
A university-visiting trip to Scotland afforded me the opportunity to take a quick look at the Scottish political landscape. Although my view will be dismissed as that of an ignorant Sassenach, Scottish politics seems to be only just recovering from a major car crash and has been dumped in A&E (for far too many hours)…

COMPETENCE ANYONE? Last week’s dominant headache was the collapse of the high-profile Chinese espionage case. Pressure landed on the CPS to explain itself; intelligence figures publicly signalled frustration and the story is now being treated less as legal process and more as a test of governmental competence. For a prime minister who built much of…

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE BAREFACED Nigel Farage waved his calculator around promising billions in “savings” from ripping up the UK’s “Right to Remain” while Keir Starmer tried to look statesmanlike by recognising Palestine. Meanwhile, HMG quietly admitted that its big anti-harassment law is still gathering dust. Add in grim inflation figures, a giant…

NEWS VS POLITICS Harold Macmillan was a wise old bird. His reply to a question about what he feared most: “Events, dear boy, events” neatly encapsulates how easy it is for politics to be knocked off course by news. Some days you set out to explain proposed NHS structural changes, you can instead get sandbagged…

BIG SHIFTS, BAD VIBES Britons feel like crap. This may result in some electoral desperation at the local and mayoral elections next week. Reform UK are capitalising on the sense of despair at “Broken Britain” and the apparent inability of mainstream politicians of all stripes to “grasp the nettle” and set out some possible solutions.…