Lucy Dunn is The Spectator's diary reporter. She is a qualified doctor from Glasgow.
If Humza Yousaf last week suffered his ‘worst week’ in office, then the same can be said this week for Patrick Harvie, the co-leader of the Scottish Greens. On Monday, it looked like his party had the upper hand on the future of the Scottish government. But today, just before an emergency 8.30 a.m Cabinet
16 min listen
It’s been quite the week for the SNP. Questions remain over the future of the Sandyford gender clinic, ‘the tartan Tavistock’; the Scottish government ditched its flagship climate change target; and former party chief executive, and husband of Nicola Sturgeon, Peter Murrell was rearrested on embezzlement charges. What does this all mean for the SNP?
10 min listen
Rishi Sunak has returned to one of his pet bugbears: getting the unemployed back into work. His speech to the Centre for Social Justice this morning was peppered with his favourite facts about the post-pandemic welfare crisis embroiling Britain. Lucy Dunn speaks to James Heale and Michael Simmons. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
15 min listen
J.K. Rowling has been at the centre of a Twitter backlash against Scotland’s new hate crime laws which came into effect on April 1st. How has the first week of this controversial legislation gone for First Minister Humza Yousaf? And is political support for the policy dwindling? Natasha Feroze speaks to Lucy Dunn and Isabel
10 min listen
The SNP’s new Hate Crime Act came into effect yesterday, but already it has been met with backlash. On the episode, James Heale talks to Isabel Hardman and Lucy Dunn on why Humza Yousaf insisted on this law and whether it could overwhelm the police. Produced by Cindy Yu.
10 min listen
Lucy Dunn speaks to James Heale and Katy Balls about the slightly muted reaction to the budget. Labour has compared the announcements to Liz Truss’s unfunded tax cuts and Scottish Tories have criticised the chancellor’s decision to extend the windfall tax on the profits of North Sea oil. But is this really the pre-election budget?
The Chancellor will be anxiously preparing himself this evening for tomorrow’s papers, waiting to see how his Budget lands. He won’t need to wait quite as long to hear how his own party members have received it, however. And the verdict is already in from the Scottish Tories. It isn’t good. Jeremy Hunt’s decision to
Professor Karol Sikora was supposed to be a guest on a Spectator panel last year when one sponsor said they would pull their funding unless he was dropped. Instead the sponsor was dropped, Sikora stayed and today he was back again, opening The Spectator’s Health Summit with our editor Fraser Nelson. Does it matter if
You don’t often hear calls for more managers to solve the crisis in the NHS. But at The Spectator’s Health Summit held in Westminster this week, a panel hosted by Isabel Hardman asking ‘Is the NHS badly run?’ came to that conclusion. Conservative MP and chair of the Health Committee Steve Brine, Labour’s shadow health minister Karin
As Scottish devolution celebrates its 25th anniversary, are voters losing faith in Holyrood? A quarter of the country believes devolution has been bad for Scotland, with almost half of ‘No’ voters in the independence referendum now disillusioned. New polling for the Sunday Times finds that over a fifth of voters didn’t know if devolving powers
40 min listen
On the podcast: gangsterism or government? The Covid Inquiry has moved to Scotland and, in his cover story for the magazine, our editor Fraser Nelson looks at the many revelations uncovered by Jamie Dawson KC. Fraser describes how civil servants were enlisted into what he calls an ‘SNP secret state’ and how SNP corruption is
What motivated the Scottish government to take a more cautious approach to lockdown? Deviations from the UK government’s approach meant that those living north of the border often had to live with harsher restrictions compared to those in England, decisions that were widely assumed to be made on the basis of scientific advice. But now
15 min listen
As junior doctors begin the longest strike in history, Lucy Dunn speaks to Isabel Hardman and Kate Andrews about whether public support for industrial action is starting to wane, and how talks might be different under Labour.
Today’s Scottish government budget was tax-rise heavy – to the dismay of both individual earners and businesses — in the name of public service support. But while finance secretary Shona Robison spoke of her government’s ‘values’ of equality, opportunity and community, as well as the importance of its ‘social contract with the people of Scotland’,
The NHS waiting list has fallen, although not by much. The number of patients waiting has fallen from 6.5 million to 6.44 million, while the number of ‘waits’ for procedures and treatments has fallen by just 60,000, from 7.77 million to 7.71 million. On the face of things, this sounds like good news: it is
The NHS faces an institutional and structural problem in the way it works, Wes Streeting believes. ‘Unless it changes, it’s not going to survive.’ The shadow health secretary’s ‘tough love’ philosophy suggests NHS bosses are very much mistaken if they expect much more generous health spending under a Labour government. Instead, Streeting has slammed the
After months of protest and four rounds of strike action, NHS consultants could finally be close to reaching a pay deal with the UK government. British Medical Association (BMA) reps will present the offer to their members that will see the pay of an average consultant increase — while the time it takes to reach
Rishi Sunak pledged in January that his government would cut waiting lists by 2024 — but the latest stats show the PM is failing to meet his target: the NHS waiting list has hit a record high of 7.8 million waits, according to figures released this morning. 6.5 million patients are languishing on lists, with
The recreational use of laughing gas has been banned in the UK from today. We are only the second country in the world to make the possession of nitrous oxide illegal – users of the now-class C drug will get up to two years in prison while dealers face jail time of up to 14
Humza Yousaf took SNP politicians and activists to the blistering cold of Aberdeen this week to host his first party conference as SNP leader. Yousaf was under great personal stress with his wife’s family currently trapped in Gaza and the event had a sombre tone to it, not helped by an audience turnout that didn’t
