Iain Macwhirter
Labour
Could Keir govern without the SNP? There’s just a chance thanks, er, to the SNP
The run up to the 2024 general election, if calamity Truss makes it that long, is going to be dominated by one question: can Keir Starmer win an absolute majority or will it have to do a deal with Nicola Sturgeon? The SNP currently commands 48 seats and is the third force in UK politics. … Continue reading
Corbyn should be a huge headache for the SNP. So why isn’t he?
What is it about the Scottish Labour Party that it seems incapable of recognising an opportunity for renewal when it presents itself? South of the border, Labour is being remade by a grassroots revolution of precisely the kind that gave the SNP its landslide election victory. Yet ,Labour’s only Scottish MP, Iain Murray, has … Continue reading
Cybernats are playing into Jim Murphy’s hands.
During the referendum campaign, Better Together was adept at exploiting the intemperate language used by some supporters of independence on the internet. The outpourings of the so called “cybernats” against JK Rowling, Jim Murphy and the Queen were handed to a willing press who hung them around the neck of the Yes campaign. This was … Continue reading
In defence of the 1970s
Is politics back in fashion? People like me have been moaning for years about how all the parties are the same at Westminster, crowding the centre ground and pursuing synthetic focus group policies. But after this week, just maybe, things have changed. Between Ed Miliband and David Cameron, a gulf in policy and ideology has … Continue reading
"Red Ed" is trying to make capitalism work.
From Herald, 26/9/13 Reaction to Ed Miliband’s plan to freeze energy prices has been, well, electric. Energy UK warned of “black-outs”; Centrica said it might go out of business; press commentators accused “Red” Ed of taking Britain back to the bad old 1970s of price controls, shortages and nationalisation. I suspect most consumers, this … Continue reading
How many nations was that Ed?
How many nations was that, exactly? Ed Miliband borrowed the tailcoat of Benjamin Disraeli this week to pronounce his faith in “one nation”. Constitutional pedants (like me) might have pointed out that there are actually two nations in the United Kingdom, Scotland and England. Oh, and one of them might be about to … Continue reading
A Very Civil Partnership.
It was like a crazy dream, a comic fantasy. Nick and Dave hugging on the doorstep of Number Ten. Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of the UK. As the day wore on my fingers were numb from pinching myself. There they stood among the foliage of the Downing St rose garden, joking … Continue reading
Why is unemployment not an election issue?
On Wednesday I was sitting staring into space, wondering what I was going to write about this week. The press were preoccupied with mounting debt, and the creeps at Strathclyde Passenger Transport circumnavigating the globe at our expense. Then my phone rang. It was a BBC producer wondering if I would come and talk about … Continue reading
Do the Blairites want Labour to lose?
“Out of the night that covers me; Black as the Pit from pole to pole; I thank whatever gods may be; For my unconquereble soul”. Those who’ve been speculating about the Prime Minister’s state of mind had further material yesterday in those lines from “Invictus” by the High Victorian poet William E Henley, which Gordon … Continue reading
Iain Macwhirter 