Michael Hance

After the UK election, establishment commentators like Andrew Marr were talking about ten years of Starmer government. Content with the apparent resumption of normal service, they have dispensed with whatever critical faculties they once had.  Starmer was elected on the flimsiest of prospectuses. Barely a fifth of the population of England voted Labour and the party offered little more than a one word slogan as its programme for government. And since Rachel Reeves has outlined her spending plans, we’ve discovered that the change they’re going to deliver is change for the worse, especially if you’re a pensioner living in Scotland.  The real problem for LabourRead More →

I’m writing this before the results are in and am faced with the difficult task of predicting the election and analysing what it means.  One thing is certain it’s not going to be the best election for the SNP but it’s not going to be any kind of catastrophe either. The party is polling in the 30s and is forecast to win a minimum of 15 seats. Many constituencies are on a knife edge and a lot will depend on local campaigns and turnout.  This is peak Labour after all, the highest their support is going to be. Scotland is always caught in the gravitationalRead More →

Starmer promises a ‘Great British Energy’ company headquartered in Aberdeen while Sunak wants more of our oil and gas to be extracted.  It’s a step forward for the UK political leaders to acknowledge Scotland’s role as an energy producer after decades of pretending our vast resources were worthless. The hypocrisy goes unremarked upon by the MSM, of course, since they’ve been largely complicit in the half century long deception.  Starmer and Sunak can make any number of pledges to Scottish voters but the only people with the power to make these effective are the English electorate. If they choose Sunak that’s who we’ll get andRead More →

Tony Blair came into power on a wave of optimism in 1997. The desire for change was overwhelming. Voters were fed up with Major and wanted the end of 18 years of Tory rule. Of course, we in Scotland had never backed the Conservatives but the end finally came when even middle class voters in southern England couldn’t thole them any longer.  Blair arrived at the start of a period of economic expansion. There was growing confidence and a huge consumer boom. Scottish voters gave their enthusiastic support to New Labour returning scores of Labour MPs to Westminster. Contrary to what some would like toRead More →

In the Joint Declaration on Peace issued on 15 December 1993 the UK government stated that it had no ‘selfish strategic or economic’ interest in Northern Ireland.  Westminster certainly isn’t getting the kind of economic or strategic benefits from Northern Ireland that it gets from Scotland but it’s not certain that they are ready to give up the territory quite yet.  When the DUP finally got round to accepting the results of the last Northern Ireland Assembly elections in February, the British press was full of articles assuring its readers that a united Ireland was never going to happen.  Contrary to its usual complete disinterest,Read More →

The UK msm are determined to pretend the DUP refused to go into the NI government because they were against post Brexit trading arrangements. The truth is they wouldn’t go into government because Sinn Féin won the election.  They refused to accept the result because of what it revealed about the changing nature of Northern Ireland and their place in it. They couldn’t bear the prospect of playing second fiddle to people they consider to be their social and ethnic inferiors. And they can’t accept what SF’s win says about the future of Ireland. Whatever deal they’ve agreed to it’s unquestionable they’ll find a wayRead More →

The recent King’s Speech didn’t include any reference to legislation restricting councils in England from introducing 20mph zones. Sunak had jumped on the Uxbridge by election result believing that it showed that there were voters so exercised by efforts to reduce traffic emissions that it could be turned into a vote winning issue if it was effectively weaponised.  The problem for Sunak is that opinion polling and focus group sampling shows that Tory voters are amongst the most vigorous supporters of restrictions on traffic speeds – especially in the areas they live. Fast cars are fine but not in the leafy suburbs. So the policyRead More →

Rishi Sunak pretends to be a new broom sweeping away the 13 years of incompetent government. There are reports that his HS2 policy is meant to signal to the electorate a new approach.  It and the lies about cancelling policies based on social media conspiracy theories show just how desperate the UK government has become. They’ve run out of ideas, they’ve run out of money and they offer nothing but trumped up culture war issues to appeal to their GB news watching base.  The problem is that most voters aren’t interested. Inflation, housing and the contraction of public services will always be the focus ofRead More →

For old school Scottish Nationalists, Winnie Ewing was a constant presence. I was only 4 when she won the Hamilton by-election in 1967 but still I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t aware of her.  Somehow – even in those days where news and opinion came principally in printed form – a very young boy living in a little village in Morayshire knew about this remarkable woman.  When I was in first year at secondary school I recall we were set a task by our English teacher: we had to write a short description of someone we admired, read it out to our classmates and thenRead More →

Our neighbours across the sea in the Nordic countries will be heading en masse to their summer cottages over the next couple of weeks. If you visit Helsinki round about midsummer you’ll find a city as quiet as Christmas. Shops are shut, cafes and restaurants are closed or empty, and in the streets almost no one is about. The vast majority of Helsinkilaiset are off to the country to celebrate the long summer days.  Like us, Nordic people endure long dark winters. Months of mirk, days which don’t stretch much further than 3.30, and enforced detention in the house. Their response to that is to make the most of theRead More →