Stephen Daisley

Stephen Daisley

Stephen Daisley is a Spectator regular and a columnist for the Scottish Daily Mail

Trump is making the world a safer place

Strength works. It’s a foreign policy lesson that sounds too simple to be true and too unequivocal to be wise, and yet there is much truth and a good deal of wisdom in it. Strength does not mean wanton thuggery or hubristic swagger, it must be considered, well-regulated and guided by reflection and sober analysis.

Stephen Fry could do with a lesson in ‘radicalisation’

Stephen Fry has accused J.K. Rowling of being ‘inflammatory and contemptuous’, ‘mocking’ and adding to ‘a terribly distressing time for trans people’. Fry, who narrated the Harry Potter audiobooks, has damned their author for saying ‘cruel’ and ‘wrong’ things and for failing to ‘disavow some of the more revolting and truly horrible, destructive – violently

How the SNP wrecked Scottish education

A small but not insignificant morsel of data on the state of education after 18 years of the SNP running Scotland. New figures show the gap between the poorest and wealthiest school leavers has widened to a five-year high. In the least deprived areas, just 3 per cent of school leavers fail to go to

Why is the US so reluctant to fight Iran?

MAGA (Make America Great Again) isolationists all agree: the United States must not be drawn into the Israel-Iran war. Donald Trump was not elected president to become entangled in pointless foreign conflicts. Over on Truth Social, Trump’s hokey-pokey routine continues – in, out, in, out, send the Fifth Fleet out? – and America Firsters despair

Israel’s Iran attack has done the West a favour

Israel’s overnight strikes on the Islamic Republic of Iran represent the initial salvo of what Jerusalem is calling Operation Rising Lion. In Genesis 49, Jacob tells his sons: ‘Judah is a lion’s cub/ from the prey, my son, you rise up/ He lies down and crouches like a lion/ like a lioness — who dares

How has the media wronged Nadiya Hussain?

Nadiya Hussain’s recipes have become staples in households across the country and acquired for the TV presenter and cookery writer the status of national treasure. However, her reaction to the BBC’s decision not to commission a new series from her leaves a bitter taste and prompts the thought that her secret ingredient all along might

Is Reform a right-wing party?

If the problem with Labour is that it believes in nothing, the problem with Reform is that it believes in everything. The dispute over the burqa is only the latest example. Few things unite supporters of Reform like opposition to benefits for anyone other than themselves In pushing Keir Starmer to ban the burqa ‘in

Scottish voters are tired of devolution

For some time now, I’ve been documenting a growing devoscepticism in Scotland, only to be assured, variously, that voters are not sceptical of devolution, that some are but their number isn’t growing, and that some are and their number is growing but it’s all just boomers and so it doesn’t matter anyway. It ought to

Hamilton is just the beginning for Reform in Scotland

In less than 72 hours, the polls will open in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse for a Scottish by-election like no other in recent memory. The Holyrood seat is located in the Central Belt, once unshakeably Labour and now firmly SNP. What makes this by-election so extraordinary is that Reform, a party which has never won

Is Reform trying to race-bait Scottish Labour’s leader?

Nigel Farage’s party is taking heat for a Meta ad it has run as part of the Hamilton, Larkhall & Stonehouse by-election. (The incumbent MSP, the SNP’s Christina McKelvie, died from breast cancer in March.) Reform is pushing its candidate, local councillor Ross Lambie, and claims it stands a chance of capturing the seat, which would have

Are there more Chagos-style surrenders to come?

Broadly speaking, there are two responses to Keir Starmer’s surrender of the Chagos Islands. The first is indignation. This is sovereign British territory and yet the Prime Minister has handed it over to a foreign country. The constitutional scholar Yuan Yi Zhu asserts that this decision ‘cannot be defended on any authoritative legal grounds’, and nor does it

This is what it means to ‘globalise the intifada’

‘Globalise the intifada,’ they chanted. This is what that looks like. Two Israeli embassy staffers gunned down as they left the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC. Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgram had been attending an event for young Jews working in foreign policy organised by the American Jewish Committee. One of the focuses

Scotland has no idea what to do about Reform

Reform continues to rise in Scotland and the Scottish political and media class continue either to ignore it or hold panicked summits on countering the ‘far right’. Thursday’s council by-election for Clydebank Waterfront, in West Dunbartonshire, saw Reform come second despite never having contested this ward before. The SNP proved the eventual victor in the seventh

Stephen Daisley

Why I changed my mind about multiculturalism

When Blackburn MP Adnan Hussain complains about an opponent believing ‘free speech means protecting the right to offend Muslims’, you feel an instinctive response gathering in your throat. You’re damn right it does. It means the right to burn the Qur’an, mock the Hadith and doodle cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed performing in a rainbow-flag hijab

The fight against assisted dying in Scotland is not over yet

Assisted suicide has cleared its first hurdle in the Scottish parliament, but there could be many more to come. On Tuesday evening, MSPs voted 70 to 56 to progress Liam McArthur’s Assisted Dying Bill. It would allow patients to request and be prescribed lethal drugs if they are diagnosed with an advanced, progressive and unrecoverable

Trump’s film tariffs will hurt, not help, Hollywood

Observers of the American film industry have been fretting about its prospects for almost as long as it has existed. They questioned its viability in the wake of television, bemoaned the impact of the studio system on creative freedom, lamented the rise of the blockbuster, wondered where the blockbuster had gone, and pronounced that streaming

The real bravery behind the India trade deal

The UK and India have finally inked a trade deal. This is, in principle, a good thing. Free trade can generate wealth, raise wages, and widen the skills market available to the signatories’ respective economies. As well as winners, however, free trade also creates losers.  An obvious loser from this deal is the British worker. Fresh

The Maggie Chapman saga is a new low for the Scottish Parliament

The Scottish Parliament’s equalities committee has voted against removing Green MSP Maggie Chapman as deputy convenor following her attack on the Supreme Court. The fight might not be over At a rally in Aberdeen in the wake of the judgment in For Women Scotland Ltd v. The Scottish Ministers, in which Lord Hodge found for a unanimous