Scotland

Even with Nicola Sturgeon politically hors de combat, Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf has made it clear he intends to forge ahead with her plans to hold a second independence referendum. The Scottish government has produced its blueprint for the future constitution that could flow from such an independence vote. Any voter contemplating taking up Humza’s offer and voting Yes in a possible Indyref2 would do well to read this document closely. They could be letting themselves in for a great deal more than they thought. Put simply, the plan is to make the SNP’s soft-left Bruntsfield-style ideology an almost irremovable feature in Scottish public life. A lot will be familiar. The incredibly generous

Scottish government minister, Lorna Slater, has managed to survive a vote of no confidence tabled by Conservative MSP Liam Kerr. The circular economy minister, and co-leader of the Scottish Greens, has faced heavy criticism for her handling of Scotland’s controversial deposit return scheme in recent months. To make matters worse, hours before politicians voted on Kerr’s motion, Slater was this afternoon forced to admit that the company running the scheme, Circularity Scotland, had appointed administrators. Though Slater saw off the vote, with 55 MSPs voting for the motion while 68 voted against it, her reputation did not escape unscathed from the rather unedifying debate. The anger at deposit return scheme-related

Have you opened a letter recently from your energy supplier and gasped at how much of your monthly budget is now going on electricity and gas? Are you living in constant pain or discomfort because you need an operation, but under the Scottish NHS you’ll have to wait years for treatment? Or do you live on one of Scotland’s islands and have been forced, for the first time in your life, to take to the streets in protest at the Scottish government’s failure to provide lifeline ferry services for your community? If Scotland ever does cut away from the UK, the split is many years away. This makes it all

Boris Johnson’s dwindling brigade of supporters point to the Conservatives’ landslide election win of 2019 as evidence he’s too gifted a politician for his party to lose. But they conveniently ignore the fact his charm stopped working at the border with Scotland. Voters across much of England may have flocked to Johnson but he repelled many Scots. In 2019, the SNP won back 13 of the 21 seats it had lost two years previously, when Theresa May was prime minister. The Tories lost seven Scottish seats. There is a particular caricature of the distant, uncaring Conservative that repels Scottish voters. And that caricature is Boris Johnson-shaped. So, over recent years,

One of the most wonderful things about walking around Oxford at this time of year is seeing hordes of young people celebrating the end of exams: finals, A-levels. GCSEs. Hundreds of miles north in Scotland, younger students may soon have another reason to celebrate altogether: the end of National 5 qualifications. An imminent review of secondary Scottish assessment is widely anticipated to recommend ditching exams for 15 and 16 year olds, and replacing National 5 qualifications (the Scottish equivalent to GCSEs) with a new system. Under the new proposals, students would be judged on coursework alongside a Scottish ‘diploma’ which recognises extra-curricular activities, sport and volunteering. The review was announced

Just when they thought they were out of the woods, the SNP have been pulled right back in. Following Nicola Sturgeon’s sensational arrest on Sunday, reports have emerged that First Minister Humza Yousaf is willing to exhaust all options in a bid to get his party under control — and has gone so far as to tell his MSPs to back Sturgeon or quit the party. No Privileges Committee investigation for her to worry about… There’s only so many times a First Minister can be called ‘weak’ before he snaps. Three separate sources have told the Times that, at a private meeting in Holyrood, Yousaf issued veiled threats to his politicians, primly

‘Bizarre’ is a high bar in Scottish politics these days, but the SNP has comfortably cleared it once again. The party’s deputy leader Keith Brown revealed Nationalist MSPs have agreed to ‘send some flowers’ to Nicola Sturgeon ‘as a mark of sympathy, given what she has been through over recent days’.  Sturgeon was arrested on Sunday by police investigating allegations of financial misconduct. She was released without charge after seven hours. Her husband, and former SNP chief executive, Peter Murrell and the party’s ex-treasurer Colin Beattie were previously arrested and similarly released without charge.  The bouquet is a nice gesture from the SNP group, but Mr Steerpike wonders what they’re going

Despite calls for Sturgeon to be suspended from the party, Humza Yousaf has said today that he will not do so, telling BBC Scotland that he sees ‘no reason’ to suspend a party member who has been released without charge. Not all SNP politicians agree with him, though. Angus MacNeil, the MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, tweeted yesterday: ‘This soap opera has gone far enough, Nicola Sturgeon suspended others from the SNP for an awful lot less! Time for political distance until the investigation ends either way.’ Michelle Thomson, the SNP MSP who was suspended herself despite never being under police investigation, has called on Sturgeon to ensure her

The arrest of Nicola Sturgeon by police investigating allegations of fraud within the SNP was hardly unexpected. After all, her husband – the party’s former chief executive, Peter Murrell – and the SNP’s past treasurer, Colin Beattie MSP, have already spent time helping officers with their enquiries. It was only a matter of time until the cops got to Sturgeon.  Nonetheless, the shock of news – broken in a tweet from Police Scotland at 2.29pm on Sunday afternoon – that she was in custody as a suspect was undiminished.  Until her surprise resignation as SNP leader – and, thus, first minister of Scotland – in February, Sturgeon was widely considered