We must make the union feel real, not a political abstraction

DOUGLAS ROSS made his first speech as Scottish Tory leader at a Conservative Party Conference on Saturday. It was a belter – though not because it criticised the SNP. Instead, Ross eviscerated his own party.

Sturgeon’s leadership style examined: there’s more to it than being a communicator

ON THE DAY that Nicola Sturgeon denounced Margaret Ferrier for her incomprehensible decision to not self-isolate after testing positive for Covid, Twitter has been rife with comments on her leadership.  This is based on her ...

Repeated and embarrassing U-turns show Sturgeon is more Heath than Thatcher

NIGHTMARES follow a mad inexorable logic, like a runaway train heading for collision. Increasingly, that’s what I feel when I watch the First Minister during her daily briefings. She has set a course through the Covid-19 pandemic, and follow that course she must, ...

Both Sturgeon and Johnson are on shoogly pegs of their own making

AS I WRITE, on the morning of Tuesday 22 September, we are poised to enter a second lockdown. The four nations seem to be unified, with what looks like an agreed set of carefully choreographed ...

Six is not a number it is arbitrary and dystopian

WE ARE NOW officially living under the Rule of Six. The police are charged to enforce it. In Scotland, more than six people (not counting children under 12) from a maximum of two households are ...

It’s time for Scottish unionists to oppose nationalism

I HAVE been selected as the prospective candidate for the Westminster constituency seat of Airdrie & Shotts by the Scottish Unionists. I expect there to be a by-election in the coming months. 

The Scottish Government has no levers – just knobs

THE ANNUAL PANTOMIME over the GERS report has produced its usual storm of conflicting statistical commentary. I won’t add to that fruitless numbers game, but right-minded folk do need to question the claims that more ...

Nicola Sturgeon: a dud who sparkles in fraudulent times

ONE OF THE CURRENT TRUISMS is that Nicola Sturgeon is supremely good at politics. The most visible figures in the political commentariat, such as Kenny Farquharson, Chris Deerin, and Alex Massie volubly assert this ...

Sturgeon’s PPBs must be called out and called off

WE ARE being taken for mugs. There can be no other description of it. There was at the start justification for having a daily public briefing. Beamed and streamed to our homes and phones from ...

2040 – A Scottish dystopia

IT’S 6.00 AM, you awake from your sleeping pod, in your communal accommodation, blurry-eyed to the sounds of ‘Scots Wha Hae! playing on the alarm app on your phone. You languidly roll over to press ...

Scottish Tories must emerge from life support soon to make any difference

RECENT MONTHS have left me more despondent about Scottish politics than ever before. No doubt the ennui and oppression of lockdown, endured in what has felt increasingly like a one-party state, has played its part.

The First Minister has climbed ever higher in the ...

Trigger warning: we are not an effing amusement park

THERE IS SOMETHING special about the British seaside, be it in Orkney or Skeggy. It's the only place you catch crabs and be thankful, because the UK has abundant fish stocks and seaside humour is ...