Unionism is strong but its parties are establishment stooges – we have to do better

THEY RANG THEIR BELLS loud all winter but Friday 13th was the conclusion of five years of noisy unionist parties not listening. Instead of a vibrant multiparty democracy we have three establishment stooges vying for ...

The logic of voting Conservative has won me over...

THERE IT IS! I have done it! Something I could never have imagined. I have ticked the Conservative and Unionist box in my postal vote! I urge every single Scottish voter, whether Nationalist or Unionist to ...

Think Movies: The Irishman

I WOULD LIKE to submit a proposal to whatever regular readers that I might be lucky enough to have accrued; it concerns greatness and how it can be identified. I put it to you that ...

Getting Brexit done - until the next extension?

YOU CANNOT GET AWAY from the Conservative slogan: Get Brexit Done. In newspapers, on television and radio, on social media, it is everywhere. But what does ‘Get Brexit Done’ actually mean? In the famous words ...

Life in the SNP’s party state

BACK IN SPRING 2015, an SNP conference changed the party’s standing orders to tighten its discipline over SNP elected members with a new rule stating that ‘No member shall, within or outwith the parliament, publicly ...

Knowing one's place belongs to the Britain we are leaving behind

OCCASIONALLY IN THE FOG OF WAR for votes a moment of truth arrives. That deep down many remainers are both pro-migration and anti-foreigner. All too often remainers have extolled the benefits of the economic contribution ...

Wealth for the many not the few??

JUST RELEASED this week, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) report examining wealth in the UK is extraordinary and shows an unprecedented cascade of wealth for the vast majority of the population. It really is the ...

Corbynomics takes the mickey out of rational expectations

THE OTHER DAY I got a startled look from a Lib Dem canvasser at my door when I suggested that I was not minded to vote for yet another socialist party.  Clearly, the twenty-something activist ...

Scotland and the EU: Sturgeon's myth and the EU reality

THE SNP IS BIG ON OUTRAGE, and nothing has ostensibly outraged it more than “Scotland being dragged out of the EU against its will”. Certainly, 62 per cent of Scots (including me) voted Remain in ...

Unleashing Boris remains an option, but Tory campaign resists the temptation

SO FAR, the election has been a slow bicycle-race. Farage unsaddled himself at the outset and Swinson has fallen off; I return to them below. As to the leaders of the major parties, their looks ...

Decorations, presents, Santa and my inner Grinch!

The Mummy Diaries: One baby, one threenager – Week 19

I LOVE CHRISTMAS! It’s a time for family, friends, presents, good food, good drink, Santa Claus, reindeer, the kid’s faces and all ...

There may be an election on but where have all the values gone?

A COLLEAGUE TELLS ME she is struggling with this peculiar election campaign. Too many contrary influences, confused interests and conflicting incentives, she says.  But I demur; she is a political scientist looking for evidence that might ...