Euan McColm

Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf is a politician with two settings. If he’s being asked about a difficult issue – the Police Scotland investigation into SNP finances, for example, or his government’s failure to deliver its policies – he does a reasonable approximation of sincerity, all soft voice and sad eyes. You can see the

When Nicola Sturgeon stepped down as First Minister of Scotland a year ago, she said she’d reached the conclusion that she could no further advance the cause of independence. It was time for a new leader with new ideas to energise the campaign to break up the United Kingdom. Responsibility for invigorating the separatist movement

Jason Leitch was a calm, reassuring presence in his almost daily TV appearances during the pandemic. But after an unedifying evidence session at the UK Covid Inquiry and revelations that Leitch deleted his Covid WhatsApps, the reputation of the national clinical director is in tatters. Now, he has announced his departure from his Scottish government

The Labour party has run into trouble in Scotland. It is planning to both raise and extend the windfall tax on the oil and gas sector, and industry chiefs aren’t happy. It’s an issue that is steadily gathering momentum and could prove damaging to the party’s chances north of the border. Last week, the Press

A year ago today, Nicola Sturgeon announced her resignation as SNP leader and First Minister of Scotland. The consensus was that her departure from the political frontline would be a blow to both her party and the wider Scottish independence movement. After almost nine years as First Minister, Sturgeon left office as a dominant figure

When the Scottish health secretary’s inevitable resignation came, there was no apology, no recognition that he had done anything wrong. Michael Matheson quit with all the arrogance we’ve come to expect from SNP politicians, jumping ship on Thursday morning before the findings of an investigation into his expenses claims were published. After it emerged last

Nicola Sturgeon’s memory is a fascinating and frustrating thing. At times, the former First Minister of Scotland’s powers of recall are quite remarkable. No detail escapes Sturgeonian examination, no nuance goes unnoticed. On other occasions, it fails her completely. Take her appearance, in March 2021, before a committee of MSPs investigating the Scottish government’s handling

The SNP’s much trumpeted policy of free university tuition allows ‘radicals’ to indulge their fantasies of Scotland as a fair and compassionate country. Nationalist politicians sell the scheme as a way of opening up higher education to those who might previously have been priced out of post-school study. The reality is that the wealthiest are

The SNP makes quite the fuss of its dedication to openness and transparency from political leaders. Voters deserve to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about those in power. And woe betide anyone who dares not to adhere to this principle. Take former prime minister, Boris Johnson, for example. During

When it comes to pomposity, nobody in Scottish politics can compete with SNP president Mike Russell. A great comic archetype in the tradition of Captain Mainwairing or Hyacinth Bucket, Russell combines a thwocking great dollop of self regard with a devastating lack of self-awareness. As such, it was hardly surprising to see Russell clamber up

Anyone paying close attention to television coverage of the King’s Speech on Tuesday may have noticed that SNP MPs in attendance looked as if their next appointment was a wedding reception, with white roses on their lapels. In fact, the Nats wear the rose in honour of poet Hugh MacDiarmid, a founder of the National

A great modern Scottish myth is that the handling of the coronavirus pandemic by government ministers in Edinburgh was vastly superior to that of their counterparts in London. This rather distasteful display of Scottish exceptionalism ignores the fact that where the UK government got things right, so did the Scottish and that, likewise, mistakes were

After the SNP won its first Holyrood election in 2007, foolish council leaders across Scotland rushed to sign up to what then finance secretary John Swinney described as a ‘historic concordat’. In return for Swinney pulling back from his threat to centralise education, Scotland’s 32 local authorities agreed to uphold the nationalists’ promise to freeze

SNP members really are the cheapest dates in UK politics — they’ll lap up any old swill dished out by their leaders. After the Yes campaign in the 2014 independence referendum was defeated, the nationalist faithful unquestioningly accepted repeated promises from Nicola Sturgeon that they’d soon have a second chance — and that, this time,

Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf has his flaws as a politician but when it comes to the brutal attacks on Israel by Hamas terrorists, his response has been clear, dignified and – given his family’s current circumstances – courageous. Yousaf has risen to the moment. The SNP leader’s parents-in-law, Elizabeth and Maged El-Nakla of Dundee,

The SNP has never been noted for its capacity for self-reflection. Each and every time it suffers defeat, it plays the card marked victimhood. Dark forces, rather than its own incompetence, are aways to blame when things don’t go to plan. The SNP has reacted to defeat in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election with

When the Scottish writer Gillian Philip posted a tweet in 2020, she could not have imagined the devastating consequences that would follow. At the time, her fellow author JK Rowling was under relentless attack for her view that a conflict exists between women’s right to use single sex spaces, such as refuges, and moves to

There is no problem in Scottish society for which the SNP will not try to apportion at least some of the blame to ‘Westminster’. The brave Scottish nationalist does his best in the face of endless obstacles placed in his way by malign unionist forces. But only independence will allow him the freedom to address