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![]() Brian TaylorBBC |
In government, confidence counts. To be blunt, seldom has a Chancellor appeared so ill at ease and disquieted as Rachel Reeves delivering her Spring...
Competitive discourse is the very soul of democratic politics. We now have two decidedly different debates north and south of the Border, founded...
As I mentioned on the wireless this week, churn is inevitable and indeed welcome in politics. Either by choice or at the hands of the voters. Better...
From the past. An unexploded World War Two bomb forces the closure of the Gare du Nord in Paris. The present. Russian missiles assail Ukraine’s...
For his Washington talks, Sir Keir Starmer confronted a question which is presently puzzling global leaders – and indeed the citizenry. How to...
All this weekend, Anas Sarwar MSP gets to experience the thrill of Scottish Labour’s annual conference. Among friends and comrades. Mostly. What...
In Munich, nurses tend the injured. Police investigate the suspect, a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker. Politicians speculate over the impact this...
Let us, for a moment, try to see the world as Donald Trump sees it. He may be driven by self-belief – or, perhaps, self-delusion – but he remains...
Phrase of the week? Has to be “common sense”. The leitmotif of our anxious age: a glib attempt by political leaders to advance their emotive...
It was, in the end, a limp and whimpering retreat. Embarrassing for the Minister, Maree Todd, left to proclaim the end of the National Care Service....
Churn is vital in democratic politics. It is right and good that, when the people have spoken, the powerful respond. By departing office, if they are...
According to taste, we await the pending event with apprehension, open-mouthed astonishment or dull indifference. The second Presidential inauguration...
Stand alongside me this Yuletide period and let us ponder. Which of our Scottish political leaders is gleefully greeting Santa? And which is...
In tendering advice about the “play within a play”, Hamlet counselled “reform it altogether”. The gloomy Dane was speaking satirically. However, in...
Will it endure? That was decidedly an astute budget this week. But will it last? Will the structure sustain, both economically and politically?...
Let me ask you this. Do you feel an enhanced stirring of patriotic pride with the advent of this St Andrew’s Day. No? Mostly, I would imagine you...
Democracy, Churchill satirised, is “the worst form of government” – except, that is, for all the other systems that have been tried. The...
Recently, I chanced to be, once again, in the great and noble city of Dundee, drawn primarily by a sporting engagement at Tannadice. I took the...
If you are of a certain age, it is said that you can remember where you were when you learned that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. (Me, I...
There are few things worse in politics than your opponent agreeing with you. Nothing is so exasperating as the sanctimonious, insincere smile of...
As of this weekend, the pre-Budget shadow boxing continues. Between the front benches at Westminster. And between the UK and Scottish governments....
Perhaps it escaped your notice but this week Westminster embarked upon a project which was billed as “the largest constitutional reform to the UK...
So how has it been for you? The first 100 days? Of the new Labour government? What’s that? You couldn’t care less? OK, so it doesn’t really matter....
Our planet progresses, if at all, through decency and dignity. We advance, if at all, through trade, shared knowledge and co-operation....
Two quick questions on this quarter-centenary for the Scottish Parliament. What will Russell Findlay stand for as the new Scottish Conservative...
It was, I presume, intended to be a Bad Cop / Good Cop routine. Shona Robison, as Finance Secretary, was detailed to alarm us with talk of spending...
Where are the songs of spring? Good question. For the SNP, at their autumn conference, the anthems are somewhat muted by bruising defeat and...
As is my annual custom, I have by now absorbed a few fragments of the gloriously gargantuan Edinburgh Festivals – International, Book and Fringe....
It has long struck me that the games of our youth are adaptable to politics. For example, Hide and seek reminds us of the occasionally evasive...
Put yourself in their place for a moment. Terrified refugees, lodging in an English city, a raucous, aggressive mob at the door, intent on violence...
A platitude, I know, but to govern is to choose. Frequently, political choices are influenced or determined by external factors. That is...
Political choice is not driven solely by individuals, however powerful. Still less by party manifestos, issued to content the electorate....
Other than Burns, Scott and Carroll, my favourite comment upon the human condition comes from the French thinker, Voltaire. He had his character...