More intellectual rigour and less virtue signalling needed by the SNP government

ELSEWHERE on this website, Murdo Fraser argued about Fracking in the manner an opposition spokesman usually does, legitimately, when a government is in a mess.  My view, however, is a reflection of a deeper anxiety about ...

The fracking ban that wasn’t a ban?

The Scottish government could not have been more clear. One senior figure after another repeated it boldly: fracking had been banned in Scotland.

In October last year, the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon ...

How the SNP baby-boxed itself into a corner

IN AUGUST 2017, the SNP Scottish Government introduced its baby box scheme for newborns. The box itself was to provide a ‘safe sleeping space’ for babies, while the contents – much of it made in ...

Consultation responses force John Swinney to plan his own route

THIS WEEK, the Scottish Government published its consultation findings into the proposed new education bill planned for later this year. It must have made uncomfortable reading for John Swinney and his ministers. Out of 674 ...

The strange case of Irish heritage Scots and the Scottish National Party

IT WAS ALEX SALMOND who I have to thank for alerting me to the changes that were sweeping through Scotland’s Catholic community, (originally of mainly Irish descent).  In mid-2014, not long after the Commonwealth Games had ...

SNP sentencing policy puts criminals before victims

NICOLA STURGEON’S 2017/18 Programme for Government committed her Government to increasing the current presumption against jail terms of 3-months to 12-months, on the basis that short sentences simply do not ‘work’: that short sentences do ...

Pessimists should let the facts speak for themselves

HANS ROSLING’S NAME is not one that is widely known, but it should be. He died last year at what today is a young age – just 68 – but his last book Factfulness has ...

Tory Victories banish spectre of the Poll Tax

IT DIDN’T MATTER how hard we campaigned, how good our candidates were, or the reputation of sitting Councillors. For roughly two decades from the early 1990s, the Scottish Conservatives simply couldn’t make any progress when ...

Scotland is paralysed – and Sturgeon's undemanding fan base may explain why

ONE OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS in my new novel "Flight of Evil" is Clova Bruce, a nationalist with a background in the musical entertainment business. 

She is too easily written-off ...

Brexit ‘power-grab’ is unnecessary posturing

FOR THOSE WONDERING why the escalating stand-off between Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May over the alleged Brexit ‘power-grab’ by Westminster hasn’t yet been resolved, let me offer the perspective of businesses in Scotland.  

Spain’s courts averted partition. Will Scotland’s courts facilitate it?

GIVEN THE STATE of Scotland’s public sector, from collapsing urban roads to lengthening waiting times for life-threatening illnesses, who can blame the SNP for putting the constitutional question front and centre at every opportunity?  

The promise of Easter

REMEMBER WHEN Tony Blair was first elected Prime Minister?  As he entered Downing Street the strains of D:Ream's Things can only get better wafted through the air in celebration. Think of the promises that our political leaders ...