“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 ...
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 ...
IN BRITAIN, we are generally proud of our reputation for tolerance, fair-mindedness and moderation. These attitudes, which some people argue are under attack, can be virtues, but do they make us vulnerable too? Can qualities ...
‘POLITICAL PARTIES are machines designed to gain, regain or retain power. The most successful ones, naturally, have the job of retaining power, which means that they usually win elections and are prone therefore to campaign ...
WITH THE EXCEPTION of devolution-minded academics annoyed with Nicola Sturgeon for letting down progressive Scotland by behaving like a Westminster ogre, those who wish the First Minister to depart are maybe not so plentiful in ...
AS SHE FACES a showdown this week with the man whom she bizarrely turned on after he placed her on the path to political stardom, Nicola Sturgeon is fighting for survival on multiple fronts.
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THE SNP HAS FAILED to tackle poverty in Scotland, which has become appreciably worse under the Salmond-Sturgeon administrations. While poverty rates had been steadily declining in Scotland for many years, once the SNP took over ...
I WAS ASKED recently by a publisher to review a manuscript on the theory of international relations. Its author used a comparison of the ideas of the two Renaissance Florentine writers and near contemporaries, Machiavelli ...
REMEMBER how the SNP asserted that Scotland should have a relationship with the EU mirroring Northern Ireland’s Brexit deal? Whatever happened to that argument? It’s gone very quiet lately.
HISTORIANS MAY YET conclude that it all began to go wrong for the SNP when, on 22 November 2014, 12,000 people crowded into Scotland’s main events venue, the Hydro in Glasgow, to hail the newly-elected ...
THE EMBERS of Constitutional Democracy still glow in the USA – just. A two-thirds majority of the 100 US Senators was required for an “Incitement to Insurrection” conviction. The Democrats fell short 10 votes. President ...
LAST WEEK, Scottish Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser called a debate, demanding a public inquiry into the “malicious prosecutions” of two administrators of Rangers FC.
In his opening remarks he used the word ...