Getting the measure of Johnson

Boris Johnson’s declarations of humility, or rather shamility, lasted as long as it took for Tory MPs to shuffle out of the Commons and coo over an elderly royal. The real scandal here, according to Glasgow Tory group leader Thomas Kerr, is not that his party is led by a serial…

The graywash

The long awaited Sue Gray report has finally been published. As was widely predicted, the report detailed a catalogue of shockingly bad behaviour which the Prime Law-Breaker presided over in Downing Street. And as equally widely predicted, Johnson mugged his way through a performative apology and lied about taking full responsibility…

Flags, fetes and fascism

When I first saw the photo on social media I thought it was a fake, a mock up created by some user in order to make a point about the slide of Britain into authoritarianism and outright fascism. But sadly, it was all too real. The photograph of Regent Street in…

The English dreaming of Peter Hitchens

Peter Hitchens, the conservative contrarian who hates to be called a contrarian, has decided that Brexit isn’t enough to restore greatness to England as it still leaves England encumbered with Scotland and Wales, countries which he appears to see as lesser nations which sap the glory that rightfully belongs to England…

The elephant and the bin bag

In an earlier piece this week I remarked that the current behaviour of Satan’s little helpers the DUP, following their historic defeat in the recent Northern Irish Assembly elections demonstrated the fundamentally undemocratic nature of British nationalism in both Scotland and Northern Ireland. British nationalism is a dogma which disguises itself…

Stephen Kerr’s permapoplexy

Holyrood’s resident gammonista gum-bumper has been at it again. Scottish Tory list MSP Stephen Kerr, a B-movie version of a James Bond baddie, is one of those middle class right wing British nationalist heterosexual white men who are convinced that the world is eager for their hot takes on all and…

The banquet of consequences

Boris Johnson visited Northern Ireland on Monday to meet with the parties elected to Stormont after last week’s elections which saw a historic victory for Sinn Fein. For the first time since the British carved Northern Ireland out of Ireland with borders drawn in such a way as to guarantee a…

The state pantomime of Parliament

This week we had the spectacle that is the state opening of the Westminster Parliament in which elderly men and women raided the dressing up box and bedecked themselves in fancy costumes. The vast majority of the Lords and Ladies in their ermine robes and coronets are no more lords or…

The bonkeroony Michael Gove

Some of you may have had the immense misfortune to witness Michael Gove’s, eh, let’s call it a “performance” on the BBC Breakfast news on Wednesday morning. Readers of a certain age may remember Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks, way back when John Cleese was still funny. The Secretary of…

The fragility of this so-called union

There are long term and short term lessons to be drawn from last week’s elections. In the short term, there are now serious questions about the position of Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross, who pins the blame for the catastrophic performance the Scottish Tories at last week’s local elections on Boris…

The elections that brought independence a step closer

The dust is settling from last week’s local government elections, and it’s clear that they delivered very good results for the two largest pro-independence parties with both the SNP and the Greens gaining seats. Although the Labour party has been excitedly hailing its great success, the truth is that they did…