Nicola sturgeon

This morning Nicola Sturgeon said in an interview on the Andrew Marr Show that a second referendum on Scottish independence is now 'inevitable': 'I've always believed and I still believe today that Scotland will become independent and it will become independent in my lifetime.' While many unionists were quick to point out that Sturgeon had said that the last referendum was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, David Coburn opted to take a different tack when it came to voicing his opposition to that 'awful strident woman': https://twitter.com/DavidCoburnUKip/status/653259716068511744 The Ukip MEP says that if Sturgeon does manage to have her way and make Scotland an independent country, the consequences will be disastrous.

In Mhairi Black's maiden speech in the House of Commons, the young SNP MP voiced her opposition to the Tories by criticising George Osborne over his party's housing policy. However, despite calling the Conservatives 'a really dangerous party' in an interview with the Guardian, it appears Black has at least softened in her approach to some members of the party. The SNP MP says that she has a lot of time for Jacob Rees-Mogg, adding that she could listen to the eurosceptic Tory MP all day: 'I could sit and listen to him all day, I disagree with him 99.9 per cent of the time, and that wee percent is just because he’s got good manners. But I love listening to him, his knowledge is incredible, and he’s so polite.

The great thing about the 'new politics' - or at least the new politics we have lately been privileged to endure here in Scotland - is that it's just as fetid and grubby as the old politics it replaced. The band may change but the music remains the same. Consider the twin controversies swirling around the SNP. Neither, on its own, is enough to torpedo Nicola Sturgeon but, combined, they represent the largest challenge to her authority the First Minister has yet encountered. First there is the curious case of Michelle Thompson, the MP for Edinburgh West. Mrs Thomson was previously managing director of the 'Business for Scotland' group arguing for a Yes vote in last year's independence referendum.

Jeremy Corbyn is supposed to come to Scotland this week. Thursday's visit will be his first since he became leader of the erstwhile people's party. Then again, he's been due to visit before only to find some better use of his time so who knows whether he can brave life beyond the wall this week? Yesterday John McDonnell, Jezzah's vicar, used his speech to the Labour conference to plead with Scottish voters to "come home" to the party. It was past time, he suggested, that voters understood that the SNP are no kind of socialist revolutionaries. Which will not come as any great surprise to most Scots. That's part of the point and one of the reasons why the nationalists have been trusted with the keys to power. They're no-one's idea of militant Trots.

The answer to this question, it turns out, comes from Kenny Dalglish. The answer is mebbys aye, mebbys naw. At the weekend the Scottish party's former leader suggested Labour should have (some kind of) 'free vote' in the event of there being another independence referendum. Kezia Dugdale, the latest occupant of this poisoned throne, conceded Labour MSPs should, if there is another referendum, be free to campaign for independence if that's where their heart lies. Now, in one respect this makes sense. Labour are in a hopeless position in Scotland right now. Moreover, the party cannot recover unless it wins votes from erstwhile supporters who have crossed the constitutional aisle to support the Scottish nationalists.

Nicola Sturgeon got one thing right this morning. A year on from the independence referendum, Scotland's First Minister allowed that the plebiscite "invited us, individually and collectively, to imagine the kind of country we wanted to live in". The answer, you may be surprised to be reminded, was Britain. Surprised, because it has since become commonplace to observe that the losers have become winners and the winners losers. Scotland, everyone agrees, is a changed place even though (almost) everyone agrees that the country would still reject independence were there another referendum next month. (The economic questions that hurt the Yes campaign so badly last year are, if anything, harder to answer convincingly and reassuringly now than was the case a year ago.

During our annual odyssey around the Scottish Highlands, I read Tears of the Rajas, Ferdinand Mount’s eloquent indictment of imperial expansionism in India. One of Ferdy’s themes is that the British lived in the country without ever attempting to make themselves of it. How far is that true of sporting visitors to Scotland? The SNP’s persecution of landowners gains traction from the fact that guests in shooting and fishing lodges encounter only keepers, gillies, stalkers. We disport ourselves within a social archipelago utterly remote from the mainland of the society in which it lies. In our defence, however, that is what tourists do everywhere in the world, much to the advantage of host nations.

In an interview with Sky News Australia, David Cameron's former election strategist Lynton Crosby has today offered his thoughts on the Prime Minister's rivals. Unsurprisingly, his conclusions are hardly flattering. However, the man who has taken the brunt of Crosby's ire is Nigel Farage. Crosby claims that Ukip does not have 'a long-term future'. Furthermore, instead of trying to win a Westminster seat again, Farage would be better advised to look for chat show work in Australia: 'They are very reliant on the performance of their leader Nigel Farage and even he couldn't win a seat. Sixth or seventh time he's tried to win a Westminster seat. I think he might be better coming to Australia and doing talkback radio than trying to run another seat in the UK.

Imagine, for a moment, the following scenario. In 2016 Britain votes narrowly to remain within the European Union, despite the Prime Minister having achieved little in attempting to renegotiate the terms of our membership. The ‘out’ campaign — which was no longer led by a marginal party, Ukip, but by the majority of the parliamentary Labour party, under its new leader Jeremy Corbyn — came mightily close to securing our withdrawal, and thus, as it is put by proponents, our independence.

Imagine, for a moment, the following scenario. In 2017 Britain votes narrowly to remain within the European Union, despite the Prime Minister having achieved little in attempting to renegotiate the terms of our membership. The ‘out’ campaign — which after 2016 was no longer led by a marginal party, Ukip, but by the majority of the ­parliamentary Labour party, under its new leader Jeremy Corbyn — came mightily close to securing our withdrawal, and thus, as it is put by proponents, our independence.