Scotland

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

Ed Miliband’s Grangemouth hypocrisy

To Scotland, where the closure of the country’s only oil refinery has been announced today. The site will shut next year – resulting in the loss of 400 jobs – after refining company Petroineos said it was unable to continue to compete with similar organisations around the world. With the news comes a wave of frustration across both Scotland and the UK. First Minister John Swinney has admitted he is ‘deeply disappointed’ by the development, while the leader of the Scottish Tories Douglas Ross has slammed the move as a ‘devastating blow to the workforce’. Quite. And Sir Keir’s Labour government has also expressed regret at the decision. After the

Steerpike Steerpike

Scottish secretary takes jab at SNP’s foreign affairs fiasco

Tensions are brewing between Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot and John Swinney’s SNP north of the border. Now Scotland Secretary Ian Murray has hit out at the Nats, urging the Scottish government to ditch their cack-handed foreign affairs efforts and focus on Scotland’s domestic issues instead. It’s not like they’ve already had almost two decades to get started on this, eh? Murray blasted the SNP government over its financial woes, saying its difficulties were ‘because of the choices [it has] made and [it] should be prioritising the things that are the top priority for the Scottish people’. The Scotland Secretary went on to make a rather direct jibe at the

Luke McShane

No. 818

White to play. Niemann-Nakamura, Chess.com Speed Chess, Paris 2024. In this game from the third-place playoff match, Niemann crowned his attack in style. Which move did he play? Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 16 September. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery. Last week’s solution 1 Rf2! Depending on Black’s response, it’s 2 Bb6# or 2 Bf6#. Last week’s winner Jakub Peczkowski, Darwen, Lancashire

Sunday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

The Greens are turning on the SNP

The SNP hasn’t wanted for its woes lately but now there is fresh trouble on the way. Lorna Slater, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, tells the BBC it is ‘unlikely’ that her party will vote for the next Scottish government budget after the Nationalists unveiled £500 million in cuts aimed at balancing Holyrood’s books. Many of the services reduced or scrapped in SNP finance minister Shona Robison’s announcement last week were originally put in place by the Greens when they were in coalition between 2021 and 2024. Humza Yousaf’s decision in April to end the governing pact brought a vote of no confidence and the announcement of his resignation four

Iain Macwhirter

Why the SNP keeps failing in its war on child poverty

The poor are always with us, Jesus said, and that has never been more true than in Scotland over the past 25 years. One in four children is still languishing in poverty, according to the Scottish government’s own statistics. This ratio never seems to change, whoever is in power and however much is spent on it. First Minister John Swinney recommitted himself to the Quixotic objective of eradicating poverty in his programme for government this week. He said ending child poverty will be the ‘single greatest priority’ of his government – just as it was for Humza Yousaf and Nicola Sturgeon and all first ministers since the dawn of devolution. The only certainty is that he will fail – even though

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

SNP faces budget fears as cross-party relations break down

All is not well in Holyrood. The SNP announced its programme for government on Wednesday – but it hasn’t left many impressed. And now it transpires that the governing party is set to face further problems in passing its budget, as it continues to fail to work with its political opponents. Not like the Nats to rub people up the wrong way, eh? Once in a co-operation agreement with the SNP, it seems the Scottish Greens are still rather upset with the nationalists. Patrick Harvie’s barmy army has thrown its toys out the pram after Swinney’s speech revealed that policies the parties had formerly worked on together were to be

Wednesday

Euan McColm

No one wants to help the SNP

Humiliation really does concentrate the political mind, doesn’t it? Over the years when the SNP dominated the Scottish parliamentary chamber, ministers spent little time reaching across party lines. Indeed, by the time Nicola Sturgeon was first minister in 2014, for every SNP MSP missing the point in Holyrood, there was another pointing and jeering at anyone who disagreed with them. In July, the SNP lost 39 of its 48 Westminster seats. Suddenly, cooperation and collaboration became the order of the day. Opposition politicians smell SNP blood First Minister John Swinney was the very model of the reasonable man as he announced the SNP’s ‘Programme for Government’ on Wednesday afternoon. To

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SNP health secretary slammed over Oasis ticket fiasco

To Scotland, where the SNP’s newest health secretary has found himself in a rather large, Oasis-sized mess. At the weekend, Neil Gray was called out by the Sunday Mail for taking his eye off his day job and attempting to buy tickets to see the newly-reformed band during a conference event on Alzheimer’s disease. Mr S is rather unsurprised to learn Gray knows a thing or two about the Importance of Being Idle… The initial story reported how, after Glasgow University’s Terry Quinn had finished a heartfelt speech on dementia, Scotland’s health secretary looked up from his phone to confess: ‘I’m in the queue to buy Oasis tickets on multiple

Steerpike Steerpike

SNP government finally accepts Cass review findings

Well, well, well. After all of the SNP’s sniping at Dr Hilary Cass’s review into UK gender clinics, it transpires that the Scottish government has – finally – accepted the findings of a gender clinic report in full. The revelation comes months after Cass found ‘remarkably weak evidence’ to support gender treatments for children and concluded that the ‘toxicity’ of the gender debate meant professionals were ‘afraid’ to openly discuss their views. Oh dear… After much ado, the SNP government has now said it will implement a gender treatment review’s recommendations, with public health minister Jenni Minto confirming that a second report – entitled ‘The Cass Review: Implications for Scotland’

Monday

Stewart McDonald

Can the SNP bounce back before 2026?

SNP conferences of late haven’t been what they were in the aftermath of the 2014 referendum. Gone are the days when a carnival atmosphere ensued. That’s for the best. Those times felt like our conference was on loan to an impatient ‘Yes’ movement rather than a conference of the party of government, focused on ensuring good public policy choices and Scottish self-determination.   But absent too from the weekend’s 90th annual conference was the miasma of despair that hung over us as the Sturgeon-Salmond feud gathered pace. Even last year in Aberdeen during Humza Yousaf’s first and last gathering as leader, uncertainty lingered heavily. Now, after the storm of the election and with a leader who commands the confidence of the membership, the air has cleared, and it feels like SNP conference is

Euan McColm

How Creative Scotland was corrupted by gender ideology

Loath as I am to indulge in the national pastime of Scottish exceptionalism, we do pretty well when it comes to producing writers. From the mainstream to the fringes, and across the world, many key literary figures were born, or are based, north of the border. Creative Scotland is over. The organisation has managed to make itself hated by both politicians and artists. It exists only to feed itself and its infantile staff  There are the commercial giants. JK Rowling, whose Harry Potter and (as Robert Galbraith) Cormoran Strike books show her dizzying talent for making the epic deeply personal. Ian Rankin, whose knotty Rebus novels are more a chronicle of the

Steerpike Steerpike

Will the SNP team up with ‘awful’ Alba?

The SNP’s 90th party conference has finally wrapped up in Scotland, after the Nats spent a long weekend discussing their flailing party’s fortunes. Support for the party has been on the decline since the pandemic, with its latest leader John Swinney presiding over a rather disastrous general election result that saw his party left with just nine seats. And now, in a bid to stop the ‘fragmentation’ of the nationalist movement, some in his group have even suggested breaking bread with their rivals… Pete Wishart, the SNP’s longest-serving MP and former Runrig band member, made the rather curious suggestion at the weekend that his group should work with former first

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Scottish Nats still haven’t worked out why they lost

Unlike a slightly more high-profile reunion event, the ticketing website for the Scottish referendum tenth anniversary show is not expected to crash. But there will no doubt be much looking back in anger at the IMAX theatre at the Science Centre in Glasgow on 14 February as ‘the stars’ (it says) of the 2014 referendum gather to ‘reflect’ on the defining moment in their lives and ‘outline their hopes for the future’.   In a fine Scottish tradition, they clearly still see themselves as the moral, if not actual, victors of 2014 The headliner (surprise, surprise) is Alex Salmond, who will be in discussion with STV political journalist Bernard Ponsonby. From the flyer,

Sunday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

This could be the first right-wing Scottish Tory leader in years

The Scottish Conservative leadership election is now Russell Findlay’s to lose. The West Scotland MSP has secured three big endorsements: former Scottish Secretaries Lord Forsyth and David Mundell, and shadow Scottish Secretary John Lamont. It means all five Scottish Tory MPs support his campaign, alongside 12 MSPs, two council leaders and leading party donors Alasdair Locke, Alan Massie and Robert Kilgour. Right-winger Forsyth has an op-ed in today’s Scottish Mail on Sunday hailing Findlay’s ‘courage, competence, conviction and compassion’ and predicting that his leadership would see the Tories shift focus to ‘the real day-to-day concerns of every voter’. Left-winger Mundell believes Findlay has ‘the life experience’ and skills to win back ex-Tories

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Police probe senior civil servant over Salmond inquiry

As the SNP conference weekend kicks off, another Scottish story is starting to take shape. It has emerged that detectives north of the border are now investigating allegations that a senior civil servant gave a false statement under oath to an inquiry into sexual misconduct allegations involving Alex Salmond. Edinburgh’s Court of Session was informed today that Police Scotland is now looking into the Scottish government’s head of cabinet, parliament and governance, James Hynd, as part of the investigation entitled Operation Broadcroft. Good heavens… Ex-SNP leader Salmond is taking legal action agains the Scottish government – with the former FM alleging ‘malfeasance’ by civil servants and seeking ‘significant damages’. Salmond claims

Iain Macwhirter

John Swinney is leading the SNP to oblivion

As the SNP gathers for its conference in Edinburgh this weekend, its membership nearly halved from a peak of 125,691, there is a palpable sense of confusion and drift, laced with anxiety for the future. ‘Horsed’ is how the former SNP MP Stewart McDonald describes the SNP’s likely fate at the 2026 Holyrood election unless something serious is done to arrest the party’s electoral decline. But the SNP is without answers and most importantly without a credible leader after last month’s general election disaster. How, after losing 39 of the 48 seats it won in 2019, is John Swinney still in charge? The SNP makes no apologies for overspending McDonald says the First

Thursday

Christopher Akers

Scotland has failed Andy Murray

So much for building upon the legacy of the nation’s greatest ever sportsman. There will be no tennis balls hit at a proposed £20 million sports centre close to Andy Murray’s hometown of Dunblane, after the cancellation of the tennis star’s project this week. More than a decade of wrangling, planning system headaches and complaints about development on green belt land conspired to end the ‘legacy’ project, led by Judy Murray. It’s game, set, and match for the naysayers.  The Park of Keir site was meant to have 12 tennis courts, a six-hole golf course and four-star hotel, along with a museum and restaurant. The idea was to celebrate the

Steerpike Steerpike

Starmer snubs No. 10 Thatcher painting

Well, well, well. It seems Sir Keir Starmer wasn’t exaggerating about his ‘change’ agenda. It now transpires that the new Prime Minister has taken it upon himself to redecorate parts of No. 10 – and has reportedly gone so far as to remove a portrait of Margaret Thatcher from Downing Street. Talk about a Labour takeover… The rather curious report comes after Sir Keir’s biographer Tom Baldwin was interviewed in Scotland, at Glasgow’s Aye Write summer book festival. The Gordon Brown-commissioned picture, funded by an anonymous donation that covered its £100,000 price tag, is the first painting of an ex-PM ever to be requested by No. 10 – yet despite

Wednesday

John Ferry John Ferry

The SNP can only blame itself for its budget mess

Higher-than-expected public sector pay deals, social security reform and the SNP’s freeze on council tax have all contributed to putting pressure on the Scottish government’s budget, according to a new report from Scotland’s fiscal watchdog.  In a statement accompanying its latest fiscal report, the Scottish Fiscal Commission (SFC) seems keen to remind Scots that the Scottish government bears most of the responsibility for the budget challenges it now faces. ‘While UK government policies contribute to the pressures on the Scottish budget, much of the pressure comes from the Scottish government’s own decisions,’ says the SFC. The SFC did not set out to put a spanner in the works of the SNP’s grievance machine but has

Saturday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

The Scottish Conservatives leadership race is surprisingly interesting

Something interesting is happening in the Scottish Conservative leadership election, and while I appreciate you might be sceptical about the juxtaposition of ‘interesting’ and ‘Scottish Conservative’, there is a certain dynamic at play. Unlike the race for UK Tory leader, the contest is not between left and right, for there isn’t really a right to speak of in the Scottish Tory party. Nor is it a battle between reform and the status quo, for all three candidates are chirping incessantly about ‘change’. The real dynamic is insiders versus outsiders. Russell Findlay is not a central casting Tory I’ve written about this in an essay in the Mail today, but I