Scotland

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Salmond aided police in SNP finance probe

To Scotland, where the focus is back on Operation Branchform. It now transpires that the late former first minister Alex Salmond met and spoke with police in the probe into the SNP’s funds and finances – which saw three senior nationalists arrested and Nicola Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell charged with embezzlement. How interesting… It has today been revealed that Salmond assisted officers in their fraud investigation, with reports suggesting the Alba party leader secretly met Branchform detectives more than a year ago. The long-running probe began in 2021 over a ‘missing’ sum of £600,000 fundraised for a second independence referendum, with Murrell arrested alongside the party treasurer and the SNP’s

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Reform sack Scots organiser over terror links

Nigel Farage’s party has been having a rather good time of it lately, after winning its first five seats in the July election and continuing to gather support across the country. But north of the border, Reform has found itself in a spot of bother after its party organiser in Scotland was found to have links to terrorists. Good heavens… A probe by the Daily Record has revealed that Craig Campbell’s late father was an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) commander who was jailed after the bombing of Catholic pubs in Glasgow. Campbell’s cousin Jason was also handed a lengthy jail sentence after he was found guilty of murdering 16-year-old Celtic

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Humza Yousaf’s top five worst Covid WhatsApps

Well, well, well. It has now emerged that the SNP government will ban WhatsApp on official devices in the wake of the Covid Inquiry. The announcement from the SNP’s deputy first minister Kate Forbes came today after the publication of an external review into the use of mobile messaging apps on government devices. ‘The use of mobile messaging apps increased during the pandemic as staff worked remotely in unprecedented and difficult circumstances,’ Forbes remarked, adding: ‘Having reflected on our working practices, we are now implementing changes to the use of mobile messaging apps.’ How curious. A number of Scottish government figures endured rather embarrassing sessions at the Covid Inquiry after

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Humza Yousaf to step down as MSP

Well, well, well. It now transpires that hapless Humza Yousaf will step down as an MSP at the next Holyrood election, with the former first minister of Scotland making the announcement this morning. It comes after Yousaf spent a year in the top job before being ousted in April this year when he rather abruptly cut off his eco-activist coalition partners. Dear oh dear… Posting his letter to John Swinney on Twitter, Yousaf wrote that being Scotland’s first minister had been ‘the greatest honour’ of his life, going on about his time in the Scottish government: In government, I was proud to have significantly increased our budget for active travel,

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SNP ministers blasted over taxpayer-funded limo trips

To Scotland, where more SNP ministers are under scrutiny over their use of official limousines with First Minister John Swinney facing calls to investigate the matter. It’s not a good look for the Nats who, alongside ministerial slip-ups, have the ongoing police probe into the party’s funds and finances to contend with. Dear oh dear… It transpires that rural affairs secretary Mairi Gougeon took her husband to a Six Nations rugby game between Scotland and France last February as guests of Salmon Scotland. She classed the trip as official government business but due to her failure to take an official with her, there was no formal record of what was

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Scotland’s Labour voters support two-child cap, poll finds

To Scotland, where a new poll has revealed results the Nats may be rather unhappy to see. It now transpires that more Labour voters north of the border support the UK government’s two-child benefit cap than oppose it – just days after the SNP said they would scrap the policy in Scotland. How very interesting… A Norstat poll for The Sunday Times revealed that 34 per cent of Labour voters in Scotland oppose John Swinney’s move to abolish the two-child cap, while only 31 per cent support its reversal. Despite the Scottish Greens blasting the Conservative policy as ‘morally bankrupt’, the party’s voters were the biggest proponents of the policy

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Is Humza Yousaf picking a fight with GB News?

Back to Scotland, where it appears hapless Humza Yousaf is still trying to stay relevant by going after, er, GB News. The failed former first minister of Scotland is said to be considering his options against the channel after a new report into GB News suggested Yousaf would have a ‘very strong case’ if he reported the broadcaster to media watchdog Ofcom over its treatment of the ex-FM. Good heavens… The document, released by the Muslim Council of Britain’s Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM), has slammed the channel over an ‘excessive’ focus on Muslims bordering on an ‘obsession [that] regularly demonises their beliefs’ – noting that almost 50 per cent

The SNP budget was one big letdown

Shona Robison’s big fiscal announcement this week should have been the Scottish government’s plans to mitigate the deeply unpopular winter fuel payment cut imposed by UK Labour. The nationalists went early on revealing the scheme, however, doing so a week before the budget after being pushed by some smart manoeuvring from Scottish Labour.  Anas Sarwar, the party’s leader, had stated he would mitigate the winter fuel payment cut should he become First Minister in Holyrood’s 2026 elections. This position puts him in opposition to his Westminster boss, but Sarwar needs to demonstrate to Scottish voters he can use devolution to prioritise Scottish interests, no matter what Keir Starmer might be

Are the SNP exploiting Labour woes?

13 min listen

The SNP presented their budget this week in Holyrood with the news that all pensioners would receive a winter fuel allowance and a pledge to scrap the two-child benefit cap. Questions remain about how they will make this budget work financially, but it is clear that they have one eye on the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections. How could this impact Labour north, and south, of the border? And, after a torrid year for the SNP, can First Minister John Swinney turn things around?  Iain MacWhirter and Lucy Dunn join James Heale to discuss.  Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Stephen Daisley

Devolution is shortchanging England

The English taxpayer is not the primary audience for the Scottish government’s annual Budget, but one wonders what they might make of today’s announcements from SNP finance minister Shona Robison. An extra £2 billion for health and social care, bumping the overall cost of that portfolio to just under £22 billion. An additional £800 million for social security benefits and £768 million for affordable housing, taking the total spend on social justice to £8.2 billion. Plus, £1 billion for roads, raising the transport budget to £4 billion; £355 million for two new prisons as part of the £4.2 billion justice and home affairs budget; and a boost of £158 million

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Public trust in SNP government collapses

When it rains for Scotland’s Nats, it pours. It now transpires – according to the Scottish government’s very own survey – that between 2022 and 2023, the proportion of people who trust the SNP government has plummeted by a staggering 10 points. And that’s not all. Trust in all six public sector institutions has declined markedly in the last 12 months, with the results presenting a rather concerning picture for the SNP ahead of the 2026 Holyrood elections. Not that Mr S can say he’s particularly shocked… The Scottish government saw public trust fall from 55 per cent in 2022 to a mere 45 per cent the following year, while

NHS Scotland can’t go on like this

Another Scottish budget and another dire warning from the spending watchdog, Audit Scotland, that the National Health Service in Scotland is out of control and heading for disaster. With almost one sixth of the Scottish population on a waiting list, around 10 per cent of beds occupied by people who shouldn’t be there, and daily horror stories from accident and emergency, the service is long past breaking point. Yet the NHS is gobbling up 40 per cent of the entire Scottish budget, according to Audit Scotland’s director, Stephen Boyle. With increased staffing and higher pay, the health service is simply ‘unsustainable’. The NHS, free at the point of need, is no longer sustainable We

Is there really a human rights crisis in the Highlands?

It’s grim up north in Scotland, we’re told. A mission from Edinburgh has produced a report about the woes of life in the Highlands and Islands, and a demand for measures to deal with them. Problems include a high incidence of poverty; a lack of affordable housing and public transport; long trips to the nearest hospital or surgery; limited social care; cultural desertification; a lack of local places of worship suitable for refugees; limited childcare and access to fresh food; and a good deal besides. Highlanders aren’t cowering at the feet of some megalomaniac dictator in Lochaber So far, so predictable. But this report comes not from some progressive think-tank, but from

Stephen Daisley

Why Scots are less angry than the English

The Scots have long been stereotyped as dour, miserable whingers, and we finally have proof that this is pure slander. Ailsa Henderson, a political scientist at Edinburgh University, has produced a presentation into political anger in the wake of the general election. She finds that the English are three times as angry about politics as the Scots, with 60 per cent fuming south of the border and just 20 per cent north of the Tweed. Voters for the two most anti-mainstream parties, Reform and the Greens, are the angriest, and while Liberal Democrats are the least angry there are still 53 per cent of them fit to be tied. Meanwhile,

We don’t need the Supreme Court to define a ‘woman’

In a scenario straight out of Monty Python, learned judges in the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom will today start solemnly debating what a ‘woman’ is. Yes, really. After a decade of misogynistic sophistry, the most elemental fact of human existence is now in doubt and has been handed to the highest court to determine. But if they’re confused about what a woman is, you say, why don’t they just consult a school textbook on human biology? Or perhaps ask a representative sample of women. A female human surely is defined by her birth sex. But no – in our crazy, looking-glass world of identity politics, there is, it appears,

The Scottish Tories must go further on tax cuts

Russell Findlay has a tough job. His party is not on track for a good 2026 election and the new Scottish Tory leader needs to figure out quick how to present Scots with a vision worth voting for come the Holyrood poll. He must prove the Scottish Conservatives are not only different from the soft-left SNP, Labour and Lib Dems – but also different from the surging Reform UK, which according to today’s Survation poll is neck-and-neck with the Scottish Tories despite having no leader, no policies and no campaign. Enter Findlay’s ‘common sense’ agenda, which this week turned to tax. The centrepiece of the proposal was an income tax

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Scottish Labour leader pushes back on winter fuel payment cut

While farmers gather in Westminster today to protest Labour’s Budget, it appears that north of the border Scottish Labour also have doubts about aspects of Rachel Reeves’s fiscal statement. Party leader Anas Sarwar has now vowed he will bring back the universal winter fuel payment for pensioners in a pushback against a cut brought about by, er, his own party in government. How very interesting… Speaking to the Daily Record, Sarwar today insisted: ‘A Scottish Labour government will reinstate the winter fuel payment for pensioners in Scotland.’ Never one to resist taking a pop at the current SNP administration, however, the Scottish Labour leader went on to add: The winter fuel

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SNP in new civil war over double jobs

Ding ding ding! All is not well in the SNP as the Nats are back to fighting among themselves over the issue of double jobs. Last week Westminster leader Stephen Flynn announced that he will stand in the 2026 Holyrood election – and, if successful, he will also continue on in his existing MP role. But the move has sparked outrage among previous and current nationalist politicians alike, with anonymous briefings and social media attacks throwing the party into yet another civil war. Oh dear… Flynn’s plan to stand for the Aberdeen South and North Kincardine seat has not been universally welcomed – not least given the incumbent SNP MSP

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SNP health secretary embroiled in expenses debacle

To Scotland, where the Nats are once again under scrutiny over expenses claims. It now transpires that not only had SNP health secretary Neil Gray been using ministerial cars to take him to sports matches, he took relatives in the vehicle with him too. The last time Mr S checked, acting ‘in line with government duties’ did not involve bringing family along on the job… Gray came under fire after the Sunday Mail revealed the Aberdeen FC fan had been chauffeured to a number of his team’s games between November 2023 and May 2024. After pressure on Gray ramped up, the cabinet minister opted on Thursday to make a statement

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Failed ex-FM claims Musk ‘scours’ his messages

Hapless Humza Yousaf certainly picks his battles – and this week the former first minister has taken aim at Elon Musk. On a Tortoise media podcast, Yousaf rather pompously claimed that the tech billionaire was part of a campaign to ‘besmirch’ his reputation and insisted he was ‘certain’ the Twitter CEO had access to his private messages on the social media app. Er, right. Talk about delusions of grandeur, eh? When quizzed on whether he believed the Twitter owner had private message access, Yousaf was adamant to listeners: I’m certain he absolutely does and I’m certain he scours the private messages of those that he sees as a threat. In

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MSPs in winter fuel payment hypocrisy

Back to Scotland, where parliamentarians are under scrutiny over questionable expenses claims – this time on heating their second homes. It transpires that between 2023-24 Scottish politicians claimed a whopping £36,000 in energy bills for their rented homes in Edinburgh, with the Nats and Labour lot making up £26,000 of the total cost. Alright for some! John Swinney’s separatists were the biggest beneficiaries, as pointed out by the Scottish Daily Express, with almost half of the Holyrood group expensing energy costs. The Nats claimed over £25,000 from the public purse, while over £1,000 of taxpayer funds are covering Labour MSP Colin Smyth’s utility bill. Scottish parliamentarians are currently entitled to

The SNP must stop playing politics with the rulebook

There are 18 months until the 2026 Holyrood election and already talk is ramping up about who will stand. There are sure to be candidate vacancies – nobody seriously thinks that former first ministers who have had their day and fallen from favour are going to run again. Other MSPs may retire and there are sitting parliamentarians who could do with some healthy competition during the re-selection process. Fear of such competition no doubt underlies some of today’s expressions of antipathy towards SNP members of the Westminster parliament with Holyrood ambitions. Anyone paying attention knows that the unprecedented rule change was specifically designed to stop me challenging Angus Robertson for

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SNP Westminster leader faces backlash over Holyrood bid

Another day, another SNP drama. This morning the SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn announced he will stand as a candidate in the 2026 Holyrood election in an op-ed written for the Press & Journal. ‘I’m chucking my bonnet in the ring,’ Flynn wrote jubilantly, adding that if successful in the race to secure an MSP seat, he would remain an MP until the next general election. ‘I will not shirk from these responsibilities as an MP and, if elected to Holyrood, I do not intend to leave them behind until the next general election.’ Talk about having your cake and eating it, eh? It seems not everyone is thrilled by