Stephen Daisley is a Spectator regular and a columnist for the Scottish Daily Mail
An unexpected downside of Donald Trump’s presidency is the rare occasion on which he makes a wise call. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran deal is wise and demonstrates a clear understanding of Tehran’s motives and tactics. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was Barack Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement, and it was sold
There is a divide in Britain, one that cleaves us apart more sharply than Leave vs Remain, north vs south, or moody Owen Jones vs needy Owen Jones. Our real national fault-line is Kay Burley. The Sky News presenter is everywhere right now. She was named Broadcast Journalist of the Year by the London Press
When it became clear that Labour had fallen far short of its overhyped expectations in the local elections, I tweeted this: https://twitter.com/JournoStephen/status/992317867004657664 I would now like to retract, but only in one instance. Adam Langleben, councillor for West Hendon in Barnet, lost his seat on Thursday. Given Barnet’s sizeable Jewish population, and Labour now being
One of the joys of living under a nationalist government is the exciting pace at which the facts change. What was axiomatic yesterday may be contested today and heretical tomorrow. There is no burden of knowledge because what has happened can unhappen as the need arises. Nationalists, Orwell diagnosed, are ‘haunted by the belief that the
Theresa May’s tragicomic run of rotten luck continues. Amber Rudd has self-deported to the backbenches and the Prime Minister will have to find a credible replacement at a moment of acute strife. Why anyone would want the job is a mystery to most of us, but then we lack that combination of ambition and self-delusion essential
What’s Nicola Sturgeon playing at on Brexit? Quick answer: politics. Longer answer: politics. The SNP leader has rejected a deal to resolve the impasse between Westminster and Holyrood over the repatriation of powers from Brussels. She accuses the Tories of a ‘power grab’ because some areas of responsibility will initially go to the UK rather
It’s a prince! Many congratulations to Their Royal Highnesses on the arrival of their third child and, indeed, their fecundity. The UK’s birth rate fell to a decade-low last year – 1.79 babies per mother – so the Duke and Duchess are picking up the slack for the rest of us. Yes, it’s a grand
Barbara Bush, who has died at the age of 92, was a feminist’s nightmare. She dropped out of Smith College, from which the women’s lib movement would later explode, to marry and raise a family. Firmly independent but a dutiful wife, she was a liberal on abortion and gay rights but learned to keep mum
Tony Gilkes is a very English hero. The Middlesborough pensioner wanted nothing more than what all hungry Englishmen want: a hearty meat pie. Yet when he tried to procure pastries from his local Morrisons at 8.45am he was rebuffed; staff at the supermarket refused to serve him before 9am. So what did Gilkes do? He
The best that can be said for Jeremy Corbyn’s response to air strikes against the Assad regime is that he is at least consistent. Why did he assert that the smart cuff meted out last night risked ‘escalating further… an already devastating conflict’? Because in Corbyn’s worldview, it is the felling of chemical weapons factories, not the
I’m not one to say ‘I told you so’ but the thing is, I did. At the SNP’s mass-recruiting, concert-touring, swingometer-skelping zenith, I warned that the party’s failure to rein in its most fervent ideologues, not least the digital stormtroopers known as cybernats, would do it a mischief one day. Instead, the Nationalists not only
Not this again. How many new parties have been proposed now? Andrew Rawnsley says 34 have registered with the Electoral Commission since January. A political party is for life, not just for a twitterstorm. Still, the Tories’ annexation by Ukip and Labour’s transformation into some hideous fusion of CND and the BNP has left those of us
Here is a list of things that happened in Scotland this week. See if you can guess which caused the biggest political row: GDP statistics showed economic growth less than half the UK rate, the third consecutive year Scotland has lagged. One in 12 under-25s is now on a zero-hours contract. The chair of NHS
None of this is normal. It’s important that we cling to that. It’s not normal that British Jews are forced to protest for their fair treatment and safety. It’s not normal that four-fifths of the Labour Party think such protests are a political tactic or a Zionist plot. It’s not normal that the man who
A question for Labour’s moderates, however we define the term and assuming they are still sizeable enough to merit the plural: Do you want to see Jeremy Corbyn become Prime Minister? Specifically, do you think he possesses the character and temperament of a national leader? Does the prospect of a Corbyn-led Labour government fill you
‘The Scottish Conservatives aspire to lead the next government of Scotland,’ proclaims Ruth Davidson in a pamphlet setting out the party’s thinking. Could it really happen? Could the Tories go from wipeout in 1997 to triumph in 2021 – from resisting devolution to effectively running the show in a generation? Too long; didn’t read answer?
The Labour Party brings to mind any number of Yiddish expressions — most of them involving the performance of lavatorial functions — but none more so than the proverb Der mentsh trakht un Got lakht. Man plans and God laughs. The Almighty’s black humour is surely at work in the resignation of Christine Shawcroft, chair
We may be witnessing a #MeToo moment in Labour anti-Semitism. Britain’s Jews, so damn accommodating and willing to extend the benefit of the doubt, have finally snapped and said ‘enough is enough’. At 5.30pm tonight they will gather in Westminster to protest in the most British way imaginable by handing the Labour Party a strongly-worded
John Bolton – owner of the finest moustache in American politics since Teddy Roosevelt – has been appointed Donald Trump’s new national security adviser. He replaces the outgoing HR McMaster, a veritable survivor who managed to last 395 days at the White House. That’s two terms plus a recess appointment in MAGA years. Hysteria is
The SNP is a coalition that behaves like a megachurch and when the spirit is low, the congregation remembers its schisms. One such departure is defence, because, for all they appear a homogenous rabble of bomb-banners to unsympathetic outsiders, the Scottish Nationalists are quietly but keenly divided on security. The combination of their current political
