Stephen Daisley is a Spectator regular and a columnist for the Scottish Daily Mail
The Catalan Parliament has voted for a unilateral declaration of independence from Spain. President Carles Puigdemont had toyed with taking the decision but in the end left it up to the legislature. It is now not a question of Madrid deposing him; it will have to shut down the whole operation. Direct rule is all
If democracy is government by the people and meritocracy by the most able, Brexitocracy is rule by charlatans. Anyone who doubts that should survey the limp justifications, weaker than the Labour vetting process, for Chris Heaton-Harris’s letter to vice-chancellors. The Eurosceptic MP wrote to universities and asked if they wouldn’t mind drawing up a list of names
The enduring image of the fall of Kirkuk is the Humvee. The advancing Iraqi forces rolled into the Kurdish-held city in them and the outflanked Peshmerga clambered aboard them to flee. The US-manufactured military truck is the vehicle of choice for America’s friends in conflict with America’s other friends. Humvees retail for £170,000 but the
Donald Trump and the United Nations don’t appear to have much in common. Trump is loud, angry, insular, lumpen and uncultured. The UN is caring, sharing, virtuous, and busy saving the world from war, famine and disease. But they do share something important: they are both worms in an apple. Trump is a statist hollowing
Donald Trump’s approval ratings have dropped in every single state. He has failed to repeal Obamacare, build a wall or move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Trump has also lost his chief strategist, chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, four communications aides, three security advisers, an FBI director, a US attorney, a cabinet
It’s over 150 years since John Stuart Mill called the Conservatives the stupid party and in every one of those years they have worked hard to live up to that assessment. Grant Shapps’ abortive leadership coup is the latest example of Tory idiocy. After Theresa May did herself a mischief in Manchester, Shapps scarpered over
Boris Johnson came to Tory conference to do two things. First, he had to win back the Tory grassroots from the floccinaucinihilipilificating ways of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Moggmentum rises and falls with the willingness of the faithful to indulge blithe theatrical Toryism at the expense of sense and good judgement. Second, he had to address his own
How do you make the world sympathise with lawbreakers and subversives? Act the way the Spanish government has over the referendum in Catalonia. In sending in the police, nightsticks-a-swinging, Madrid has supplied a textbook example of how not to deal with secessionists. The scenes in the Spanish region are horrific, both in their violence and
Are you considering a career in Labour politics but fear you may be left behind amid all the exciting changes the party is undergoing? Maybe you want to be a part of the Jez revolution but can’t get your head around the ever-developing terminology. Perhaps you are eyeing up a safe seat but aren’t sure
The people’s flag is even deeper red in Scottish Labour, where the daggers are plunging in all directions amid a bloody leadership battle. Interim leader Alex Rowley has been secretly recorded admitting he backs left-wing candidate Richard Leonard, despite promising to remain neutral in the contest. It comes barely a week after Rowley’s turn as Fife’s answer
Eight days. That’s how long you have left to enjoy Uber if you live in the capital. Transport for London, a body that should really replace ‘for’ with ‘against’, says it will not renew Uber’s operating licence when it expires on September 30. It’s a victory for the cabbie lobby, which cannot match the private
The SNP’s Fiona Hyslop is not an obvious candidate to lead a cultural revolution. The Scottish Government’s Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs is more Nicola Murray than Nicola Sturgeon. Hyslop has a permanent look of terror that someone might ask her a question but she’s harmless enough. Stick a few flags and
A report suggesting that the £414m Scottish Parliament building could reach the end of its ‘useful life’ by 2060 – after just 45 years – provides the perfect metaphor for the state of devolution in 2017: a parliament that has been noticeably reluctant to use its powers in the last decade slapped with a ‘use by’ date. Irony can
A new report on anti-Semitism in Britain makes uncomfortable reading all round. The study, a joint enterprise by the Community Security Trust and the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, is an in-depth exploration of anti-Jewish attitudes, the role of animus towards Israel, and the prevalence of prejudice in 2017. It is a sober analysis and
Eleven months on from foisting her second grabby megalomaniac on the United States, Hillary Clinton has resurfaced. Not to apologise for losing the presidency to an angry hairpiece who mimicked the disabled for laughs at campaign rallies — no, Clinton has a book to spruik. What Happened is published by Simon & Schuster and will
Twenty-nine years ago this month, the Vote Leave campaign got underway. Nigel Farage was still making his anti-establishment way as a City broker and a young Michael Gove was heading northwards to work on the Aberdeen Press and Journal. Instead, it was the founder of the movement who did the honours. Margaret Thatcher travelled to
It is the gripe of every end-of-the-bar bigot you meet. ‘Look, I’m not saying there isn’t any racism but there can’t be as much as they claim. They exaggerate it. This isn’t me saying this, by the way. I know loads of black lads who say the same. They’re just milking it. It stands to
If you haven’t been keeping up, it’s okay to judge a woman on her appearance again. The latest public figure to learn about feminism’s part-time hours is Melania Trump. The First Lady and her husband were photographed on Tuesday as they made their way to the scene of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. But the talking point
Donald Trump’s decision to pardon Joe Arpaio — his first exercise of the Article II prerogative — is not an act of mercy. It does not mend, it provokes. It neither asks for remorse nor enjoins an expression of regret from the recipient. It sets a man who offended society’s laws above the society that tried to
Say what you like about the Tories but cutting immigration by 100,000 in a single day is impressive. To think Jeremy Corbyn says this government isn’t delivering. Until now, official figures put the number of students overstaying their visa in the UK at 100,000. An update from the Office for National Statistics confirms critics’ suspicions
