Stephen Daisley

The £500 NHS bonus is dubious policy but great politics, so when Richard Leonard tried to question the former he fell victim to the latter. The Scottish Labour leader isn’t against the payment; he just wondered why other frontline workers weren’t getting a tidy sum in their Christmas stocking. He told Nicola Sturgeon: ‘£500 isContinue reading "Queen Nicola"

It's not very often I find myself in agreement with Joanna Cherry. The occasion was an interview she gave to a newspaper in which she spoke candidly about how thoroughly the leadership has come to dominate the SNP, a party with a tradition of independent-mindedness. As Cherry put it, the SNP ‘shouldn’t be about theContinue reading "What if Nicola doesn’t know best?"

It was Ruth Davidson at her exacting best. Called for questions after Nicola Sturgeon's latest Covid-19 statement, the obvious subject was the five-day lockdown grace period the First Minister had just announced for Christmas. The Tory group leader screeched the brakes and took proceedings in a prosecutorial direction. As the SNP government continues to stonewallContinue reading "Hostile witness"

This is the text of my Scottish Daily Mail sketch of Nicola Sturgeon's Covid-19 update to the Scottish Parliament on November 24, 2020.  Christmas used to be such an innocent time. Saviours born in stables. Red-nosed reindeer pulling sleighs. Even if you got taken hostage by terrorists while collecting your estranged wife from the office Christmas party,Continue reading "Oh stay home, all ye faithful"

This is the text of my Scottish Daily Mail column for week beginning November 23, 2020. Subjects include delivery of the Covid-19 vaccine, Jeremy Corbyn's future in the Labour Party, and Gillian Anderson's portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in Netflix's The Crown. It has been a glum year but news of impending Covid-19 vaccines brings aContinue reading "Vaccine rollout will be key test for Sturgeon"

Spend long enough flicking through the TV this time of year and you’ll stumble upon entire channels airing nothing but made-for-television movies about saving Christmas. These feel-good flicks are invariably set in small-town America and involve the local factory/diner/church being on the brink of closure on Christmas Eve thanks to a heartless boss/corporation/bank manager untilContinue reading "Staying home for Christmas"

Like a demented episode of The Price is Right, Nicola Sturgeon surveyed her five-tier, four-level lockdown system at Holyrood yesterday, and, despite the audience at home crying ‘ lower! lower!’, she went higher, losing us our pub rights and any chance at the Mini Metro and weekend break in Skegness. The First Minister used herContinue reading "I get locked down but I go up a tier again"

The challenge this weekend was to find anyone in government or the Tory Party with a good thing to say about Dominic Cummings. A box of Milk Tray to whoever managed, but it wasn’t me. You might expect that his internal opponents would be glad to see the back of him but even Leave-minded insidersContinue reading "How to bounce Boris into backing the Union"

The First Minister’s latest Covid update to parliament was an uncanny affair. MSPs heard that, although ‘we do still face tough times ahead', there were ‘also grounds for optimism now’. Reports of the Pfizer vaccine were ‘really good news’ and ‘extremely encouraging’ — ‘and that of course is not the only vaccine undergoing trials justContinue reading "Upbeat lockdown"

There is nothing Nicola Sturgeon loves more than posing as an international stateswoman. She may struggle to get Jacinda Ardern to reply to her tweets but Donald Trump’s post-election tantrum gave her an opportunity to share her wisdom with the world. Asked last Wednesday about the US presidential election, which Trump has yet to concede,Continue reading "BBC cannot be an arm of Sturgeon’s PR operation"