‘DON’T be a snob!”. Remarkably, this was the formal advice given by the University of Edinburgh to its students this week
THE Scottish Tories are feeling chipper this week after winning four local government by-elections caused by a slate of councillors being elected to Westminster. The party took council seats across the northeast in Fraserburgh, Buchan, Elgin City and Mearns ...
WE don’t talk a lot in Scottish politics about the power our judges wield. Direct attacks on the judiciary have become something of a hallmark of eurosceptic right-wing politics in Britain ...
ARE we heading for an early Holyrood election? On Wednesday, Rachel Reeves will present her long-deferred Budget statement to the House of Commons ...
I SOMETIMES wonder if the best way to bury a controversial story in Britain is to launch a full public inquiry into what happened...
JAMES Cleverly represents the constituency of Braintree. Write your own punchline. As the last “one nation” candidate crashed out of the Tory leadership contest this week, kippered by his own MPs, we’re left contemplating the interesting prospect of Robert Jenrick or Kemi Badenoch as the next leader of His Majesty’s Opposition in Westminster ...
‘MARK my words. It’ll be Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands next.”
ONE sentence in the recent Scottish Fiscal Commission’s report on the state of Scotland’s finances has been singled out for repetition ...
THERE’S a famous exchange towards the end of the play A Man For All Seasons. The setting is Tutor England, circa 1530. Sir Thomas More is on trial for his life for refusing to smile on King Henry VIII’s divorce and remarriage to Katherine of Aragon. The star witness against him is Sir Richard Rich ...
I THINK the Jesuits used to call it mental reservation. The rest of us know it as crossing your fingers. It has other good names too. Casuistry. Sophistry. Pettifogging. Being too clever
