Tag Archives: Nicola Sturgeon

There’s a little woman I know who is from the Glasgow area and she always gets her own way. If there is a committee meeting she is aggressive. She interrupts. She tries to belittle the point of view of others. People avoid getting into an argument with her because rather …

Before finally deciding to campaign for Brexit, Boris Johnson prepared two articles for his regular Telegraph column. The first explained why he was choosing to vote Leave the other why he was choosing to vote for Remain. Many people would see this as a sign that his eventual decision was …

There is developing an extraordinary difference between Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon. It is impossible to imagine Nicola Sturgeon going to Washington and charming everyone she meets. While May has dignity, character, politeness and obvious intellect, Sturgeon simply doesn’t. May puts her points with force, but not with anger. She …

In Scotland it’s important that Pro UK people move beyond our disagreements.  Keeping up the pressure on the SNP requires us not to squabble among ourselves.  Whichever way we voted in the EU referendum it’s crucial that we learn the lessons of that campaign. Obviously Remain had good arguments that …

One of the best bits from Tim Shipman’s book “All out War” is when he describes David Cameron’s attempt to negotiate some sort of deal with the other EU leaders. The account feels already like another country as if we could look back on those days from a perspective of …

If you’ve ever played a card game that involves bluffing, you will no doubt be aware that it crucially depends on the players not being able to see each other’s cards. I can pretend that I have four aces only if my cards are hidden. This makes it possible for …

There is a stuffy consensus in Scotland. There always has been. Perhaps it has to do with the Presbyterian idea of the elect. We are exceptional. We are different. Wha’s like us. It makes our newspapers exceptionally dull, because almost no-one questions the assumptions which are shared even by political …

Many Scottish nationalists are impatient and permanently angry.  The hundreds of thousands who joined the SNP after losing the referendum in 2014 are both a blessing and a curse. Of course, they are better than the alternative. Remember when there was the idea that the SNP would somehow fade away …

How do we respond to the latest threat from the SNP to break up our country? We must respond in a variety of ways. One of them is humour. The gorillas are on the loose again beating their chests and drinking epic amounts of Ribena. This naturally makes them a …

Whichever fat fingered BBC technician “accidentally” substituted some film of a psychotic rampaging gorilla for the latest film of Nicola Sturgeon making threats deserves some sort of award. Give that man a Nobel Prize for services to humour. There is a long history in Britain of turning people like Sturgeon into …

There is a reason I’ve been writing so much since the EU referendum and with perhaps a higher intensity than before. I returned from holiday in early July only to find one of my friends and colleagues in absolute bits. I remember that whole period of uncertainty leading up to …

I posted on this site, after the Scottish Independence Referendum and UK’s 2015 General Election that Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon should ‘wind her neck in’.  That she had a sense of her own and her country’s importance to the United Kingdom which is far in excess of reality. Before …

The threat of a second Scottish Independence Referendum (IndyRef2), coming about as a result of the Brexit vote in the UK-wide EU Membership Referendum, is fallacy. It’s spin.  It’s deceitful.  It’s divisive.  It’s complete nonsense. There is no way we are either going to see a second Scottish Independence Referendum, …

This post is mainly aimed at the people of the UK and the leaders of EU countries. Firstly though, I have to say wow, just wow!  A referendum result that has made me very, very happy.  Even more happier than the result of the Scottish Independence Referendum.  Of course there …

What do you think is the life expectancy for a 21st century Scot?  According to official statistics,  the latest averages are 77.1 years for a man and 81.1 years for a woman. What about a ‘generation’.  How many years do you think that might be?  I reckon somewhere between 25 …