It wasn’t all that long ago. They were the ‘SNP heartlands’ and we seemed unassailable. When I was first elected in 2001 the SNP at…
THE OPTIMUM CONDITIONS FOR INDYREF SUCCESS
It now looks like a second referendum is set to dominate our Depute Leadership contest and I believe that is a good thing. We are…
WE MUST CONDUCT OUR DEBATE WITH RESPECT
Well that’s been quite a couple of days…. In the last few days I’ve been called a ‘poster boy’ for the ultra unionist group Scotland…
PRAGMATISM MUST UNDERPIN OUR APPROACH TO A 2nd REFERENDUM
There is only one thing that determines my approach to a second independence referendum and that is winning it. Losing again is simply unthinkable and…
TIMING IS EVERYTHING
I know it’s a crudely constructed piece of history more designed for Hollywood than Holyrood but I love Braveheart. My favourite part is when the…
TOWARDS AN INDEPENDENCE 2.0
WITH all the many things said about the anniversary of the referendum it’s hard to believe that the case for independence was crafted some five…
FEDERALISM
Jeremy Corbyn’s been back in Scotland and that can only mean a renewed debate about federalism in the UK. Where there’s been talk of a…
NATIONALISM
With an international interest in what is described as ‘nationalism’ it should be no surprise that Scottish ‘nationalism’ is once again being forced in to…
PROJECT FEAR 2 – THE COMEBACK….
And so it begins. ‘Greece without the sun’, ‘turbo charged austerity’, ‘deficit of £15 billion pounds’. These are the opening salvos in the pre-indyref campaign…
THE NEXT UNION CAMPAIGN WILL BE FULL FRONTAL BELLIGERENT AND AGGRESSIVE
The next union campaign is not going to be pretty. This is a battle that the Tories really do not want to fight and the…