I suspect it can only be bad news for poor old Tom Harris that he’s the only candidate to lead Scottish Labour whose name Ed Miliband can a) remember and b) pronounce correctly: Another reminder that Scotland is already and semi-formally a semi-detached part of the United Kingdom.
As a coda to James’ post on Labour’s attitude to Scotland and the Union, it’s worth relating this little snippet from Ivan Lewis MP at a fringe event earlier this evening. Lewis said that, despite the SNP’s current high-flying poll ratings and the need for Labour to learn lessons north of the border, “most Scots don’t want independence”. The upshot is that some in Labour think that the party will return to power in Scotland as a matter of course and minimal effort is required to reverse losses. Given the situation in Edinburgh, descibed so vividly by Hamish Macdonell, Lewis’ complacency is quite striking.
Douglas Alexander has just told Andrew Neil that he will campaign for Scotland to stay in the union with ‘anybody else who wants to join me’. This opens up a difference with Alexander’s normally close political ally, Jim Murphy. Murphy, Scottish Secretary in the last Labour government and currently shadow defence secretary, recently declared that he wouldn’t share a platform with David Cameron during any referendum campaign. When asked about this earlier in the day, Alexander said that he was more interested in making the argument about the value of the union rather than arranging the chairs. But Alexander does seem to hold a different position than Murphy on the
The Daily Telegraph is tonight alleging that Neil Wallis was paid by the News of the World to provide crime exclusives while working as a consultant for the Metropolitan police. The paper claims that the News of the World paid Wallis £25,000 for information including the details of Scotland Yard operations during this period. According to the Telegraph, £10,000 of the £25,000 was for a single story. This revelation will increase the pressure on the police to reveal fully the extent of contacts between it and News International. But with Paul Stephenson already having resigned over the hiring of Wallis as a consultant, further resignations are unlikely. The other hack-gate
I don’t know, just as you don’t know, whether Troy Davis is innocent. I do suspect that his conviction would, in this country, be considered unsafe. Not that this, or anything else, matters to the Georgia Board of Pardons who have denied Davis’s last appeal for clemency. No-one should be surprised by that. Nevertheless, the case highlights a major problem in criminal trials: eye-witness testimony is often unreliable. According to the University of Virginia’s Brandon Garrett: The federal court that finally reviewed evidence of Davis’ innocence agreed “this case centers on eyewitness testimony.” Yet that court put to one side the fact that seven of the nine witnesses at the
How long will Alex Salmond’s honeymoon with the voters of Scotland continue? Given that his next mission is to hold and win an independence referendum, much depends on his popularity and that of his party. Today, a third opinion poll puts support for the Scottish National Party at just under half of the national electorate. Angus Reid, polling for the Sunday Express, puts support for the SNP has now hit a remarkable 49 per cent. Given that the Nationalists only won 45 per cent of the votes in May’s election – enough to sweep all the unionist parties into the background – this new high just shy of 50 per
The original and gravest episode of Disaster for Scotland. Today’s the 498th anniversary of Flodden. A bleak day for Scotland; bleaker still for King James himself and the Men of the Ettrick Forest. Legend has it only one man from these parts returned alive and the memory of that remains the centrepiece of Selkirk’s annual Common Riding. Jean Elliot’s lament, The Flowers of the Forest, dates from 1756. Here’s Ronnie Browne’s version:
Like most sensible folk I have a grand opinion of Alan Cochrane and, this being the case, alert readers will know that this is by way of a throat-clearing before we move on to the business of suggesting that his latest Daily Telegraph column is a little less persuasive than the Sage of Angus would like it to be. As Alan concludes: It is hard not to sympathise with what Mr Fraser is trying to do. Something dramatic does need to happen to galvanise centre-right supporters in Scotland and the idea of a completely separate party but which is part of an electoral pact with the UK Conservatives in the
There are three things to be said about Murdo Fraser’s willingness to put his own party out of its misery: this is not a new idea, it is not enough, on its own, to spark a centre-right revival in Scottish politics and it is a brave way to begin a leadership campaign. Tactically it is a risky ploy; strategically it makes sense. Put all this together and there’s every chance, yet again, that nothing will come of it. For that matter, it may be a mistake to make this the crucial issue in the leadership campaign. The Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party may be feeble but it is also stubborn
It has to be one of the most astonishing – not to mention bold and risky – moves ever attempted by a politician, of any colour. This morning Murdo Fraser, the Deputy Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party and clear frontrunner for the leadership of the Scottish Tories, announced plans to disband his own party if he wins the leadership contest. Under his plans, the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party would cease to be. It would be an ex-party. The Conservatives would fight no more elections in Scotland after next year’s council elections. Instead, a new centre-right party would take its place, crucially free from the toxicity which still surrounds
You read it here first – four years ago. The Conservative Party looks like it will finally enact its plans to split, and the Scottish Conservatives will dissolve – at least if Murdo Fraser wins the leadership. The Sunday Telegraph has the news tomorrow: “Murdo Fraser, who is favourite to become leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, will announce that he plans to wind up the party if he wins a ballot of members next month. He would follow disbanding the party by launching a new Right-of-centre party that would contest all Scottish elections — council, Scottish Parliament and Westminster. Mr Fraser, a member of the Scottish Parliament, believes the
Anent legal affairs in Auld Reekie, there’s a stushie brewing about the acquittal of the Hearts fan accused of assaulting Celtic manager Neil Lennon in a notorious and passably disgraceful incident at Tynecastle last season. The jury – seven women, eight men – deliberated for nearly three hours before returning a Not Proven verdict on the charge of Assault, Aggravated by Religious Prejudice. On a seperate charge, the jury found John Wilson guilty of a breach of the peace. Given that the episode took place on national television and Mr Wilson clearly seemed intent upon attacking Mr Lennon the verdict has, predictably, been met with equal parts derision, disbelief and
John McTernan’s latest Telegraph column has an entertainingly provocative headline –Tell the Truth: Scotland has been indulged for far too long – but is, in fact, less a blast against Alex Salmond’s monstrous regiment than an assault upon Mr McTernan’s colleagues in the Scottish Labour party. This attack is disguised by John’s observation – scarcely controversial and, anyway, being addressed, in part, by the Scotland Bill – that the Barnett Formula is no longer working as originally intended. He’s right that much of Scotland has prospered since Margaret Thatcher came to power; it’s also the case that the Labour party, above all others, has persistently denied this. As John must
Alex Salmond has just been on Sky News and he ruled out extraditing the Lockerbie bomber. He said that the Scottish government has no intention of asking for al-Megrahi to be extradited and the Libyan National Transitional Council appears to have no intention of granting extradition. He also added that there was no scope for further interviews with al-Megrahi, such was the prisoner’s condition. Although he reiterated that the Lockerbie case would be re-opened should further evidence emerge. He also defended the Scottish government’s decision to transfer al-Megrahi to Libya, saying that the original medical judgement of three months life expectancy was never definitive and therefore it had been impossible
What does Independence in Europe mean in 2011? That’s one of the questions Alex Salmond and the SNP have preferred not to ask, far less find an answer to. Way back in the dog days of the Thatcher-era Jim Sillars coined the slogan as a way to demonstrate that Scotland, small and on the periphery of the continent, would not be cut adrift and helpless were her people persuaded to back the Scottish National Party’s vision for independence. It was a canny move: reassuring and progressive and other nice and cosy things. That was then and this is now. The ongoing crisis in Euroland necessarily means things have changed. The
Pictures across the world’s news channels currently show hundreds of Libyan rebels standing in the first perimeter of Gaddafi’s compound at Bab al Aziziya. A statute of the colonel has been pulled down, its head decapitated, and rebels are taking pot-shots at the other icons of his tyranny, including a clenched bronze fist clutching a US fighter jet. Gaddafi himself remains hidden from view, lurking perhaps in the tunnels beneath his compound or in another part of the city. He may, of course, be dead or fled, but the CIA says they suspect he is still pinned down in the country. US surveillance has been close in recent days, ensuring that Libya’s stockpiles of chemical
The English Defence League marches are heinous, but tolerated by the English authorities. Not so in my homeland, where the Scottish Defence League have been told by Edinburgh council that they cannot hold a march where they’d hoped to be joined by 200. Part of me welcomes this news: Scotland has its social ills (mainly sectarianism) but racial tension has never really flared. As Alex Salmond says, there are many colours in the tartan. Then again, banning the march may serve to give credibility and a cause to the crackpots who call themselves the Scottish Defence League. Their march would probably have been a tragicomic affair, and they’d have disappeared
I suspect that the idea that opportunistic looting can be explained by organised gangs is, no matter what the Prime Minister said this morning, a questionable premise. Nevertheless, it was interesting and encouraging to see him reference the work done by the Violence Reduction Unit at Strathclyde Police. Interesting because their approach to gang-related violence demonstrates just how tricky the problem is and how “traditional” policing and criminal justice approaches fail to have much, if any, useful impact. Here’s a terrific and freshly-relevent Prospect piece that explains how the project has worked in Glasgow and, before that, in Boston. Karyn McCluskey is a very impressive person and, in my limited
The great traditions of journalistic hyperbole justify this magazine’s cover image this week (Subscribe!) but that doesn’t mean we must take it literally. “Britain” is not “ablaze” even if the riots we’ve seen in London, Birmingham and Manchester might make it seem as though the entire country is on fire. So a little perspective might be thought useful. Is the situation serious? Yes, of course it is. Is it crippling? Of course it is not. So one can see why Alex Salmond – and his allies – have been determined to point out that these are not “UK riots” but “English riots”. In one sense this is correct. There have
Coffee House congratulations to Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall, who were married in Edinburgh today. Footage via ConservativeHome: