The flame remains undiminished

Back in 2014 in the immediate aftermath of the independence referendum, I published a piece about the importance of keeping the flame of hope alive. Right now, we need that flame of hope more than ever, the candle is guttering and the storm winds of despair are blowing stronger than ever….

Wee Ginger Crowdfunder 2024

It’s that time of the year with the blog that always makes me apprehensive, the annual crowd funder. I am launching it a bit early this year as there is a lot of chatter about an early general election and I don’t want it to fall into the official election campaign…

The turbulent river

The big story in Scottish politics today is the one that cannot really be commented on due to Scotland’s strict laws about contempt of court and not saying anything in public which might prejudice the outcome of criminal proceedings. Last week former SNP Chief Executive Peter Murrell, the husband of former…

A Tory solution to a Tory-made problem

You know that the performative cruelty and downright nastiness of this government has really gone over the top when it’s too cruel and nasty even for Conservative MPs. The Criminal Justice Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament, seeks to replace the 1824 Vagrancy Act. Although the bill supposedly…

Starmer’s devolution deceit

As he launched his party’s election campaign for the local and mayoral elections due in England on 2 May, a little over a month away, Keir Starmer promised that if he becomes Prime Minister after the Westminster general election expected to be held later this year his government will introduce “full…

Starmer’s most shameful U turn yet

Another day, another Labour U turn. It has got extremely tiresome to write that sentence, and no doubt equally tiresome to read it. Keir Starmer’s right wing U turns have become drearily predictable. At this point the only question is how many more can Starmer squeeze in before the general election….

We’re all extremists now

It seems that we are all extremists now, Rishi Sunak has asked Levelling Up Secretary, the oleaginous Michael Gove, to update the Government’s definition of extremism so it has a much broader scope, encompassing those who “undermine” British values and institutions. The change is expected to be announced later this month…

Labour’s insidious threat to devolution

Anyone who was daft enough to have thought that a Conservative defeat at the next Westminster general election and Sunak’s replacement with a Labour government led by Keir Starmer would mean an end to British nationalist attacks on the devolution settlement is in for a very big disappointment. The right wing…

Repaying Westminster contempt in kind

After last Wednesday’s disgraceful scenes in the House of Commons when Speaker Lindsay Hoyle acceded to pressure from Labour leader Keir Starmer to trash Commons conventions and effectively to turn what was supposed to be an SNP Opposition day debate on a ceasefire in Gaza into a Labour Opposition day debate,…

Two words

On Wednesday MPs were due to debate and vote upon an SNP motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza describing the wanton slaughter of Palestinians by the misnamed Israeli ‘Defence’ Forces as collective punishment, which constitutes a war crime under international law. Starmer refused to support the SNP motion because…

Labour in Scotland: Lying for votes

The Labour party’s Scottish accounting unit held its spring conference in Glasgow over the weekend, an event mainly focused on creating the fiction that the Labour party in Scotland is is distinct entity with a political identity and policies distinct from those of the UK Labour party in the iron grip…