Nicola sturgeon

If any one still doubts the merits of Britain controlling its own borders, look to Germany, says the Daily Telegraph. While it’s true that we still don't know who was responsible for this week’s devastating attack on a Berlin Christmas market, ‘Germany has already suffered fatal terrorism facilitated by the EU’s failure to control its borders,’ the paper says. The Telegraph goes on to say that, after Brexit, Britain will be able to renew its commitment to the ‘first duty of a state’ - ensuring ‘people’s security’. And all the signs of Theresa May’s leadership so far suggests the country is in good hands.

The SNP is consistently criticised for failing to close the achievement gap between the best and worst Scottish state schools. After nine years in control of education, the latest statistics from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) underline just what a failure the SNP has been when it comes to education; this year, Scottish schoolchildren recorded their worst ever performance in the international survey. While policy-makers in England are looking at the next wave of reforms to follow the ongoing free schools revolution, things north of the border are rather different. In Scotland, the new Cabinet Secretary for Education, John Swinney, has ruled out any change which would involve removing schools from the control of local councils. This is a mistake.

As is traditional, St Andrew's Day will be marked in the proper style by expatriate Scots gathering to bless what they’ve left behind. For most of the rest of us it’s just another dreich November day. There is something cheering about this and at least we have spared ourselves the tomfoolery that’s made St Patrick’s day such a toe-curling embarrassment. Still, that’s not to say the day passes without interest. For instance, the Times today publishes a YouGov poll indicating that support for independence is, broadly speaking, back where it was in September 2014. Just (sic) 44 percent of Scots would vote for independence if given the chance tomorrow.  It must be allowed, I think, that the Brexit-bounce the SNP expected has not materialised.

'Downing Street says the PM is set to rebuff calls for a flexible Brexit, which would allow parts of the UK to have their own arrangement,' said the BBC radio news this morning. Not quite. This notion has been rejected in Europe, where the idea of doing some kind of separate deal with Scotland or any constituent part of the UK was never a deal. The 'options' that the SNP talk about do not exist as far as the EU is concerned: it is a giant bluff. It's far from clear why she is asking Theresa May for something that the EU has already rejected.

The silencing of Stephen Daisley has nagged away at journalism in Scotland for months. His employer, STV, holds the ITV licences for central and northern Scotland, and is staying very quiet. The Scottish National Party rolls around like a drunk who has won a bar fight. Its politicians and its claque of Twitter trolls celebrate their power to bully and tell direct lies about the journalist they have humiliated. The BBC endorses them. The National Union of Journalists supports them. Everyone behaves as if they are living in a one-party state. Not a dictatorship with men in uniforms marching down the street. But a democratic one-party state like Scotland has become and England and Wales will soon be: a state where it is simply impossible to imagine the ruling party losing power.

Politics is a question of priorities. Push always comes to shove and that's when you discover what a party really thinks is important. We've seen this repeatedly this year. The Labour party, for instance, has decided power is for other people. And the Conservative party has decided that leaving the European Union is something worth risking the Union for. If we have to break-up the United Kingdom to save the United Kingdom, then so be it. A price worth paying, you know. But don't pretend you weren't warned about this. Because you were. Repeatedly. There's a reason, you know, why Ruth Davidson and most of her Holyrood colleagues campaigned for a Remain vote. They could see what was coming down the pipe in the event of a vote to Leave.

Although Alex Salmond is Scotland's First Minister no more, luckily the public still have a chance to hear the SNP politician's thoughts on a weekly basis thanks to his LBC phone-in. Today Salmond led the charge for Nicola Sturgeon blocking Brexit: 'If Scotland could block Brexit, then I think Nicola Sturgeon should do that. I think Nicola Sturgeon should take her instruction from the verdict of the Scottish people; she's Scottish First Minister. If you remember the Scottish people voted decisively to remain.

Throughout the EU referendum campaign, we heard that Brexit would not only sink the UK economy but destroy the Union because Scots were likely to vote Remain. In the event there was a difference at the polls—38 per cent of Scots voted for Brexit, vs 52 per cent in the UK as a whole—but was it enough to destroy, or even threaten, the Union? Polls in the immediate aftermath showed an uptick for support for Scottish separation which has since ebbed away. Kantar TNS has today published a poll showing that 53 per cent of Scots are against independence, which confirms the YouGov poll taken at the end of August showing 54 per cent of Scots against. So this is pretty much where things were before the Brexit vote.

As the government try to work out what 'Brexit means Brexit' really means ahead of triggering Article 50, an announcement today from the European Parliament is likely to send a shiver down the spine of No.10 officials. Guy Verhofstadt, the MEP and former Belgian Prime Minister, has been appointed as the European Parliament's lead Brexit negotiator. The outspoken Belgian will work with Michel Barnier, who is leading negotiations for the European Commission. Verhofstadt's duties include helping prepare the EP position in the negotiations and -- once Article 50 is triggered -- helping to shape the EP’s negotiating position. On the surface, this appointment does not appear to be great news for Theresa May.

It has become one of those journalistic clichés to talk about 'firing the starting gun' in politics. There has been some debate among the hacks at Holyrood as to whether or not Nicola Sturgeon has already 'fired the starting gun' on the next Scottish independence referendum campaign. So, to do justice to that cliché (and to mangle it completely), I suggest something like this: today the First Minister reached for the key to the cabinet holding the starting gun, which would launch a second Scottish independence campaign. She hasn’t yet opened the cabinet but she has the key in her hand, should she decide to place it in the lock and turn.

Theresa May is on her way to her first G20 summit. But she has still sat down for the traditional start of term interview with Andrew Marr. Reading the transcript of it, it looks like a classic Theresa May interview: with very little given away. She avoided answering Marr’s questions on whether she would like to see more grammar schools and refused to say whether she shared her chief of staff Nick Timothy’s view that Chinese involvement in the Hinkley point nuclear project would be security risk. On Brexit, May said little new about the deal she would like to strike--confirming the sense that, as one Minister told me, the government is ‘a way away from forming a definitive position’.

This time two years ago, the United Kingdom stood on the brink of dissolution. The referendum on Scottish independence hung in the balance and momentum was with the nationalists. The optimism and energy of Alex Salmond’s campaign stood in admirable contrast to the shrill hysteria of Project Fear, the name given to a unionist campaign that churned out ever-less-credible warnings about what would happen after separation. The union was saved, but 45 per cent of Scots had voted to leave it. So the referendum had not closed the question, but left it wide open. At the time, the North Sea oil sector was still in fairly good health. In the SNP’s economic manifesto for independence, it gave estimates of up to £7.9 billion a year for oil revenues.

This time two years ago, the United Kingdom stood on the brink of dissolution. The referendum on Scottish independence hung in the balance and momentum was with the nationalists. The optimism and energy of Alex Salmond’s campaign stood in admirable contrast to the shrill hysteria of Project Fear, the name given to a unionist campaign that churned out ever-less-credible warnings about what would happen after separation. The union was saved, but 45 per cent of Scots had voted to leave it. So the referendum had not closed the question, but left it wide open. At the time, the North Sea oil sector was still in fairly good health. In the SNP’s economic manifesto for independence, it gave estimates of up to £7.9 billion a year for oil revenues.