Scotland

We must hope Nicola Sturgeon’s remaining supporters are, right now, judging her. That’s what she wanted, after all. In a speech back in 2015 — the year she led the SNP to its third Holyrood election victory — Sturgeon said education would be her priority during her time in office. ‘Let me be clear,’ she said, ‘I want to be judged on this. If you are not, as First Minister, prepared to put your neck on the line on the education of our young people then what are you prepared to. It really matters.’ Of course, it was easy for Sturgeon to demand she be judged because she knew she

North of the border, the long-anticipated by-election in Rutherglen and Hamilton West has finally been confirmed. This constituency is classic SNP-Labour swing territory, and though an SNP-held seat until recently, polls have shown that Labour support in Scotland is on the rise. The by-election will put these predictions to the test: can Labour’s candidate Michael Shanks not just win, but win well and capture the mood for change? Possibly, but for this to happen, Labour needs to present Scottish voters with a better vision — instead of continuing to rely on SNP failures. We can be assured that the longstanding SNP-Labour rivalry will come out in full force as the by-election

The first by-election in Scotland since the SNP’s change of leadership is a huge test for First Minister Humza Yousaf. If the nationalists lose the seat of Rutherglen and Hamilton West, made vacant when constituents recalled their MP Margaret Ferrier after she broke Covid rules, Yousaf will face difficult questions about his party’s direction of travel. As one nationalist activist puts it: ‘The last SNP MP got chucked out in disgrace and Humza’s ratings are still in the minuses, so who’d bet against us losing?’ Unlike his predecessor, Nicola Sturgeon — who dominated her party and enjoyed the support of the vast majority of its members — the current First

The Labour party could hardly ask for better than the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election as a means to judge the strength of their resurgence in Scotland. Sitting on the cusp of Greater Glasgow, it is situated in the party’s former central belt heartlands — an area once so Labour it was joked that votes for the party were weighed, not counted. The seat was lost in the nationalist landslide of 2015 before Labour quickly won it back in 2017. Though the party lost it again to the nationalists in 2019, it now has an eminently beatable SNP majority of 5,230. Perhaps most importantly, the by-election is taking place because

They had balloons, handmade posters and a big red van lit up with ‘Michael Shanks: A Fresh Start’ flashing on the side. The Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election is Labour’s to lose and don’t they know it. Despite the pressure on the modern studies teacher and now-Labour candidate Michael Shanks, the atmosphere at Labour’s by-election launch was relaxed – if the Glaswegian weather miserable. Former SNP MP Margaret Ferrier lost her seat on Tuesday night and constituents will face a second vote in October, a by-election that will bring the SNP and Labour head to head.  Tuesday’s result was a small win for Labour – literally. The recall petition’s low

Another week, another by-election. Constituents in Margaret Ferrier’s seat of Rutherglen and Hamilton West have voted for their MP to be removed from her seat after she was suspended from the Commons for 30 days after being convicted of breaking travel rules during lockdown. Following the rule breach, Ferrier was also ousted by the SNP, and has since sat as an independent.  More than 10 per cent of eligible voters signed the recall petition, and a by-election will now follow. Ferrier first won the seat for the SNP in 2015 before Scottish Labour took it back in 2017. In 2019, she reclaimed it, with a majority of 5,000. It means

There are often complaints that the Scottish parliament lacks the ‘big beasts’ of other European counterparts. It is not a complaint, however, which can reasonably be levelled at Fergus Ewing. Ewing is a giant of Scotland’s independence movement and a giant of Scottish politics. But perhaps the thing which is most interesting about Fergus Ewing is that he is not a socialist. He has that in common with much of the traditional SNP support, and much of the SNP support outside the central belt — but it increasingly marks him out from the Scottish government, led by his very own Scottish National party. Last Wednesday, Ewing appeared on Holyrood Sources,

The SNP Scottish government has rolled out its latest paper on independence, this time focused on citizenship. Like others in the series (this is the fifth paper on secession in twelve months) it offers nothing new, goes big on fantasising about a future that won’t happen, and is completely removed from the day-to-day needs of Scots. The paper works off the assumption that an independent Scotland will be a member of the European Union. Yet it ignores the obvious economic and potential political impediments to this happening, at least in any reasonable timeframe. The appropriateness of civil service resources being used in this way is questionable at best It also

Burgundy passports, dual citizenship and rejoining the EU were a few of the items at the top of Humza Yousaf’s fifth independence paper, published earlier today. The First Minister’s latest independence document in the ‘Building a New Scotland’ series outlines the Scottish government’s proposals for citizenship in an ‘open, inclusive’ and independent Scotland.  Holding a finger up to the UK government over post-Brexit changes, Yousaf’s paper describes how Scottish passports would be a ‘right’ available to Scottish citizens from day one of independence. In imitation of the old-style EU passports these would be burgundy in colour, not blue, and would follow EU regulations – despite the fact an independent Scotland