Iain Macwhirter
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It’s Scotland’s Waste
It’s Scotland’s Waste. Labour think they have scored a direct hit on the SNP’s nuclear policy, and they may be right. But Jack McConnell may also have deepened Labour’s own divisions over energy policy. Last week, the SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon insisted that an SNP government would not use the national deep waste repository in … Continue reading
Stern warnings
28/10/06 “We are sleepwalking to catastrophe” said the Environment Secretary, David Miliband, last week in the latest dire warning about climate change. He is wrong. We aren’t sleepwalking; we are walking towards catastrophe fully awake, with our eyes wide open. There is no longer any significant dispute about the scientific evidence for global warming. Even … Continue reading
But who wants an English parliament
26/10/06 The redoubtable Canon Kenyon Wright threw a tartan cat among the constitutional pigeons this week by backing calls for an English Parliament. Canon Kenyon is an Episcopalian cleric who led the Scottish Constitutional Convention in the 1980’s which demanded – and eventually got – “Scotland’s Claim of Right” to a degree of national sovereignty. … Continue reading
We can’t allow Scotland to become racist by default
24/10/06 Now here’s a funny thing. Ask Scottish MPs and MSPs what issue is most on the minds of their constituents right now and a surprising number will say immigration. Yes, race is right up there with drugs and hospital closures. Many Scots believe there are too many incomers and that they are taking our … Continue reading
Tony Soprano
19/10/06 The more you hear about the sordid soap opera that was Labour government in the early years of this century, the more it sounds like a version of the Sopranos – except that the New Jersey Mafiosi were at least able to keep their mouths shut. Not only did most of them, from the … Continue reading
Salmond leaps
15/10/06 Who would have thought that the SNP would stage the most successful party conference of the entire season? Labour were at war with themselves, the Liberal Democrats shell-shocked ,and the Tories accident prone. The nationalists, by contrast, seemed united, confident, businesslike, purposeful. Hasn’t always been so. I have been to too many nationalist conferences … Continue reading
Madness at the top
14/10/06According to David Blunkett’s diaries, the Prime Minister told cabinet sceptics in February 2003 that “the management hadn’t lost its marbles” on the eve of the Iraq invasion. But it was clearly a few balls short of a full bag. Any sane UK administration mighthave wondered what it was getting itself into when the Americans … Continue reading
Unilateralism works
The invasion of Iraq has demonstrated not the strength of America and its allies but their profound weakness. With the “world’s policeman” held down by a few thousand insurgents in Iraq, the bad guys of the world have seen their chance and taken it. Iran will surely be next. If for no other reason than … Continue reading
Bomb Kim Now
We should surely invade North Korea without delay. It possesses the power to detonate a nuclear device but hasn’t yet developed a delivery system. The world surely cannot allow a ruthless dictator, with expansionist ambitions and little concern for the welfare of his people, to hold the world to nuclear ransom. Like a madman with … Continue reading
So now we know; they really are mad
According to David Blunkett’s diaries, the Prime Minister told cabinet sceptics in February 2003 that “the management hadn’t lost its marbles” on the eve of the Iraq invasion. But it was clearly a few balls short of a full bag. Any sane UK administration mighthave wondered what it was getting itself … Continue reading
Iain Macwhirter 