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Mhairi Black fair riles them, doesn’t she? The SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South was termed a “slut” by the prominent Unionist academic Dr Jill Stephenson during a Twitter exchange, the Sunday Herald has reported. In the comments made before the general election, Dr Stephenson described the Nationalist politician as an “appalling harridan” andContinueContinue reading “Mhairi Black stirs anger in those left behind by the new Scotland”

The grammar of 21st century terrorism is depressingly familiar by now. First comes the outrage: Innocents savagely cut down going about their lives. Then the reaction, as politicians emote, 24-hour news speculates, and viewers gasp at the brazen, bloody theatrics. We move quickly onto the clichés. “They hate us for our freedom.” “Terrorism is causedContinueContinue reading “Tunisia shows there is no opting out of struggle against Islamism”

I am writing this from a coffee shop in Edinburgh. Half the people in the room are tapping away on laptops, smartphones or tablets. Who knows what they’re doing. Some might be emailing clients. Others will be checking Facebook. At least one might be updating a Tumblr dedicated exclusively to Photoshops of Jim Murphy asContinueContinue reading “The speech Nicola Sturgeon could give to put an end to cybernats”

Never speak ill of the dead, our mothers instructed us, and I suppose that taboo extends to the dying. But those shuffling off this mortal coil are encumbered by no such niceties. Indeed, they can be vicious, lashing out frantically at everyone else, dreading the looming inevitable. Scottish Labour is raging against the dying ofContinueContinue reading “Watching Scottish Labour fade away made for awkward viewing”

World War II didn’t actually end in 1945, you might be surprised to learn. Japan’s aggression against the Allied Forces in fact ceased on March 11, 1974. Or at least it did for Hiroo Onoda, a second lieutenant in the Imperial Army, who finally surrendered on that day. Onoda spent 29 years cut off fromContinueContinue reading “Labour is the Hiroo Onoda of Scottish politics”

Every pundit in Scotland knows what ails the Labour Party and the prescription for its malaise. We’ve written many columns and monopolised hours of airtime telling you so. On Saturday, Jim Murphy took his turn to lay out a framework for reforming Scottish Labour and electing a new leader and deputy leader. He did soContinueContinue reading “Jim Murphy hands Scottish Labour a chance to rebuild”

Half the country thinks it’s a cult, the other half is chugging down the Kool-Aid. The SNP is a political and cultural phenomenon sweeping away the old certainties of British politics, enthusing and enraging in equal measure as it goes along. As things stand, the Nationalists are the majority government at Holyrood, the third partyContinueContinue reading “What is Scottish nationalism, what is it not, what could it be?”

John Swinney was one of the best leaders of the SNP in decades. Nothing will dissuade me from this view. Not the party’s mediocre electoral performance during his tenure (down one MP and eight MSPs). Not his failure to unite the gradualist and fundamentalist wings. Not even his role in the departure from the partyContinueContinue reading “Swinney comes out swinging in stand-in FMQs joust”

You will be hearing the word ‘decent’ a lot today. That is to be expected. How else to describe a man so essentially good. A politician who stood on principle and reminded a cynical public that politicians still could. Charles Kennedy, who has died aged 55, led the Liberal Democrats for just over six yearsContinueContinue reading “Charles Kennedy embodied a decency all too rare in politics”

The current term at Holyrood will be the last for one of the parliament’s most prominent and respected members. Tricia Marwick, the presiding officer, has announced that she will stand down as an MSP at next May’s elections. The Mid Fife and Glenrothes MSP was one of the original 129 members of the reconvened Scottish ParliamentContinueContinue reading “Presiding Officer can take pride in a legacy of reform”