How do nationalists avoid facts? By telling fairy stories instead

THE SNP HAS GIVEN up trying to provide a reasoned case for leaving the UK. It tried to construct one in 2014, but it turned out that its case, presented in the 649-page tome, Scotland’s Future, ...

Repeated and embarrassing U-turns show Sturgeon is more Heath than Thatcher

NIGHTMARES follow a mad inexorable logic, like a runaway train heading for collision. Increasingly, that’s what I feel when I watch the First Minister during her daily briefings. She has set a course through the Covid-19 pandemic, and follow that course she must, ...

ThinkMovies: Schemers

FRIENDS, I try to keep my opinions, and the way I arrive at them, as original as possible in these weekly deep dives into the movies. I like to think that such regular readers as ...

Polling claims of secessionists are inflated, there is no consistent lead for leaving the UK

THERE HAS BEEN a lot of loose talk over the last few months about nationalist polling, but don’t forget, the headline results of over fifty per cent for leaving the UK exclude undecideds. 

Further, ...

A Loyal Scotland fights for Britain, 1707-1918

SCOTTISH REGIMENTS acquired a reputation for exceptional fierceness early on. The skirl of the bagpipes induced fear in the enemy before battle and during the First World War the Germans called kilted Highland troops ‘the ...

Both Sturgeon and Johnson are on shoogly pegs of their own making

AS I WRITE, on the morning of Tuesday 22 September, we are poised to enter a second lockdown. The four nations seem to be unified, with what looks like an agreed set of carefully choreographed ...

Musings of a REAL Tank Commander – Part 19 Jaikets, gophers, and being rudely stripped

HAVING HEAVED a collective sigh of relief in waving goodbye to Cyprus, it didn’t take long to get back into the groove of being an armoured regiment on tanks again. The rear party we had ...

Student unionism is broken, but Scotland could provide the solution

ASK TEN Edinburgh University students milling around Bristo Square about their university experience. According to the National Student Survey, eight will say they are satisfied with their course. Nine will praise the staff. But ask ...

Freedom is being leeched, our Winter of Malcontent is coming

WALKING ALONG THE CLIFFTOPS of Pembrokeshire this month has been a wonderful break from the incompetence across these islands. A few days ago the autumn equinox passed by. The nights are now longer than the ...

Six is not a number it is arbitrary and dystopian

WE ARE NOW officially living under the Rule of Six. The police are charged to enforce it. In Scotland, more than six people (not counting children under 12) from a maximum of two households are ...

The Mummy Diaries – Keep Calm and Mummy On!

WE ARE in the middle of a pandemic. Our county has gone into further restrictions since midnight. The Playschool is closed. We have to queue and wear masks everywhere. We are dosed with the cold. 

We must Bulldoze Scotland's love of the planning approach

WHAT POLICY APPROACH can support the advance of post-Brexit Scotland? 

While our nation is being forced to disappear up its own secessionist rear end through the Neverendum Tendency, that basic economic question does ...