Iain Macwhirter

The SNP government can’t see a house fire without wanting to throw petrol on it. Scotland’s housing crisis is only too apparent to anyone looking for accommodation right now. Homelessness is rising rapidly with evictions doubling in a year; a quarter of a million Scots are on social housing waiting lists; and rents are going through

The Scottish Green party are often accused of promoting ‘student politics’ so it is perhaps no surprise they are fielding a 20-year-old social policy student, Cameron Eadie, in the forthcoming Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election. What is a surprise is that they are standing at all. They’ve never stood here before. Indeed, Greens tend to

Among the exhibits in Edinburgh university’s famous anatomical museum are the bones of ‘Bowed Joseph’, a notorious 18th century rabble-rouser who could allegedly assemble a crowd of 10,000 by beating his drum. He was ‘bowed’ because Joseph had rickets, a disease that ravaged Scotland’s working classes until the middle of the last century. Rickets is a

At last, a target Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf should have no trouble meeting. Waiting lists? The attainment gap? Dualling the A9? Of course not. Humza Yousaf says his forthcoming government reset can be expected to ‘p**s people off’. When it comes to annoying people the First Minister is a veritable virtuoso. He has certainly irritated many in

The latest shock to hit the nationalist blogosphere is the revelation that the First Minister Humza Yousaf has recently broken bread with the billionaire Sir Brian Souter, the Stagecoach bus magnate. The encounter took place at a prayer breakfast last month and is regarded by some as a sign that Yousaf is trying to build

The sad thing about the BBC’s dedicated Scottish channel, which has suffered another collapse in viewing figures, is that it’s actually rather good. Their flagship news programme The Nine, broadcast from BBC Scotland’s cavernous HQ at Pacific Quay on the Clyde, is very professional. It is presented by the excellent Martin Geissler, whose name you won’t find on

Today Humza Yousaf’s 100 days as First Minister, yet not even that has gone right: the nationalist leader has been upstaged by the departure of Mhairi Black earlier this week. The SNP Westminster group’s deputy leader announced she would not be standing for re-election on Tuesday, claiming that the culture of Westminster politics is too

Nicola Sturgeon says she is ‘gutted’ at the decision by the SNP Westminster group’s deputy leader, Mhairi Black, to stand down before the next general election. The MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South told the News Agents podcast that the House of Commons is a ‘toxic workplace’ that has taken a toll on her ‘body

Nicola Sturgeon handled the Covid pandemic rather well. You might not expect me to say that after all that’s happened this year, but it’s true. The former first minister was – or is – a highly effective communicator who managed to persuade Scottish voters that she knew what she was doing, even as she made

Scottish Nationalists are putting a brave face on the latest opinion poll showing Scottish Labour apparently winning the race for Westminster. The Times/Panelbase survey suggests that Labour is on course to return 26 Scottish seats at the next general election against the SNP’s 21. The nationalist are currently the third largest party in Westminster with

The Scottish National party has been through difficult times in the past, but can anything compare with this week? Nicola Sturgeon arrested ‘as a suspect’ by Police Scotland in the investigation into party finances. The ignominious collapse of the deposit return scheme; the deepening scandal of the Ferguson Marine ferries. This must be the nadir,

Nicola Sturgeon – progressive icon, feminist champion, scourge of corrupt Tories – is, almost by definition, incapable of wrongdoing. As she insisted after her arrest on Sunday: ‘I know beyond doubt that I am in fact innocent of any wrongdoing.’ It is her truth. Her MSPs agree and have, we’re told, sent her flowers to soothe

Despite calls for Sturgeon to be suspended from the party, Humza Yousaf has said today that he will not do so, telling BBC Scotland that he sees ‘no reason’ to suspend a party member who has been released without charge. Not all SNP politicians agree with him, though. Angus MacNeil, the MP for Na h-Eileanan

Given declining membership, internal divisions and the failure to deliver a referendum, it’s hardly surprising that the coffers of the Scottish National party appear to be emptying rather rapidly. The Electoral Commisson records that the SNP received only £4,000 in donations in the first quarter of 2023, down from over £90,000 in the same period

It takes mismanagement of epic proportions to turn a relatively simple recycling scheme for bottles and cans into a major governmental crisis. It takes Herculean hypocrisy to then blame it on Westminster. Scotland’s deposit return scheme (DRS), which plans to place a recoverable 20p on every single use container at the point of purchase, has

‘Dear transphobes, we have a phobia of your behaviour…Yours, Scotland’. That was just one of Police Scotland’s ‘Letters from Scotland’ campaign posters that started appearing across Scotland five years ago. Misogynists, racists and religious bigots were warned by the chief constable Sir Iain Livingstone, who fronted the campaign, that they’d be dealt with the full

Any uncertainty about the extent of the damage inflicted on the SNP by the criminal investigation into party finances can be safely disregarded. An extensive poll by YouGov suggests that those scenes of a police forensics tent outside Nicola  Sturgeon’s Glasgow home, and the arrest of her husband, the SNP chief executive, Peter Murrell, have