Witch hunts have long tormented Scotland. Thousands of women were tortured and executed there in the early-modern era, for the opaque crime of “witchcraft”. Over the past five years, a similarly senseless, though slightly less violent, campaign has been waged …
Nicola Sturgeon’s delusional second act
Over the weekend, Nicola Sturgeon was due at a literary festival in my neck of the woods, as part of what seems to be an ongoing PR operation to restore her reputation after a bruising year. The former Scottish First …
The great deceit of Scottish nationalism
Scottish nationalism’s two defining leaders experienced an identical cycle of political boom and bust. Both were originally the objects of the most ardent public dedication; both were subject, at the end of their reigns, to prolonged investigations by a police …
Women don’t need another girlboss
Heavy lies the girlboss crown on Rain Newton-Smith, freshly appointed director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). Brought in last week to rebuild the CBI’s reputation after a scandal involving her predecessor, commentators are already predicting her failure. Some …
Scottish nationalists can’t bear reality
For the past 13 years, I have lived on the banks of a wild river that forms part of the Anglo-Scottish border. Liddel Water was once the eastern boundary of the Debatable Land, a 50-square-mile enclave of wooded gorges, rough …
The crucifixion of Kate Forbes
Lent began this week with a rehearsal for a crucifixion. On Tuesday, SNP leader hopeful and devout Presbyterian Kate Forbes was faced with something she must have known was coming: a challenge from journalists about her views on gay marriage, …
Nicola Sturgeon is rewriting history
So it’s goodbye from Nicola Sturgeon. During a relatively expansive press conference on Wednesday — the prolonged duration of which somewhat undermined her claim that she always knows when it’s time to go — she offered the official version of …
Scottish nationalism will survive Sturgeon
Nicola Sturgeon has exited the stage, but the threat of Scottish independence has not. Whatever the triumphalism in London over the First Minister’s resignation yesterday, the idea that the secession crisis has ended is absurd. For the time being, the …
The problem with ‘trans women are women’
Once upon a time, pollsters would phone you up and ask how satisfied you were with the railways on a scale of one to ten, or how you intended to vote in the next general election. These days — as …
Sturgeon will lose Scotland’s trans war
In her eight years as Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon has revealed herself to be addicted to, and adept at, Manichaean practices: the use, developed by the devotees of the prophet Mani in the later Roman empire, of a cosmology …
Scottish nationalism is fuelled by resentment
Forget the Hogwarts Express. Three times a year, I get on a train at London Kings Cross and make a physics-defying journey towards Montrose in Angus, the Scottish town where I lived for the first 17 years of my life. …
Scotland has never been so divided
The SNP’s triumph in last week’s Scottish elections came as no surprise: it was the party’s 11th election victory in a row. Instead, it was the downfall of the Scottish Tories and resurgence of Scottish Labour in second place that …
The SNP won’t silence women
There are inflatable dinosaurs leafletting shoppers in Aberdeen city centre. Grassroots feminists in Forth Valley are organising a conference for International Women’s Day. “Weegie Witches” dance out their defiance in Glasgow, while “Sole Sisters” create street art out of shoes …
Scotland has lost its sense of humour
Growing up in pre-devolution Scotland, I found that deference towards authority was in short supply. The loathing directed at those in power was visceral, the tone caustic and funny. I knew that pursed-lipped, finger-wagging Calvinists were supposed to exist, but …