Stephen Daisley is a Spectator regular and a columnist for the Scottish Daily Mail
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Eight years ago, and with the independence referendum one month away, the Clyde’s last commercial shipyard went into administration. The collapse of Ferguson’s not only threatened the jobs of 70 shipbuilders: it was an inconvenient symbol of industrial decline right as the SNP was trying to parlay rhetoric about an independent Scotland being ‘one of
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There was a picture taken on Tuesday that says more than just a thousand words. The photograph was snapped in Sharm el-Sheikh and shows Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett seated either side of Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. According to the Egyptian president’s office, they
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Vladimir Putin hasn’t won the Ukraine war yet and already they’re talking about putting him in the dock. Gordon Brown’s call for the establishment of Nuremberg-style trials, ‘indicting President Putin and his inner circle for the crime of aggression against Ukraine’, is well-meaning and emerges from a sincere Christian socialist worldview. I once termed Brown
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Sir Keir Starmer’s interpretation of the Equality Act has caused something of a stir. The Labour leader cited the Brown-era legislation to support his assertion that ‘trans women are women’ and that this ‘happens to be the law in the United Kingdom’. This reading of the Act has drawn criticism from gender-critical feminists, including the
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Is the word of a Scottish government minister worth anything? The question arises in the wake of the SNP’s Hate Crime Act which, among much else, creates the offence of ‘stirring up hatred’ against ‘transgender identity’. Feminist groups warned early on that the Bill’s language could see people who don’t believe that men can become
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The greatest ever social media spat took place before the first tweet was sent, and was conducted via fax, which was like email but with the satisfyingly tangible tear of a fresh missive just arrived from across the planet. It was early 1993 and Julie Burchill, then of the Modern Review, was locked in a
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Perhaps it’s the absence of any oppression of their own country that compels Scottish nationalists to latch onto the oppression of others. On Monday, Michelle Thomson, an SNP MSP, retweeted news of Ukraine’s emergency application for EU membership, adding: ‘Delighted for Ukraine. It’s [sic] just goes to show what political will can achieve. Remember this
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When all this is over, we will have to hold a grown-up and perhaps very difficult conversation about the United Nations. No institution is perfect, or has supernatural powers to stop war or despotism, and perhaps nothing could have dissuaded Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine. But the UN’s failure to prevent one fifth of its
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Whatever the West’s response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty, the crisis demonstrates the limitations of western politics and policy across the board. If Vladimir Putin understands any demographic better than the Russian people, it is the governing class of the West: that Harvard-Oxbridge-Sciences Po axis of toweringly smug and practically interchangeable global-liberals who weep
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P.J. O’Rourke was the finest conservative satirist of his generation and therefore the finest of any political persuasion. Satire, an impertinent and mean-spirited attack on authority, is generally and perhaps even inherently a left-wing genre but O’Rourke came into his own in the wake of the 1960s, when the counterculture tried to overthrow authority but
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The United States Senate is not a body commonly associated with alacrity but its sluggishness in considering the nomination of Deborah Lipstadt has been noticeable. On Tuesday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee finally heard from Dr Lipstadt, who has been nominated by President Biden to serve as the United States’ special envoy to monitor and
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One of the great disappointments of devolution has been the failure of the Scottish parliament to pursue novel ways of fixing political problems. Whether on educational attainment, health indicators, waiting times or economic development, it’s difficult to argue that Scotland under devolution is fundamentally different from how it would have looked had the country voted
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Captain Tom Moore captured the nation’s hearts during the pandemic. The World War II officer completed 100 lengths of his garden at the age of 99 to raise money for NHS-related charities, attracting more than £30 million in donations and being knighted by the Queen. When he died last February, aged 100, the fond tributes
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Tories who tried to convince Number 10 and Number 11 to delay the hike in National Insurance have had their hopes comprehensively dashed this morning. The Sunday Times carries a joint op-ed by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor which confirms the NI rise is going ahead as planned. Raising tax on workers is estimated
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One of the joys of living through a period of cultural revolution is watching all the new moralities arrive and declare themselves eternal truths. John Mason is learning this the hard way. Mason is the SNP MSP for Glasgow Shettleston, a Bible-believing Christian, something of a social conservative, and known for his mercurial views on
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Where is America? Like an old friend who hasn’t been in touch for years, you wonder if its silence is lost interest or if it just got too busy. America used to be everywhere, the dominant voice in world affairs, a desirable friend and a much-feared enemy. It intervened (and, yes, interfered) whenever it felt
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might be nuts but such people are less lonely than they used to be
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It takes some doing to make a census interesting. So congratulations to the National Records of Scotland (NRS). NRS, which administers the decennial survey, is facing a judicial review over its guidance on the document. On the question of sex, it states that ‘if you are transgender the answer you give can be different from what
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The stench of death clings to Boris Johnson. Bury South MP Christian Wakeford has crossed the floor to join Labour. David Davis has told him to resign ‘in the name of God’. Tory MPs reportedly continue to hand in letters of no confidence to the 1922 Committee. Once they reach 54, there will be a
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As an outsider looking in, it is curious to note just how loyal some remain to Boris Johnson. Not the payroll vote or even the backbenchers keeping their heads down, but the grassroots, the rank-and-file members and Tory voters both lifelong and more recent. Boris is a man who has never given loyalty and has
