My mum is not doing any better. She’s not really conscious any more. They are giving her strong painkillers and sedatives to keep her comfortable but are no longer giving her any other treatment. We are going to see her this afternoon. I fear it’s only a matter of time now…

I need to step away from the blog for a while. As regular readers may be aware, my mum is battling stage four cancer – ocular melanoma. My mum told me many months ago that she was happy for me to discuss her health on the blog. The latest news is…

I’ve been preoccupied with a family emergency involving my mother’s health, which has taken a sharp turn for the worse, so I’ve been too distracted to sit down and write a piece about recent political developments. However, on the basis that the best thing to do right now is find something…

We are facing a serious political crisis. The next Westminster general election is four years away, given the size of Starmer’s majority in the Commons it would require a rebellion of unprecedented magnitude to unseat him. Despite the rumblings of discontent from Labour’s left wing old guard, there is little likelihood…

We need to brace ourselves for the very real and alarming prospect that the frothing über-yoons of Reform UK come in second in next week’s Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse Holyrood by-election. I dislike the pejorative term yoon as a rule, but in the case of Reform UK it’s fully warranted. It’s…

The Guardian newspaper has reported that Labour’s “flagship child poverty policy” has been delayed until at least the autumn, pushing tens of thousands more children into poverty in the meantime. It was because this policy was supposed to be unveiled in a few months that the Labour party justified voting against…

Readers of this blog will know that I am not in the business of defending Anas Sarwar, the Scottish branch manager of the Labour party. There is a multitude of reasons for legitimately criticising him, his frequent and many lies, his willingness to spin on a sixpence in order to justify…

It is now less than a year to the next Scottish Parliament elections and once more social media screen space is being consumed with arguments about tactical voting in the regional list vote. Every time there’s a Scottish election this argument comes up, even though tactical voting on the regional list…

The fall out continues over Keir Starmer’s gob-smacking speech on immigration on Monday in which he echoed the language of the notoriously racist “rivers of blood” speech delivered by Enoch Powell in 1968 to a meeting of the Conservative Political Centre in Birmingham. At the time Powell was the Shadow Secretary…

The unpalatable truth for Labour supporters, that is those who adhere to the traditional values and beliefs of the Labour party as they were understood throughout the entire twentieth century, is that the Labour party they believed in is dead. It’s deader than the parrot in the famous Monty Python sketch…

You may have seen that a poll on support for Scottish independence was published this week. The headline figures on the poll, carried out by Survation, put No ahead on 44%, with Yes on 43% and undecided on 12%. When the undecideds were stripped out, this gave a result of 50.57%…

Former Herald columnist Iain MacWhirter has completed his journey from semi-detached sympathiser with Scottish independence – although he never fully abandoned his delusional hopes of a federal UK – to fully fledged cheerleader for the British establishment. MacWhirter always used to position himself as one of those “critical friends” that the…

Britain is broken, and sadly things are going to get much worse. Indeed there is currently no clear route to a UK which is more just, more humane, and more equitable. Even the drubbing that the Labour party received at the local elections in England on 1 May do not seem…

I got my review pack for Adult Disability Payment. It was very quick and easy to fill in. I checked the box confirming no changes to my condition and sent back the form with a copy of a letter written by my occupational therapist when I was discharged which confirms that…

I had planned to write a blog article on Wednesday despite the fact I am struggling with a bad cold and hayfever simultaneously. It’s a joy. However instead I had to sort out what is going on with my review for Scottish Adult Disability Payment, which was supposed to have started…