Alex salmond

[audioplayer src=’http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_6_February_2014_v4.mp3′ title=’Matthew Parris and Alex Massie discuss how Alex Salmond could wreck the Union even if he loses’ startat=55] Listen [/audioplayer]From a kind of torpor about this year’s Scottish referendum, Lord Lang of Monkton has roused me. You may remember Lord Lang as Ian Lang, a Scot who as MP for Galloway served Margaret Thatcher and John Major as a minister, under the latter both as Scottish Secretary and then President of the Board of Trade. A pleasant, steady and notably capable man, it was possible to imagine him as a potential Tory leader, but he stuck with John Major throughout. Last Thursday, Lang secured and led a Lords

Chuckle not, it exists. Wealthy Nation, a new grouplet formed by the eminent historian Michael Fry, is making the case that Scotland can be an admirably prosperous little country after independence provided, that is, she casts off the soft-left Caledonian consensus that remains wearily orthodox thinking north of the Tweed and Solway. Fry, whose new history of Scotland from Waterloo to Mons I commend to you without reservation, set out his case in The Scotsman earlier this month. If Scotland is to be free, she must be rich and she will not be rich unless her politics moves to the right. As he put it: On blogs and websites I

Alex Salmond might not wish to be compared to Gordon Brown but there is one sense in which the two dominant Scottish political personalities of the age are more alike than either would care to acknowledge: they each love a good dividing line. In Edinburgh yesterday Salmond announced that all pupils in their first three years of primary school would henceforth be entitled to a free school lunch. This, he claimed, would save parents £330 a year per child. A useful benefit for those parents whose offspring do not currently qualify for free meals; a means of ending, the First Minister suggested, the stigma presently endured by those children who

Today’s Sunday Times revives reports that senior Conservatives are concerned that Alex Salmond will prevail in next year’s referendum and that David Cameron will be the last British Prime Minister. Personally, I’d be concerned if they were not concerned – Salmond is a formidable late-stage campaigner and the ‘no’ side is, in effect, being led by the parties out of whom he made mincemeat in the last Scottish Parliament election. The future of our country is at stake: now is not the time to take anything for granted. Especially at a time when unionist parties in Scotland have been collectively spanked by a formidable and well-funded SNP campaign. But what

It turns out that Alex Salmond needn’t worry too much about the re-emergence of that pesky row about advice on an independent Scotland’s membership of the European Union. He’s got arguments that are far more powerful than all that to convince Scots of the value of independence. In the latest issue of Idea, a magazine produced by the Evangelical Alliance, two Christian MSPs set out their arguments in favour of and against independence. Both accept that there isn’t one Christian position on the subject, but the SNP MSP for Glasgow Shettleston John Mason does suggest that the Bible might have some wisdom on the matter – and it’s from as far

Earlier on today, I was asked by Angus MacNeil, a Scottish National Party MP if I would choose a Scottish or a British passport should they win the referendum. As he knows, the choice is anathema to those of us who are proud to be both Scottish and British and don’t see any antagonism that needs to be resolved by separation. SNP politicians, in my experience, are some of the nicest people in politics on either side of the border. Moderate, friendly, intelligent, open-minded, gentle: such decent types that you can end up being blinded to their agenda. Which is to destroy Britain, to force people to choose between being Scottish or British,

A mischievous question, I know, but one prompted by Janan Ganesh’s latest Financial Times column. It is eight years since David Cameron became leader of the Conservative party and three and a half since he became Prime Minister. He may only have 18 months left in either post. We know – or think we know – a lot about Cameron. He is what he seems to be. Decent fellow, capable in a crisis, unruffled. A better-than-average product of his class and background. Thought he should be Prime Minister because he reckoned he’d “be good at it”. And yet the thought nags: what is he for? What is Cameron’s ministry about? As Ganesh

When you look ahead to 2014, it is hard to escape the conclusion that two insurgent parties are making the political weather. The two big votes of the year are the European Elections, where Ukip may well top the poll, and the Scottish independence referendum, a product of the SNP’s Holyrood majority. The SNP and Ukip are both nationalist parties but they come from very different parts of the political spectrum. But what they have in common is that they have no desire to be part of a ‘consensus’ or be lauded as ‘responsible and respectable’. Instead, they stand passionately for what they believe in, unbothered—energised, even—by the contempt in which

Danny Finkelstein’s column in the Times today is characteristically elegant and incisive. In politics as in life he writes, “whatever apparent power and temptation lies with the adoption of the identity of victimhood it is ultimately destructive”. Since Finkelstein is pondering lessons that may be drawn from the life of Nelson Mandela it may not be immediately obvious that the conclusion he reaches has some relevance to the campaign for Scottish independence. I better elaborate, then. Much has been said about how and why Unionists need a better “narrative” when making the case for Scotland as part of the United Kingdom. This is true. There is a need for a positive, optimistic,

Hats-off to James Kirkup for noticing that Goldman Sachs have suggested they would “drastically” cut their UK workforce (and operations) should Britain decide to leave the European Union. That is the view of Michael Sherwood, the fellow responsible for running Goldman’s european operations. I am sure eurosceptics will dismiss this as the usual scaremongering just as Scottish nationalists dismiss warnings that some businesses (RBS?) might shift their operations south in the event Scotland votes for independence next year. This is but one of the many ways in which the european and Scottish questions overlap or dovetail with one another. Perhaps it is only scaremongering! But what if it isn’t? In any case, the Tory High Command

It is not surprising that the first Scottish opinion poll to be done since Alex Salmond published his White Paper on Independence last week would slip by almost unnoticed. After all, the attention of the Scottish media was somewhere else. It was focused, quite rightly, on events in Glasgow and the aftermath of the terrible helicopter crash there. As a result, the Progressive Scottish Opinion for the Scottish Mail on Sunday appeared and then, somewhat understandably, faded away quite quickly. It was a poll which, on most weekends, would have carried the front page for the paper. However, it was relegated to page 14 by the tragedy in Glasgow. It is,

It’s bad enough being lectured by politicians from Edinburgh or even London. That, I suppose, is to be expected however. Irritating but normal. It’s rather different when foreigners – real foreigners – decide to interfere in our own constitutional rammy. It smacks of impertinence. When that intervention comes from the leader – to put it in Sun-speak – of a nation of donkey-slaying, rock-coveting bankrupts it’s even less respectable. So the suggestion made yesterday by Mariano Rajoy, Prime Minister of what we still call Spain, that an independent Scotland would, by creating a new country, need to reapply for EU membership is hackle-raising stuff. You’re tempted to reply jog on, pal. Of course

‘When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another’, the best way of going about it probably isn’t to write a 670-page document and then snarkily deride journalists who point out the obvious holes in it. As an old romantic, vaguely sympathetic to the dream of Scottish independence, I have long suspected that the SNP leadership are the greatest hindrance to the separatist cause. Alex Salmond’s off-form, dull, dreary performance this morning only served to reconfirm that feeling. While separation is unlikely and potentially dangerous, increased devolution shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand. The ‘devo-max’