Stephen Daisley is a Spectator regular and a columnist for the Scottish Daily Mail
Sovereignty, that old-new friend, is in vogue again thanks to Brexit and the advances made by nationalists across Europe and the United States. Those of us who lament these developments should not regret the reassertion of national sovereignty, for it is intimately linked to democracy and self-determination and provides domestic legitimacy for the kind of
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Joanna Cherry was sacked from the SNP’s Westminster frontbench today. The former justice spokesperson, who is an ally of Alex Salmond, was dropped as the party continues to row over transgender rights. Has the move strengthened leader Nicola Sturgeon’s position? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Stephen Daisley.
Joanna Cherry is out as the SNP’s Home Office spokeswoman at Westminster. The QC, who also shadowed the Justice Secretary, announced on Twitter that she had been ‘sacked’ from the nationalist frontbench. Her departure comes as part of a rejigging of what the party terms ‘the real opposition’. There is some established talent there (Alison
You would think Nicola Sturgeon had enough on her hands, what with overseeing a sluggish vaccine rollout, being under investigation by the Scottish parliament and hosting her own daily TV show on the BBC during the pandemic. Yet the leader of Scotland’s nationalist party has waded into the debate on trans rights and gender identity
Cinema came of age in the 20th century and documented that epoch in all its trials and tribulations. Movies are for the most part escapist confections but they can also reflect our world back to us. To learn about the major events of the last century, it is sometimes as useful to turn to a
Liberalism hasn’t had its sorrows to seek of late but its misfortunes show no sign of abating. The confluence of national populism and coercive progressivism, and the refusal of the non-aligned but sympathetic soft-right and soft-left to break with the culture wars, gives liberalism little chance of reasserting itself. This comes, too, as domestic and
Seventh time lucky? Richard Leonard, who has resigned this afternoon, was the sixth Scottish Labour leader since the SNP elbowed the party out of power in 2007. His tenure was the second-longest since devolution began, mostly because Labour is in such bad nick north of the border that no one else wants the job. The
Labour MP Zarah Sultana has caused a bit of a stir by proposing that prisoners be allowed to skip the queue for the Covid-19 vaccine. She’s even been Steerpiked, a rite of passage for any aspiring ‘Loony Left’ Labour MP. If anything, her compassion for lags marks a welcome development in someone who six years ago was pledging to celebrate
This is a big deal. The Times says it has had advanced sight of Alex Salmond’s evidence to a Scottish parliament inquiry on sexual harassment and it makes for uncomfortable reading for Nicola Sturgeon. The former SNP leader is allegedly accusing his one-time protege of misleading the Holyrood parliament and contravening the ministerial code. If
Football and politics seldom mix well and especially not when it comes to Scotland’s Old Firm. Yet the SNP government in Edinburgh has got itself into a war of words with Celtic FC after the club’s squad flew out to Dubai for a training camp. Asked about the Parkhead side’s decision on BBC Radio Scotland,
Nicola Sturgeon called it ‘not the New Year statement I wanted to give’. The SNP leader addressed the Scottish parliament earlier this afternoon to confirm reports of a new, March-style lockdown across mainland Scotland. It came as 1,905 positive cases were recorded yesterday, though this is likely to be a significant under-calculation as most registry
In what I am trying to turn into a tradition, I usually take time at the end of the year to talk up the positives of the preceding 12 months. In 2017, I trumpeted the routing of Islamic State, a drop in measles deaths, and the spread of marriage equality. In 2018, I celebrated the
As political journeys go, it’s akin to Jeremy Corbyn quitting his allotment to grow marrows on an Israeli settlement. Nicola Sturgeon, a lifelong pro-European since June 24, 2016, has decreed that the SNP will vote against the free trade pact agreed by the UK and the EU. This is quite the turnaround. Sturgeon has previously
Ursula von der Leyen quoted TS Eliot’s poem ‘Little Gidding’ in her press conference today: ‘What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end, is to make a beginning.’ The free trade deal between the UK and the EU marks beginnings (new arrangements on commerce, fishing and security cooperation) and
Andy Wightman is — or, as of this afternoon, was — the most independent-minded Green member of the Scottish parliament. A staunch man of the left and pursuer of land reform and tenants’ rights, he nonetheless practises an increasingly old-fashioned respect for opposing views and those who hold them. One of the subjects on which
You have seen the chart and it is grim. A list of European countries ranked by annual drugs deaths, with Scotland at the top and a long red bar beside it. Scotland recorded 1,264 deaths from drug misuse in 2019, more than twice the number of HIV-related deaths in Somalia and more than double the
Peter Murrell, the most powerful man in Scotland, gave evidence under oath to the Alex Salmond inquiry on Tuesday. The SNP chief executive (and husband to Nicola Sturgeon) made a number of statements that already are under scrutiny, and others that soon may be. 1) Why doesn’t Sturgeon and Murrell’s evidence match up? Central to
Whenever the Scottish nationalists start talking about ‘fairness’, you know someone’s getting shafted. SNP education minister John Swinney has cancelled Scotland’s higher exams for 2021. Not out of concern over safely administering the assessments in a socially-distanced manner, but because letting them go ahead at all could be ‘unfair’. Nicola Sturgeon’s deputy told the Edinburgh
Roald Dahl was a proud antisemite but if it’s real courage you’re after, look to his family who, a mere 30 years after his death, have finally acknowledged that the children’s author wasn’t keen on the Jews. The Sunday Times reports that the family ‘recently met for the first time in several years to discuss
Can an entire country sue for libel? If so, France would have a strong suit against swathes of the American left. The US progressive movement, including the New York Times and Washington Post, has turned on la Republique over its citizens’ habit of getting themselves murdered by Islamists. Most recently, this has included Samuel Paty,
