Scotland

Thursday

John Ferry John Ferry

The SNP’s flagship economic strategy is pure window dressing

It was an odd launch event for what had previously been a much-touted initiative. While all eyes were on the war in Ukraine, Scotland’s finance minister, Kate Forbes, took to Dundee to set out Scotland’s new ten year National Strategy for Economic Transformation. Such events usually involve a room full of press, lots of questions, photographs, one-on-one interviews and then widescale coverage in the Scottish media. This event however was characterised by complaints from print journalists that they were excluded on spurious grounds of ‘ongoing Covid restrictions’, despite the finance minister speaking to a room full of business people and some select journalists to which this rule seemed not to

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

Will George Galloway honour his Russia bet?

Ah, gorgeous George, the man so often on the right side of history. The rabble-rousing politician, who has had more parties than Boris Johnson, has been at it again in recent weeks, insisting that ‘the West provoked this crisis’ in Ukraine. Coincidentally, the former Labour MP also hosts a show on Moscow-backed network RT UK – previously better known as Russia Today. Galloway struck a bet earlier this month with a pro-Unionist Twitter account. Under the suggested terms of the deal, if Europe reached July without an invasion, Ukrainian soldiers killed in action or without any Ukrainian territory gained by Russia, the user in question would have to change their profile picture to

Wednesday

Darren Adam

The rise and rise of Moray Firth Radio

Moray Firth Radio turns 40 this week, a milestone that might not mean much outside the north of Scotland. But for those from the area that it serves (myself and the editor of this magazine among them), it’s quite a moment. MFR is a case study not just in successful British media innovation but how independent radio serves and even create communities. A project said to be too niche to succeed went on to become one of the most successful local radio stations in the UK. Therein lies a story. It’s a story that I was lucky enough to have a ringside seat to watch. MFR was started by passionate

Tuesday

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Is this Scottish anti-Brexit exhibition really ‘art’?

‘Hate is not welcome in Scotland’, apparently, at least according to a public information film released in 2018 by the Scottish government. ‘We believe in acceptance, and it’s time you accept that’ continue the bright-eyed young people featured in the ad. Anyone who believes in this uplifting message might be puzzled if they pop into the City Art Centre in Edinburgh, where a new exhibition by artist Rachel Maclean seems to be very short on acceptance for Brexit and the awful Brits who voted for it. ‘Native Animals’ is a set of paintings and video installations which, according to the blurb are ‘examining the various motivations behind Brexit and its

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

SNP try to hijack Ukraine crisis

‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’ said Churchill. And it seems the SNP have taken that maxim to heart, judging by the alacrity with which they’ve sought to exploit the current rumblings over Ukraine. Alyn Smith, the party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, was straight out there in a fuel-guzzling jet at the beginning of the month, accompanied by several party cronies who smelt an opportunity in the east. None of them have any role in UK government foreign policy whatsoever. Smith, a man who has never met a camera he didn’t like, duly clipped himself standing solemn in front of the country’s foreign ministry, gravely intoning about the ongoing crisis – as if the poor

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Greens enter Scexit pensions farce

Undeterred by the SNP’s agonies, the Scottish Greens have now decided to jump into the row about post-Scexit pensions. The indy-backing party, which props up Nicola Sturgeon’s government at Holyrood, has come out claiming that nervy Scots need not worry about their pensions being paid if the country voters for secession, according to one of its leading lights at the Scottish parliament. A not-so magnificent seven currently take the party whip up in Edinburgh; among them is Ross Greer, the charisma vacuum best known for hoping for the death of the-then critically ill Margaret Thatcher, for calling Churchill ‘a white supremacist mass murderer and declaring that ‘nothing would thrill me more

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

SNP Hate-Finder General’s new victim

If James Dornan did not exist, Mr Steerpike would surely invent him, for the SNP MSP for Glasgow Cathcart is so fantastically absurd that he supplies endless (and endlessly entertaining) copy. Dornan is in the news again, this time for pronouncing that the BBC’s Sarah Smith imagined the abuse and misogyny she experienced while covering Scottish politics. During her tenure as the Beeb’s Scotland Editor, Smith was turned into a hate figure by cybernats, the digital foot soldiers of Scottish nationalism who target opposition politicians, journalists and anyone else out of step with Nicola Sturgeon’s inclusive, progressive Scotland. Smith, who is heading to the US to become the BBC North

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

The SNP’s ‘Calamity Jeane’ keeps failing upwards

Rishi Sunak boasts about a post-Covid ‘jobs miracle’ but when it comes to performing wonders in the labour market, they’ve got nothing on the SNP. Jeane Freeman, former health secretary in Nicola Sturgeon’s devolved government, has been unveiled as the new Ambassador for Community Engagement, Public Health and Innovation at Glasgow University’s medical school. The university calls Freeman’s recruitment ‘a very welcome addition’ and says she will help with projects to ‘improve the health and lives of the people in Glasgow, Scotland and beyond’. It’s nice to see people trying something new at this stage in their working life. One wonders on what basis Glasgow Uni deemed Freeman the woman

Steerpike Steerpike

The SNP’s Kamasutra guide to pensions

Valentine’s day might have passed but the spirit of Kamasutra is still alive in one party at least. The many positions of the SNP’s finest on post-Scexit pensions has greatly amused Mr S in recent weeks, with Ian Blackford in particular appearing to be something of a tartan Tantric.  First, the Westminster leader claimed that ‘absolutely nothing’ would happen to the country’s state pensions if it voted for independence. Then he insisted that the ‘obligation‘ would be on Britain paying such a debt from some mythical accumulated pension fund. Blackford next reverted to the 2014 White Paper position and admitted the Scottish government would have to pay its pensioners.  His latest stance as of, er,

Thursday

Julie Bindel

Women-only carriages are a bonkers idea

Here we go again. Another suggestion, this time by the SNP transport minister, Jenny Gilruth, to introduce women-only carriages on public transport in order to address the ‘systemic problem’ of women feeling too scared to travel ‘because of men’s behaviour’. Does that mean it’s okay for men to sexually assault women in mixed carriages? Rather than addressing the fact that rape is obscenely under prosecuted in this country (with around 1 per cent of reported rapes ending in a conviction in England and Wales) the minister is following in the footsteps of the likes of Jeremy Corbyn in coming up with a bonkers idea to keep women safe. How about

Steerpike Steerpike

Just how impartial are the SNP’s Covid experts?

Those heading up Scotland’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic have had some well-documented trouble separating their fandom for Nicola Sturgeon from their public health role. Professor Devi Sridhar, a member of the Scottish Government’s Covid-19 Advisory Group, has made so many appearances in Steerpike she merits her own byline. Sridhar has previously gushed that: I truly believe … the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, whatever your opinion on politics, independence has tried to do a good job through this crisis. She has tried to brief the public, she has tried to message clearly, she has tried to listen to the scientists. Claiming that she is ‘fortunate to live in Scotland through

Steerpike Steerpike

Nicola Sturgeon’s pensions untruths

If Prince Harry really does want to stamp out ‘disinformation’ he ought to have a look at what’s going up in Scotland. Two of the SNP’s leading lights have claimed in recent weeks that Scottish pensions would be guaranteed in a post-Scexit nation, despite both the UK government and independent pension experts pointing out the opposite. And now the nationalist-in-chief, the great- greivance-merchant herself Nicola Sturgeon has decided to throw her weight behind the claim. In an interview last night with ITV’s Representing Borders programme, the First Minister said that, while she accepts ‘on an ongoing basis it will be for the Scottish government to fund Scottish pensions’ – a tacit rebuke to

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Nicola Sturgeon’s last laugh

I was delighted to discover that the University of Bristol has been advising students how to address those who identify as ‘catgender’. These are people who ‘strongly identify with cats’ or may have ‘delusions relating to being a cat’. Apparently these individuals ‘may use nya/nyan pronouns’. Nya is the Japanese word for ‘miaow’. I am not sure why they should use the Japanese word for miaow, rather than our own perfectly good word, although I understand that a lot of young people are very interested in certain aspects of Japanese culture, such as anime and manga (although not other aspects of Japanese culture such as discipline, deference and fortitude). Perhaps

Wednesday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Lock them up? Not in Sturgeon’s Scotland

One of the great disappointments of devolution has been the failure of the Scottish parliament to pursue novel ways of fixing political problems. Whether on educational attainment, health indicators, waiting times or economic development, it’s difficult to argue that Scotland under devolution is fundamentally different from how it would have looked had the country voted no in 1997. But one area where that observation is becoming harder to sustain is criminal justice: the SNP has grown in confidence in recent years and a more liberal — or at least a more nuanced — policy is taking shape. The SNP’s justice secretary Keith Brown set out the latest iteration of this

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

SNP councillor: ‘Prosecute Jimmy Carr’s audience’

Oh dear. It seems that the most illiberal party in Great Britain is at it again. In the nationwide haste to condemn the comedian Jimmy Carr for his remarks about the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community in his Netflix special, an elected councillor from (who else?) the SNP has called for prosecutions. Not just for Carr himself, mind you; Julie McKenzie, who sits on Argyll and Bute council, wants the many members of Carr’s audience prosecuted too for ‘applauding’ the remarks.  The show, called His Dark Material, was released on Christmas Day but received widespread attention last Friday after a clip was posted and shared online. Carr said:  When people talk about the

Sunday

John Ferry John Ferry

The book that shatters the SNP’s economic myths

There aren’t many whose name becomes part of the mythology of a nation while they are still alive. Gavin McCrone, author of After Brexit: The Economics of Scottish Independence, has inadvertently achieved this status. McCrone is an academic and a former chief economist to the Scottish Office. In 1974, he wrote an internal briefing paper for Scottish ministers outlining the economic potential of North Sea oil. McCrone thought ministers were underestimating the value of the resource and the positive impact it could have on the economy if extraction were managed successfully. His paper was designed to remedy that ignorance and was framed from a Scottish perspective and in the context

Friday

John Ferry John Ferry

Ian Blackford has exposed the SNP’s pensions muddle

Amidst the Downing Street psychodrama, have we missed the moment the reality of Scottish fiscal autonomy finally dawned on the SNP?  This week saw an extraordinary turn of events in London and at Holyrood. First there was an interview the SNP’s Commons leader Ian Blackford gave in which he stated the government of the remaining UK will be responsible for paying the Scottish state pension after a Scottish exit. The next day, Nicola Sturgeon was asked at First Minister’s Questions if the SNP’s position now really was that pensions in an independent Scotland would be paid by English taxpayers. Amazingly, she took the same brazen stance as Blackford. The Scots are going

Friday

John Ferry John Ferry

How long can the SNP ignore Scotland’s looming fiscal timebomb?

A new report from Holyrood’s finance and public administration committee is unusually blunt in its assessment. But is the SNP up to the task of dealing with Scotland’s looming fiscal time bomb? It seems unlikely. The Scottish government has given no signal of being serious about facing up to that challenge. Indeed, if anything, the ruling SNP-Green coalition has an incentive to make the budget situation worse. If so, Nicola Sturgeon can’t say she wasn’t warned. In its report scrutinising the Scottish government’s proposed budget for 2022/23, the committee says:  ‘We consider that evidence showing that Scotland is lagging behind almost all other areas of the rest of the UK in

Thursday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Asking about male inmates in women’s jails isn’t transphobic

One of the joys of living through a period of cultural revolution is watching all the new moralities arrive and declare themselves eternal truths. John Mason is learning this the hard way. Mason is the SNP MSP for Glasgow Shettleston, a Bible-believing Christian, something of a social conservative, and known for his mercurial views on evolution, the IRA, and his conviction that the island of Skye is not really an island. This time Mason is in trouble for more mainstream opinions, which is to say opinions that are mainstream among the general public and therefore hate crimes in the eyes of the governing class. On Wednesday, Mason used a ministerial

Tuesday

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Is Scotland really the most vaccinated part of the country?

‘Scotland right now is the most vaccinated part of the UK,’ said Nicola Sturgeon on the Sunday Morning show this weekend. And if you look at the UK dashboard figures that’s certainly true. A reported 92 per cent have had a first jab and 68 per cent are boosted compared to 91 per cent and 64 per cent in England. But are these numbers reliable? If you look at vaccination in certain age groups in Scotland the rollout has been impressive. In the over-50s, 101 per cent are vaccinated, restricted to over-70s it’s 103 per cent. More jabs than people. But how can more than 100 per cent of a