Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
In Scotland’s grittier pubs, a simple rule has long applied: no football colours and no talking about politics. With enough drink, talking about either can lead to violence — and pint glasses are expensive to replace. With an ordinary general election, the prohibition is easy to obey. The wrong buggers might well win, but they
Many moons ago, Charles J Haughey, Taoiseach of the 26 free counties, bestowed a great compliment upon an up-and-coming young Fianna Fail politician. Bertie Ahern, Haughey observed, was the coming force: “He’s the man. He’s the best, the most skilful, the most devious, and the most cunning of them all.” Now, granted, that kind of praise was
Here we go, here we go, here we [expletive of your choice] go again. Our old friend, the Offensive Behaviour at Football Act is back in the news again courtesy of an article written by its sponsor, Kenny MacAskill MSP. Booting MacAskill from office was one of Nicola Sturgeon’s first actions when she succeeded Alex
My word, what a disgrace! What an outrage! Isn’t it deplorable that the President of the United States has the gall to offer an opinion on the merits of an argument that will have some significant impact on the future of one of the United States’ closest allies? The arrogance and sheer effrontery of the
Who knew Nicola Sturgeon was a devotee of Saint Augustine? Her message to the SNP conference yesterday was simple: Lord, grant me independence but not yet. And how the people cheered! The mere mention of independence was enough to send the nationalists into a state of millenarian rapture as they imagined the ecstasy to come. Nothing
The thing about Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters is they’d be funny if they weren’t so pathetic. Or is it the other way round? I can never remember. Last night something called the #JC4PM Tour rolled in to Edinburgh. Featuring the likes of Jeremy Hardy, Mark Steel, Charlotte Church and sundry other artists who are not necessarily
What does a barrel of schadenfreude cost these days? That’s today’s starter for ten. The answer, according to the latest Scottish government figures, appears to be about £15bn. That’s the difference between spending in Scotland last year and the revenue raised from Scotland. A deficit of 9.7 percent or, for those keeping score, almost twice
Sometimes trivial matters are actually less trivial than they seem. They can be revealing. Thus Bill Clinton’s habit of cheerfully cheating while playing golf was more significant than you might at first think. It told you something – even if only a little something – about him. The great thing about non-trivial, trivial indicators is
As a general rule politicians should spend less time saying things they do not really believe. However useful such a strategy may be in the short-term it will, sure as eggs be eggs, backfire on you eventually. But there are also occasions when it is a mistake to talk about the things in which you really
You would think that spending time in America and thereby enjoying a ringside seat as the Republican party leaps off a cliff would give any British conservative cause to give thanks for the Tory party’s essential moderation. Not so with dear old Tim Montgomerie, however, who appears to have gone off his rocker and resigned
Despite what Emma Thompson may say, this ‘cake-filled, misery-laden, grey old island’ is actually a more than half-decent place to live. Most of the time, anyway. That it remains so is remarkable, given the provocations inflicted upon us by our political overlords. Here are three stories to make you weep. (And as you know, three stories constitute a
All Westminster might be agog with the latest shenanigans vis-a-vis the got-to-happen-at-some-point EU referendum but most sentient folk in this blessed land are magnificently uninterested in the matter. Not even this morning’s Telegraph splash – ‘Attorney General may back Brexit’ – can stir them from their slumber. At best the majors will have asked, over their E&B this
Here we go again. According to today’s Daily Express, leaving the European Union is the only way to ‘save the NHS’. According to the Prime Minister, remaining a member of the european club is the only way to guarantee the United Kingdom’s security. I suppose it is too much to hope that everyone, on both sides of
Last month I wrote that everyone loves Ruth Davidson but no-one will vote for her. Now a new YouGov poll reports that the Tories are ahead, if only just, of Labour in the race to lose the forthcoming Holyrood election least badly. Twenty percent of Scots say they intend to vote for Davidson’s Scottish Conservatives
Last week Kezia Dugdale, the leader of the Scottish Labour party, ventured south to the Imperial capital to brief the shadow cabinet on her party’s prospects in the forthcoming elections to the Scottish Parliament. Lucky her. According to the New Statesman’s George Eaton, Dugdale’s presentation was greeted with great enthusiasm. It was, one member of the shadow cabinet
As was often the case, Oscar Wilde was clever and witty but mistaken. There are worse things than being talked about but not being talked about is one of them. For evidence of this we need do little more than consult this graphic compiled by our friends at Politico. Derived from an analysis of more than
Like an old friend you do not actually like very much, the Scottish government’s Offensive Behaviour at Football Act will not go away. It is five years since this offensive piece of legislation was passed and time has done nothing to lessen either its absurdity or its offensiveness. To recap for readers who, for doubtless
And then there were none. The retirement of Shivnarine Chanderpaul, the great Guyanese batsman, is the end of an era. He is the last of the old guard; the last of the great heroes from a time before the razzle-dazzle of the new 20/20 cricketing era. The last connection, too, to the time when the
Honesty and consistency; two qualities everyone agrees to value but that are easily jettisoned as soon as maintaining them proves too inconvenient. It turns out they’re not so valuable as all that. So it is with all things Euro-referendum-related. If we are to believe the rival tribunes competing for your affections later this year, negotiating
Myths endure forever. Take, for instance, the myth that Scotland is a more equal, egalitarian, kind of place than England. It is an idea much-cherished north of the border and a stubbornly persistent one too. Helpfully, it’s also resistant to evidence, allowing Scots to maintain the pretence that, as the late John Smith once (complacently)
