Euan McColm is a columnist for the Scottish Daily Mail, The Scotsman, and Scotland on Sunday.
Quarterly reports from the office of National Records of Scotland confirm time and again the existence of an ongoing drug deaths crisis north of the border. And, time and again, the Scottish government reveals itself to be devoid of ideas for how to tackle it. Now, however, there has been a flicker of progress with
Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney began 2025 in the traditional manner – with a chorus of Auld Lang Syne. Speaking at Edinburgh University on Monday morning, Swinney called for unity across the political divide and urged opposition leaders to get behind his government’s budget. Failure to do so, said the FM, would ‘feed the forces
If there’s one thing the SNP truly excels at, it’s maintaining double standards. The extraordinary case of the Scottish government and the missing legal advice makes clear just how hypocritical the SNP is when it comes to conduct in public life. Scottish nationalists are swift to condemn opponents at the slightest whiff of impropriety but,
If you need proof that the SNP’s modus operandi in government is to make it up on the hoof, consider the party’s plan for a National Care Service (NCS). Announced by former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, the NCS was to be a radical – even visionary – solution to growing pressure on both the National Health
Ten years ago today the Scottish independence referendum took place. The result was a resounding defeat for those who wanted Scotland to break away. The decade since has not been kind to the Scottish nationalist project. It all seemed very different for nationalists on the afternoon of Thursday September 18, 2014 Former SNP leader Alex
Humiliation really does concentrate the political mind, doesn’t it? Over the years when the SNP dominated the Scottish parliamentary chamber, ministers spent little time reaching across party lines. Indeed, by the time Nicola Sturgeon was first minister in 2014, for every SNP MSP missing the point in Holyrood, there was another pointing and jeering at
Loath as I am to indulge in the national pastime of Scottish exceptionalism, we do pretty well when it comes to producing writers. From the mainstream to the fringes, and across the world, many key literary figures were born, or are based, north of the border. Creative Scotland is over. The organisation has managed to make
The Scottish government has today confirmed that it will follow Westminster’s decision to end the universal payment of winter fuel payments to pensioners. Instead, a Holyrood-run alternative will ensure that those elderly Scots most in need are still supported through means-testing. Social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville insists she is unhappy about the decision, stating today
Many Scots – including political leaders who should know better – talk of their fellow countrymen as if we are uniquely moral and decent. The rise of the SNP has been accompanied by a new wave of Scottish exceptionalism; simply to have entered the world in a Glasgow hospital is to confer up on a person
The SNP may be in crisis, with police investigating the use of party funds and support from voters sliding, but the current General Election campaign obliges leader John Swinney to pretend everything in the garden continues to bloom. Launching the Nats’ manifesto in Edinburgh on Wednesday, the First Minister acted as if his scandal-scarred party
‘The thing is,’ says one Conservative member of the Scottish parliament, ‘that we wanted rid of him – just not like this.’ Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross’s decision to stand in next month’s General Election infuriated colleagues. His response to that backlash – to resign his position – has driven some of them positively apoplectic
In public, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party is all humility. Starmer might currently be heading towards a general election landslide victory but the line is consistent: The party’s taking nothing for granted. Privately? Well, one of two of the party’s candidates and strategists might concede they expect things to go rather well for them on
Twenty-five years have passed since the opening of the Scottish parliament and the issue of just how well devolution is working is a rather awkward one for the current SNP-led government. This week, both the Scottish Conservative and Scottish Labour parties have made entirely clear that reform is needed. Labour believes that Scottish mayors might
Winnie Ewing, SNP royalty – Madame Écosse to those who had served alongside her in the European Parliament – opened proceedings with a song in her voice and a twinkle in her eye. ‘The Scottish Parliament,’ said the oldest of its new members, ‘adjourned on 25th day of March in the year 1707, is hereby
So much for Scotland being the home of ‘radical’ progressive politics. After almost two decades of the Scottish National party saying that Scots are fundamentally different to their neighbours – wiser, more compassionate, just generally better – the party now reckons Scottish voters might just share the same priorities as those south of the border.
Accepting the leadership of the SNP on Monday, John Swinney said his political priority as Scotland’s seventh First Minister would be the eradication of child poverty. If he is sincere in his desire to achieve this ambition, then Scotland’s economic growth – just 0.2 per cent last year – needs be a great deal better.
If you want to know how deep is the crisis in which the Scottish National Party currently finds itself, let this sink in: the next leader of the party will be a man who’s already had the job and made an absolute mess of it. In a remarkable turn of events following the resignation of
A word of advice for anyone with ambitions to hold high political office: if you think you might ever need the assistance of your opponents, don’t allow your party to repeatedly abuse them. This wisdom comes too late for it to be of use to Scotland’s First Minister, Humza Yousaf, who has accepted the inevitable
Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf is a politician with two settings. If he’s being asked about a difficult issue – the Police Scotland investigation into SNP finances, for example, or his government’s failure to deliver its policies – he does a reasonable approximation of sincerity, all soft voice and sad eyes. You can see the
Following the publication last week of Dr Hilary Cass’s review of gender services provided by the NHS, politicians rushed to insert themselves on the right side of the debate. For many, this meant quite dizzying displays of reverse-ferreting. After years of dismissing the concerns of medical experts, parents and feminist campaigners about treatments such as
