Ahead of tomorrow’s result, all SNP leadership hopefuls have net negative ratings March 26, 2023 All three SNP leadership candidates have an overall negative favourability rating, according to recent polling, as the party prepares to announce Nicola Sturgeon’s successor tomorrow. Neither Humza Yousaf, Kate Forbes or Ash Regan have a net positive rating among the Scottish public, researchers at Ipsos found in a snap poll held between March 17 and [...]
Nicola Sturgeon’s exit is a chance to leave independence politics behind February 16, 2023 Nicola Sturgeon is a skilled politician, of this we can be in no doubt. However she used those skills almost exclusively for the advancement of a single mission: Scottish Independence. In the UK, there are politicians of different creeds and business leaders from across sectors working tirelessly to create opportunities where previously there were none, [...]
Sturgeon wants to inspire? Her campaign is based on finger-pointing, not potential October 10, 2022 Nicola Sturgeon, yesterday, at SNP conference: “Let us inspire with hope in our hearts.” It would take a heart of stone not to laugh. This is, after all, the same Sturgeon who spent much of her speech bemoaning Westminster, the Labour party, and “aggressive unionism” for holding Scotland back – which sounds to us a [...]
Alex Salmond launches new pro-independence party March 26, 2021 Former First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond is launching a new pro-independence party which will stand in the Scottish Parliament election. Salmonds’s new Alba Party is expected to field at least four candidates in each regional list. “I’m announcing the public launch of a new political force: the Alba Party,” Salmond said in a statement broadcast on [...]
Boris must find the bandwidth to take on Sturgeon – and keep the UK united December 30, 2020 Being prime minister is not an easy job. Whether you adopt the approach of Thatcher’s four-hours-a-night, or Macmillan’s retreating to Trollope novels at moments of extreme stress, it is a position which occupies your every waking (and probably many a sleeping) moment; the situation is not helped by the fact that the vast majority of [...]
Boris Johnson in hot water after calling Scottish devolution a ‘disaster’ November 17, 2020 Prime Minister Boris Johnson has riled Scottish independence campaigners and some of his own party after calling the devolution of powers to Holyrood “a disaster”. The comments came during a call with around 60 English Conservative MPs, during which Johnson promised to pump money into infrastructure projects in the north. His comments were seized upon [...]
Nicola Sturgeon talks a good game, but Scottish independence would be a catastrophe July 10, 2020 For everything Boris Johnson does, you can be certain Nicola Sturgeon will announce something different. While Boris blusters, Nicola states clearly and simply why and how her policies to protect Scotland are going to happen. Where Boris is distracted, she is focused. She’s a highly effective politician, who misses no opportunity to distance Scotland from [...]
Scottish referendum revisited: Is an independent Scotland becoming inevitable? September 7, 2015 A fortnight today (18 September) will mark the first anniversary of the Scottish independence referendum – arguably the most important political event any of us in Scotland have experienced – giving pause for reflection on a year that has seen the referendum losers seem like winners, and vice versa. Despite the relatively decisive [...]
Shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna calls for federal UK with an English parliament during speech in Washington D.C. July 23, 2015 A federal Britain with a separate English parliament is the best way to hold the union together, says Chuka Umunna, the shadow business secretary. In a speech in Washington DC, he argued the best way to hold the union together is to give parts of it more autonomy, especially in light of the surge for support [...]
Against the Grain: What Yanis Varoufakis can learn from a real game theory master – Nicola Sturgeon June 23, 2015 The gracious Palladian architecture of Edinburgh has often led the city to be described as the Athens of the North. If the referendum result had gone the other way, much closer parallels would have rapidly emerged. A high spending left wing government, faced with a collapse in revenues due to the fall in the oil [...]