Stephen Daisley

Scotland is stuck. This week has only confirmed it. SNP leader Humza Yousaf used his party conference in Aberdeen to announce a council tax freeze. It quickly emerged that he had done so without telling councils and without telling even his own cabinet. As his deputy admitted in an interview, the decision to freeze was

London is, at last, beaming Israeli flags onto its most recognisable buildings. This is an improvement on how some of the city’s residents have been marking the mass murder of Jews but beyond that it’s empty symbolism, as these flag projections always are. They’ve become the most visible – and often the most substantive –

Some 5,000 rockets have rained down on Israeli civilians in an attack co-ordinated from land, sea and air by Gaza-based Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Gunmen have stormed the south of Israel, taking control of a number of towns. The attack seems to have taken Israeli intelligence completely by surprise: the death toll – 300

A common complaint from traditional supporters of the Conservatives is that, after 13 years in power, their party has very little to show for it. There has been little roll-back of New Labour era legislation, or the Blair-Brown equalities agenda, or the expansion of the administrative state and taxpayer-funded third-sector organisations committed to progressive policy

Charlie Taylor is not so much the canary in the coal mine of prison conditions as the British Gas engineer nailing a ‘condemned’ sign to the entrance while ministers skip gaily into the fumes. Taylor, just reappointed to a second three-year term as HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, has been raising the alarm about our

Last night’s televised hustings entrenched the battle lines already drawn in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election. Labour candidate and local teacher Michael Shanks sought to pin unpopular SNP policies, including council tax rises and lengthy NHS waiting times, on the Nationalists’ Katy Loudon, a South Lanarkshire councillor. Loudon retreaded her two-point case for giving

When is it acceptable for the police to kill? How do we regulate their use of lethal force? What is the right balance between accountability and legal protection for the police? These questions arise after a weekend in which up to 300 authorised firearms officers (AFOs) handed back their firearms permits to the Met, doing

Up before the Court of Session in Edinburgh today is a legal question: was Scottish Secretary Alister Jack’s decision to block the SNP’s gender reforms a lawful exercise of his statutory powers? In January, Jack invoked a relatively obscure power to block the Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill. The GRR Bill – the brainchild of

Will we learn the lessons of Daniel Khalife?  It depends what those lessons are. If they revolve solely around prison placement decisions, security protocols, and risk assessments for inmates assigned to work details, then perhaps we will. These sorts of lessons are appealing. They appear to address the immediate causes of the absconsion. They make

Humza Yousaf’s programme for government — Holyrood’s duller, drabber answer to the King’s Speech — was mostly a Nicola Sturgeon tribute act. Heavy focus on social and cultural issues. Lots of leftish-sounding buzzwords (‘progressive’, ‘equality’, ‘diversity’) but nothing truly transformative. Still, just because the SNP leader’s speech and the legislative agenda attached were retreads of

American politics has become a tug-of-war between two generations. Boomers (and those older) dominate positions of power even as their capacity diminishes. Joe Biden, 80, has repeatedly displayed signs of frailty and confusion but, as far as we know, he’ll be running for re-election in 2024.  Over on Capitol Hill, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell,

For a decade or so, GERS Day has been something of an annual gloatfest for opponents of Scottish independence. The fiscal data dump would reliably show just how dependent Scotland is on cash transfers from the Treasury to fund the embryonic state created by devolution and its sizeable estate of public service provision. As a

If there is a right-wing cultural aesthetic in America, it is low-brow resentment. The old liberal-conservative tradition prized truth, beauty and the ‘the best which has been thought and said’. This has been shunted aside by a hair-trigger populism drawn to any cultural expression that scandalises progressive tastes. If people with graduate degrees hate it,

Every few weeks I write a ‘Why isn’t Scottish Labour ahead in the polls yet?’ piece. Here is the latest instalment and the take away is: Labour still hasn’t sealed the deal but it continues to close in on a vulnerable SNP. New polling from Redfield and Wilton shows the SNP retaining its three-point lead

It’s not every day a supporter of Scottish independence is in the running for a peerage, least of all from a Tory government. So no doubt the SNP will be congratulating Mark Littlewood, who could soon be Lord Littlewood thanks to Liz Truss’s resignation honours. The outgoing director of the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA)

The Conservative party has had an idea. It’s not a very good idea, but it’s an idea and those are rare for the Tories. The idea is to start banging up repeat shoplifters and other low-level offenders. Transport minister Richard Holden has complained that ‘the police haven’t concentrated enough on some of these offences’ even though ‘they

They are the words Humza Yousaf has been dreading: Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election. South Lanarkshire Council confirmed yesterday afternoon that Margaret Ferrier, the incumbent MP, has been recalled by her constituents via petition. Ferrier was elected as an SNP MP but now sits as an independent after admitting that she travelled between London and