The danger of delusion in political posturing: Part two – The Liberals and Labour

THE TWO MAIN opposition parties to the Tories historically have been the Liberals (later Liberal Democrats) and Labour. Their histories are full of delusions and today their greatest one is that they can expect to ...

The First Minister has let herself and Scotland down – and must go

YESTERDAY must have come as an eye-opener to many Scots, not just those unhappy with our SNP Government, but also to many SNP supporters and even some ardent but open-minded Nicola Sturgeon fans. 

Is the Rangers fans' celebrations not a 'Get it right up ye' moment?

I AM ABOUT AS FAR as you could get from being a football fan. I've never been to a game nor ever wanted to attend one. Once I shared a railway carriage from Edinburgh with ...

Another SNP fail as life expectancy falls in 40 per cent of Scottish council areas

ACCORDING TO THE FACTS set out by the Scottish Government, residents of Scotland can expect to die on average two years earlier than citizens of Britain as a whole.

Even worse, if you ...

Sturgeon Watch: When the political is the personal

“Oh, what guid are the poor me’s now?”

THIS IS THE EXASPERATED QUESTION Agnes Bain's mother puts to her drunken daughter when she seeks solace in a can of lager at her ...

Austerity isn’t dead – it lives on in the SNP’s failure in pandemic support

ON 25 FEBRUARY Stephen Boyle, Scotland’s Auditor General, released his latest report on the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic. He noted that the Scottish Government had received an extra £9.7 billion from the UK Government ...

Why Words and their meanings really matter

THE PHONE RANG. “Hello”, I said.  

“Ey-up Alex”.  

“Hi John” I answered.  

“I ain’t John no more, I’m Samantha”.  

“No, you’re not”, ...

The SNP’s shocking business investment record

A NEW energy company was launched in Edinburgh in July 2015. Our Power Energy was pitched as not-for-profit initiative that would alleviate the strain of fuel poverty for customers paying just too much for their ...

Budget reaction: style triumphs over substance

YESTERDAY’s budget was a presentational victory over substance.  The Chancellor scattered more sweeties around, £60bn of them to be precise – tax rises were less than flagged and there was a series of bungs. From a ...

The SNP fails again – Scottish homeless death rate three times worse than England's

IT ONLY TAKES a few scratches for the SNP’s progressive sheen to begin wearing away. Beneath it, an ugly truth – the nationalist party is unconcerned with providing basic standards for the people it claims ...

The Mummy Diaries – Next Monday can’t arrive soon enough as lockdown costs escalate

“WELL, THE SILVER LINING to being quarantined is we are not out spending money!” I hear someone saying…

Mmm, yeah. (While I click add to basket!)

It’s bad when ...

Sturgeon says her piece: there’s a thing about pickles…

NICOLA STURGEON boasted to Holyrood that she was ‘relishing’ her chance to appear before the Inquiry. Now if you are like me and you like relish, you will know relish is a cooked and pickled ...