The SNP leadership contest was over even before it had begun, no doubt much to the disappointment of BBC Scotland management who will now have to bin all the ‘SNP divided’ stories they were going to regale us with over the coming weeks as a distraction from the meltdown of the…

As expected the Scottish Government has survived the Labour vote of no-confidence brought forward by Anas Sarwar seeking to opportunistically capitalise on the collapse of the Bute House Agreement between the SNP with the Greens. The Greens had already signalled that their beef was with Humza Yousaf and had been mollified…

It has been just over a week since the blog’s annual fundraiser was launched and I thought readers might like a quick update since it’s not clear from the Go Fund Me page alone how the fundraiser is going. The total received from all sources, PayPal, Go Fund Me, and direct…

Humza Yousaf’s efforts to find a way through the two votes of no confidence expected this week have proven unsuccessful, and he has stepped down as First Minister. The infuriated Greens have refused overtures from the SNP to back Humza Yousaf in the Tory vote of no confidence. By siding with…

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….

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 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…

The fundamental plank of the devolution settlement is the Sewel Convention, which states that the Westminster government will not interfere with the powers of the Scottish Parliament or intrude upon devolved competencies without the consent of Holyrood. This convention is vital if devolution is to work in a British constitutional system…

Anas Sarwar, the branch manager of the Labour party’s Scottish accounting unit, gave a speech over the weekend which was breathtakingly hypocritical and mendacious even by the standards of a party for whom breathtaking mendacious hypocrisy is very much its USP. Speaking ahead of the STUC congress which is being held…

Voters in most of the UK have a very clear choice at the next Westminster general election, they can vote for the British flag shagging party, or they can vote for the British flag shagging party. Keir Starmer constantly boasts about how he has changed the Labour party, it is not…

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…

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…

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….

Over the weekend Humza Yousaf unveiled a key plank of the SNP’s pitch to voters at the Westminster general election which is expected to be held later this year. The SNP will urge voters to vote SNP at that election in order to turn Scotland into a Tory free zone, obviously…

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…