Category Archives: Daily Mail

Scottish politics has come to resemble a never-ending courtroom drama, with Nicola Sturgeon the hostile witness in the dock. The First Minister was at the heart of the dishonest, two-year campaign for independence, the longest attempted mugging in history. She tried the same confidence trick again after the EU referendum but by then the countryContinueContinue reading “SNP’s road to the Promised Land has turned into a path to penury”

How do you drive a van into a crowd of people? What dark justifications gird your mind as the key turns in the ignition and your foot connects with the pedal? What aberration of the human soul seeks the glory of God in the random slaughter of the innocent? The terrorist attacks in Barcelona andContinueContinue reading “Blood, outrage and tears… and why we have to challenge every extremist”

Amanda Kopel steps onto the pitch at Tannadice and it all comes back. This is where her husband Frank spent ten years of his career as a footballer. It was at Dundee United that he scored his most celebrated goal, a shot from the 40-yard line in the 1979 UEFA Cup first-round match against RSCContinueContinue reading “Frank watched his final goal and asked me: ‘Who scored that?’”

If only we could all be more like Richard Tull. As the antihero of Martin Amis’s novel The Information, the anguished writer has fallen out of favour with the literary crowd but still aspires to their pretensions – not least in politics, where he feels at home among the soft-Left consensus of Tory-fatigued, mid-Nineties London.ContinueContinue reading “Stuck in the middle – the demand for a new centrist party isn’t from the voters”

It was roughly at the fifth S&M joke that I settled in and began to enjoy Alex Salmond’s Edinburgh Fringe show. You would think the former First Minister would have had his fill after being spanked on election night by the Tories. But kinkiness was a running gag in yesterday’s hour-long show, with innuendo aboutContinueContinue reading “Have you heard the one about a has-been MP and his fruity festival show?”

Liberalism is a fine idea until you let liberals get their hands on it.  That’s when a sensible outlook on life turns rigid, shrill and intolerant. Smugness is the original sin of liberalism, the Tell-Tale Heart of the rational mind. John Stuart Mill is often quoted deriding the Tories as ‘the stupid party’ but ifContinueContinue reading “Want to Trump the President? Time to take a leaf out of Ruth’s playbook.”

Here are some things politics is not. Politics is not a religion – the leader you idolise is a graven image. Politics is not self-help – government is about changing society, not boosting your self-esteem. Politics is not a lifestyle statement – if you are seeking affirmation, try Oprah. If these strike you as statementsContinueContinue reading “The false prophets of the ‘new politics’ making promises they cannot keep”

There are fleeting moments when I forget myself and start to feel ever so slightly sorry for the SNP. A mere two years ago, it was untouchable. It might have lost the referendum but it had won the war for hearts and minds. Scotland had a majority SNP government at Holyrood, 56 Nationalist MPs atContinueContinue reading “Jeremy to the left, Ruth to the right… I (almost) feel sorry for the squeezed SNP”

The Labour Party is like one of those grim kitchen sink dramas set in the Midlands and invariably starring Julie Walters. The family home is a battleground of bad blood and betrayal. Fights erupt at random intervals. Grudges are so enduring even those who hold them no longer remember why. From time to time, theContinueContinue reading “Blair may be a shouty old uncle, but he’s got a point about Corbyn”

One month on from her disastrous snap election, Theresa May must be heartily sick of everyone lining up to tell her where she went wrong.  Pundits, opponents, even her own backbenchers and Cabinet colleagues have been openly scorning the Prime Minister’s strategy and performance. Much of this is deserved; it is unforgivable that a leaderContinueContinue reading “Are zero-hours contracts and a flexible economy our PM’s legacy?”