Stephen Daisley is a Spectator regular and a columnist for the Scottish Daily Mail
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Progressivism is politics as fashion. The product is status and provocation the marketing strategy. The socialist, the liberal and the conservative all address themselves to material circumstances, and aim to transform them radically, gradually, or as little as possible, but the progressive is concerned with the intangibles of life: identity, meaning and self-expression. His radicalism
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It wouldn’t be Scottish politics if there wasn’t an abstruse scandal that requires a half-hour of background information to explain. So, here goes: Dorothy Bain KC is the Lord Advocate, the title given to the head of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. In addition to being the chief prosecutor north of the border,
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What’s in a name? Quite a bit if you’re the British Museum and the P-word is involved: ‘Palestine’. Pro-Palestinian activists are outraged – it is Monday, after all – because the museum has altered its terminology. Representatives of UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) objected to displays in the British taxpayer-funded institution giving the name ‘Palestine’ to the historical land
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I don’t know if ‘gaun yersel, yer excellency’ translates into Japanese but the salutation is on the lips of many a Glaswegian after Hiroshi Suzuki’s visit to the city. Japan’s ambassador to the Court of St James’s has been love-bombing the United Kingdom since his appointment in 2024, making his way around the country with
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Want to know what kind of country you live in? You live in a country in which there are more than 300 antisemitic incidents a month. Three-hundred. Every month. Last year, there were 80 incidents on Yom Kippur alone, including the Islamist attack on Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester which resulted in the deaths of
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Of all the ways in which Reform is upending the rules of British politics, the most fascinating is its reliance on the support of a single demographic. Nigel Farage seems to address himself exclusively to pensioners. The audience for his speech in Birmingham on Monday told its own story: row upon row of retirees. And
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There is a 1953 Warner Bros short, Zipping Along, in which Wile E. Coyote, frustrated with the failure of his elaborate schemes to kill the Road Runner, opts for a simpler method. He acquires a grenade, pulls the pin with his teeth, and chucks the explosive at the infernal Californian cuckoo. Only he does it
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The most reliable sign that Reform is doing well in Scotland is the refusal of the lanyard class to engage with the subject. In the latest poll, Reform has cut the SNP’s lead to five points on the regional list, the second, more proportional ballot that offers smaller and newer parties their best chance of
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Labour MPs want shot of Keir Starmer over the Peter Mandelson scandal. There is nothing new in that sentence until the mention of the former ambassador. Mandelson’s reported disclosure of government information to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is the latest pretext, but before that it was because he rebuffed the Waspi women, and before
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The women are at it again. For Women Scotland (FWS), specifically. They’re the pressure group who took on the Scottish government, which believes men are women if they say so, and secured a Supreme Court judgment that ‘sex’ in the Equality Act refers to biological rather than ‘certificated’ sex. Now they’re back in court taking
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Awarded Song of the Year at Sunday night’s Grammys, ‘Wildflower’ singer Billie Eilish forwent the customary shout-outs to manager, agent and God (in that order) to condemn Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement. The 24-year-old announced that ‘no one is illegal on stolen land’, rambled for a few solipsistic sentences (‘I just feel really hopeful in this
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You’re the SNP. You’ve been in government in Scotland for 19 years on the trot. You have nothing to show for it besides ferries that can’t sail and blokes in women’s jails. Your leader has the personality of a gas bill and you go to the polls in May to ask for another five years.
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Is the Scottish government above the law? The SNP-run devolved administration is being taken to court after it refused to comply with freedom of information legislation. While that might sound dry and technical, it is anything but: the information it refuses to disclose is evidence from the notorious – and notoriously messy – Alex Salmond inquiries.
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Tensions between the United States and Europe have prompted a rethink about defence spending among European elites. The postwar paradigm saw Uncle Sam pick up the tab for security while the Continentals sunk their treasure into social protection and other political priorities. This suited Europe for as long as their benefactor remained broadly faithful to
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The biggest beneficiary of Robert Jenrick’s defenestration and defection was neither Kemi Badenoch nor Nigel Farage but Malcolm Offord. He is the former Tory peer whose unveiling as Reform’s Scottish leader was in progress when the purring notifications orchestra struck up among the assembled reporters and Reform staffers. The news of Jenrick’s ouster dominated the
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Are ‘buffer zones’ becoming the latest weapon in the political establishment’s clampdown on dissent? Scottish First Minister John Swinney says he will consider a buffer zone to ban protests outside migrant hotels. It comes after angry scenes at the Radisson Blu in Perth on Saturday, which saw competing pro- and anti-migration demonstrations. Anti-migration activists reportedly
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Ruth Wisse defines anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism as ‘the organisation of politics against the Jews’, and in Britain it is striking just how openly the organisers operate. During his remarks to Sunday’s Jewish Labour Movement conference, Communities Secretary Steve Reed revealed that a Jewish colleague was ‘banned’ from visiting a school in his constituency ‘in case his
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If you don’t want your kids joining the jihad, don’t send them to a British university. That is the view of the United Arab Emirates, which has removed the UK from its list of scholarship-eligible student destinations. The programme subsidises Emirati youngsters to attend university overseas, with favoured locations including the United States, Israel and
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In its haste to acquire Greenland, the White House neglects to consider whether the interests of the United States might be better served by contracting rather than expanding the nation’s territory. Minnesota governor Tim Walz has said the state’s National Guard stands ready to protect citizens if necessary, adding ominously: ‘We’ve never been at war
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There will not be another referendum on Scottish independence if the SNP wins a majority in May’s devolved elections. We can be certain of this because John Swinney has said there will be one and, as my old granny used to say, I wouldn’t believe a word he says if the Pope had just heard
