“At every door in succession, a shout is raised, and the inhabitants, severally come forth, bestow there kindly greetings and donatives of money on the BURRYMAN who in this way collects, we believe, considerable sums of money to be …
My day with the Burryman
“At every door in succession, a shout is raised, and the inhabitants, severally come forth, bestow there kindly greetings and donatives of money on the BURRYMAN who in this way collects, we believe, considerable sums of money to be …
How Britain abandoned Scotland
It’s half past midnight on the Isle of Benbecula — far, far away on the outer edges of Europe — and Angus Brendan MacNeil MP is getting into his stride. “If you want Scotland to stay, you should want Ireland …
Why Scotland’s ‘witches’ fought back
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 …
Westminster is devolving itself out of existence
In 1707, union with Scotland was the project of the Whigs, and Humza Yousaf’s unlikely fall from power last month is a vindication of their pet theory of history. Whig history: the idea that events are running irresistibly in one …
Scotland’s hateful hate-crime law
If the Scottish establishment is to be believed, ordinary Scots are positively frothing with hatred at the moment. Already Police Scotland record “non-crime hate incidents”, based solely on an onlooker’s perception of hatred, as a matter of course. But this …
Rape trials are broken. Are juries to blame?
When the man charged with Miss M’s rape was finally brought to trial in 2015, she was determined to face him. “I thought: ‘Why should I have to hide away?’” So, she refused a screen. She also wanted to sit …
Rape trials are broken. Are juries to blame?
When the man charged with Miss M’s rape was finally brought to trial in 2015, she was determined to face him. “I thought: ‘Why should I have to hide away?’” So, she refused a screen. She also wanted to sit …
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 …
The fake history of Scottish tartan
Back in the early 2000s, when I was living in Moscow, I knew a Canadian who stomped around the city in a tartan kilt. When I asked him about his clan colours, he replied that he didn’t have any. His …
Scotland deserves better than this circus
You know something serious is about to go down when London lobby journos start saying things like: “We should pay attention to what’s happening in Scotland.” Many of us up here are not only resigned to our junior status in …
The case for Orkney nationalism
When John Maynard Keynes visited Orkney for two months in the summer of 1908, he wrote, enchanted, to a friend from Stromness, claiming “the view from this town is the Bay of Naples and the Island of Capri”.
This stunningly …
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 …
Rural Scotland is dying of cold
Lindsay lives in a council house in Kirkwall, the largest town in Orkney, a starkly beautiful archipelago off the north coast of Scotland. Now in her mid-fifties, Lindsay has lived in her one-bedroom house for 17 years. She’s tended the …