Politics

The Scottish parliament does not have the power to legislate for a referendum on independence. The Supreme Court has made that clear and it is a rare piece of good news for Scotland’s embattled Unionists. What, though, of the other side? Not Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP; Iain Macwhirter has written insightfully about that elsewhere on Coffee House. I mean the voters, the roughly half of Scots who consistently tell pollsters they favour independence. What do they do now? It’s important to note, first off, that believing in independence does not equate to wanting another referendum any time soon. An October YouGov poll found 51 per cent of Scots would vote No in a

Before the start of their World Cup game with Japan, the German team chose to make a ‘protest’. Each player covered his mouth for the pre-match photo to indicate how the team had been silenced by Fifa’s ban on ‘One Love’ armbands – and thus prevented from showing solidarity with Qatar’s gay community. A powerful gesture they no doubt hoped. But slightly less powerful than the images taken 90 minutes later, when the Germans had been truly silenced, or at least rendered temporarily dumbstruck, by their unfancied opponents, who stunned Hansi Flick’s side by coming from a goal down to claim a thrilling victory. The defeat has been compared to

If there’s an upside to spending tens of thousands of pounds – as Boris Johnson did – in doing up his Downing Street flat, it’s surely that such a costly renovation will stand the test of time. Unfortunately the £88,000 makeover at No.11, masterminded by A-list interior designer Lulu Lytle, appears to have already seen better days. No pictures have ever emerged of the new look, which reportedly includes Persian rugs, cream walls, chandeliers and even ‘gold’ wallpaper (at £840 a roll). But Jeremy Hunt, who picked up survivor of the year at last night’s Spectator Parliamentarian awards, revealed that the wallpaper is already peeling – and that Boris’s short-lived