swear, it comes around earlier every year. Mind you, it’s gotten so commercialised these days that people have forgotten the true meaning: the birth of the SNP’s saviour, Brexit, and its distraction from the Scottish Government’s record. Nicola Sturgeon hasn’t forgotten. Smartly turned out […]

Boris Johnson’s victory will be picked over by pollsters, political scientists and, one day, historians to establish why it happened and what it means. For now, though, we can say this: Thursday was a win for the Conservative Party but not necessarily for conservatism. Johnson’s candidates demolished Labour’s ‘red wall’ in seats like Bishop Auckland, […]

Boris Johnson’s Friday morning victory speech signalled that a new kind of Conservative Party was on the way. The Tories had swept Labour aside in swathes of working-class seats in what had been Britain’s socialist heartlands. He told bleary-eyed Tory activists: ‘In winning this election we have won votes and the trust of people who […]

There is something about the printing of ballot papers that sends politicians reaching for the superlatives. Barely has a single billboard gone up or a solitary postal vote settled on a weary doormat than the parties begin breaking out the apocalyptic rhetoric. ‘This is the most important election of your lifetime.’ How many times have […]