Scotland

To Falkirk, where Nigel Farage has flown ahead of the Holyrood elections – to announce another big name member of Reform UK. Now Lord Offord has jumped ship to Reform – and he intends to stand for election in Scotland next year. The businessman was given a peerage in 2021 by Boris Johnson and even served as a minister of exports from 2023 until the election the following year. Malcolm Offord’s move marks the latest high-profile defection to Reform UK, its first member of the House of Lords – and Steerpike has heard whisperings he could become the party’s Scottish leader next year… Farage’s party is polling at around 20

The Scottish government is set to announce a national review of the grooming gang evidence in Scotland, after coming under pressure to take action on reports of organised sexual exploitation. An independent judge will assess the situation in Scotland, with their conclusions then used to help the government decide whether there should be full public inquiry. The Scottish Conservatives have been clear for some time that their position is to move straight to a national probe, while Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has welcomed reports that a review is forthcoming.  The SNP government has, however, been accused of dragging its feet on the issue – with political opponents insisting that

Back to the Covid inquiry, where chair Baroness Heather Hallett has presented the findings of its report. The conclusions don’t particularly paint anyone in a good light and the report even claims that acting ‘too little , too late’ cost the country as many as 23,000 lives in England – although this figure is already being disputed given that, um, ‘modelling’ doesn’t establish anything. The report also suggests that lockdown could have been avoided altogether had social distancing and isolation been introduced earlier. Good heavens… Former prime minister Boris Johnson has been dragged back into the limelight too, after the report claimed that BoJo failed to tackle a ‘toxic and

Another day, another bad poll for Labour. YouGov research has revealed that a whopping 75 per cent of Scots disapprove of the UK government, with just half of those who backed Labour in 2024 saying they would consider voting for the reds again. But this doesn’t necessarily spell good news for the nationalists: while 37 per cent of Scots would consider backing the SNP in a future election, more than half of the country is fed up with John Swinney’s government. Oh dear… Polling carried out between 31 October and 5 November shows that, with just six months to go until the 2026 Holyrood election, the SNP is in the

Few would argue that Scotland’s present pattern of land tenure is ideal. Around half of private land is owned by fewer than 500 individuals, corporates or pension funds. The vast estates date from two centuries ago when landlords, often clan chiefs, expelled the Scottish peasantry from their villages in the interests of ‘improvement’ – mainly to create sheep walks, deer-hunting estates or, latterly, forestry. Had we had a French Revolution, landed estates might have been broken up. But we didn’t, and they weren’t. The idea that a group of pen-pushers in Edinburgh is going to create a new generation of small private landholdings is fanciful As a result, the Scottish

To Ayrshire, where a former Tory councillor who quit the party in July has defected to Reform UK. North Ayrshire councillor Todd Ferguson has made the leap to Nigel Farage’s party, following in the footsteps of multiple independent and former Conservative councillors across Scotland. The blow is even more painful for Scottish Tory party leader Russell Findlay as he is a regional MSP for the area. Another one bites the dust… Ferguson, who has been a councillor since 2017, quit the Conservative party in summer and has sat as independent – until now. He has become the third Reform councillor on North Ayrshire council, alongside Matthew McLean and Stewart Ferguson.

Oh dear. NHS Fife has come under fire yet again after it emerged that the health board shared details of nurse Sandie Peggie with the Scottish government. Peggie was suspended in January 2024 after complaining about sharing a changing room with transgender medic Dr Beth Upton. The nurse then lodged a harassment complaint under the 2010 Equality Act – prompting a trans tribunal against NHS Fife – before earlier this year Dr Upton accused her of bullying and harassment. In July, Peggie was cleared of all gross misconduct allegations – and it has now emerged that NHS Fife briefings sent to SNP ministers contained unredacted details about the A&E nurse.

If you’d like to know whether the Labour MP Joani Reid is any good, canvass the opinions of some of her colleagues in the Commons. You’ll hear that the 39-year-old is, variously, too big for her boots, an attention seeker, and, of course, a right-wing Zionist stooge. More than one comrade will tell you she’s only an MP because of who her grandfather was. It doesn’t matter that the much-admired trade unionist Jimmy Reid died in 2010 or that he was a member of the SNP at the time. He just fixed it for her, right? That’s how it works. But Reid, the MP for East Kilbride and Strathaven (a seat

There was a feeling of relief in the air at the SNP’s conference in Aberdeen when, for the first time in years, organisers could accurately describe the main hall as full. The choice of the P&J Live was a risky one (and one, I was told, that is unlikely to be made again) given its expansive size makes everything else, including the crowd, seem pretty small. But a sense of cautious optimism persisted: First Minister and party leader John Swinney had stabilised the party after a torrid few years of infighting and police probes and, in part thanks to Nigel Farage’s effectiveness and Keir Starmer’s lack thereof, the party was

Well, well, well. SNP conference has gotten off to a rather, er, interesting start. As one might expect, the subject of independence has dominated the first day of the big meet-up in Aberdeen. The party’s strategy as laid out by First Minister John Swinney says that an SNP majority at next year’s Holyrood election would be a mandate for a second independence referendum. But party activists aren’t happyabout the state of the SNP: both its independence stance and the way the party has conducted itself more generally over the last few years. Mr S can hardly blame them… The crowd sat up when veteran Graeme McCormack – of ‘flatulence in