Stephen Daisley

At risk of spoiling the ending, Nicola Sturgeon is going to win next year’s Holyrood election. Barring some unforeseen scandal or government catastrophe, Scotland is likely to hand the Nationalist leader another term in Bute House. It is not impossible that she secures an outright majority in the Scottish Parliament. Election 2021 is hers toContinue reading "Wanted: a worthy opponent to Nicola Sturgeon"

Alison Johnstone knows how to handle herself. The Greens’ co-leader turned in another assured performance at First Minister’s Questions on the issue of testing in care homes and hospitals. Burnishing her reputation for sharp interrogation, she pressed the First Minister over scientific advice on testing. This isn’t the most thrilling subject for FMQs but theContinue reading "Alison through the looking-glass"

Martin Shipton is used to writing the news but now he has become the news. The Western Mail’s chief reporter has been dropped from the judging panel of Wales Book of the Year for a series of tweets about a Black Lives Matter protest in Cardiff. Shipton, a staple of Welsh journalism for decades, pointedContinue reading "Tyranny of certainty stands in the way of change"

Sometimes it’s not what you ask, it’s how you ask it. First Minister’s Questions was all about tone. Jackson Carlaw’s line of inquiry – Covid-19 testing in care homes – was not new but his timbre was. Sharper, drier. The bonhomie was gone from his voice, and the twinkle from his eye. This was noContinue reading "Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t like your tone"

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"