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 …
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 …
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 …
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 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 …
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 …
Welcome to the age of hoaxes
In February 2019, an indignant opinion piece appeared in the Independent by one Liam Evans, a self-proclaimed “comedy aficionado” who believed that comedians ought to be subject to criminal investigation for “problematic jokes”. The piece was derided by some as …
Why the trolls are winning
In February 2019, an indignant opinion piece appeared in the Independent by one Liam Evans, a self-proclaimed “comedy aficionado” who believed that comedians ought to be subject to criminal investigation for “problematic jokes”. The piece was derided by some as …
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 …