Scotland

Thursday

Eric Anderson

Full of sound and fury

John Knox, Cranmer complained, was ‘one of those unquiet spirits, which can like nothing but that is after their own fancy, and cease not to make trouble and disquietness’. Yet this awkward cuss, son of a merchant in Haddington and initially a young Roman Catholic priest, became a pillar of the Reformation in Europe and the inspiration for Presbyterianism in Scotland. The recent Scottish political television debates remind us also that his strident tone is still fashionable in Scotland. The black and white judgments proclaimed rather than discussed, and the winning of arguments by out-shouting opponents, are exactly in the style of Knox. He knew precisely what reforms were needed

Wednesday

Sebastian Payne

New poll suggests SNP will win all 59 seats in Scotland

Just when Scottish Labour didn’t think it could get any worse, a new poll suggests they are now facing total wipe out next Thursday. According to Ipsos MORI/STV News, the SNP is now up to 54 per cent of the vote share — up two points since their last poll in January. Punching these numbers into Electoral Calculus suggests the Nats will win all 59 seats and wipe out the other parties. Another prediction website, ScotlandVotes, suggests that this vote share would leave one Liberal Democrat MP after polling day. Unlike Lord Ashcroft’s recent polls north of the border, this survey was conducted across the whole of Scotland — not just

Monday

Sebastian Payne

Tories six points ahead in new Ashcroft poll and three points ahead according to ICM

Two new polls out today have the Tories ahead. Lord Ashcroft’s latest national poll says the Conservatives currently have a six point lead at per cent — up two points from last week — while Labour remains on 30 per cent. Ashcroft has Ukip down slightly to 11 per cent and the Liberal Democrats are on nine per cent. The Guardian/ICM also put the Tories ahead in their new poll today, putting the Conservatives on 35 per cent and Labour on 32 per cent. It’s worth noting that both the Ashcroft and ICM polls were conducted by telephone. There are two other polls out today, conducted online, which show the

Sunday

Alex Massie

Scotland’s two tribes are more divided than ever – they see reality differently

Expectations just keep increasing for the SNP. Today’s Panelbase poll for the Sunday Times puts the nationalists on an eye-popping 48 percent of the vote in Scotland. Labour activists and candidates report better that on the fabled doorsteps the response they’re getting is much better than that recorded by the opinion pollsters. Doubtless, in some constituencies, this is true. But it seems unlikely to be enough. The ship will not go down with all hands but there will still, it seems, be few survivors. This remains a strange election. Ordinarily I’d say the straw-clutchers are hopelessly mistaken. The numbers do not lie. They are worth more than anecdotal evidence and gut-checking

James Forsyth

This election will be decided by the undecideds

The polls could hardly be closer than they are at the moment and the parliamentary arithmetic looks like it is going to be remarkably tight, there’ll be only a few seats in it as to whether it’ll be Cameron or Miliband as Prime Minister. Yet, campaign aides on both sides have been struck by one thing: the large number of undecideds. One recent poll suggested that as many as one in five of those who intend to vote are still undecided. How this group breaks will determine the result. As one close Miliband ally put it to me, ‘The defining moment of this campaign hasn’t happened yet’. The Tory hope

James Forsyth

Miliband avoids the Scottish question

On the Andrew Marr show this morning, Ed Miliband fended off questions about any post-election deal with the Scottish National Party. He had two lines of defence. First, he said he wasn’t going to pre-empt the election result and that he was fighting to win the election everywhere including Scotland. Second, he was adamant that ‘I’m not doing deals with the Scottish National Party’. But there was no explanation of how he would pilot legislation through the Commons without their support. listen to ‘Ed Miliband on the Andrew Marr Show’ on audioBoom When it came to the economy, Miliband refused to admit that the last Labour government spent too much,

Friday

Sebastian Payne

Campaign kick-off: 13 days to go

For the first time in this campaign, foreign affairs are not only being discussed but also dominating today’s agenda. Ed Miliband is set to criticise the coalition’s record on foreign policy, putting at least some of the blame for the Libyan migrant crisis on David Cameron. To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, here is a summary of today’s main election stories. 1. The Libya blame game At Chatham House this morning, Ed Miliband will deliver a speech on Britain’s international role and responsibilities. Before Miliband has even taken to the podium, a row has broken out over whether he is accusing the government of abandoning

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters | 23 April 2015

Enemies within Sir: I thought Matthew Parris was typically incisive in his last column, but perhaps not quite as much as the person who wrote its online headline, ‘Scotland knows the power of a common enemy. We English don’t’ (18 April). It is true that ‘the wish to be the underdog’ is a defining urge of our age, even in relatively prosperous polities such as Scotland and Catalonia. But Parris is wrong when he claims that the closest the English come to the ‘Braveheart feeling’ is in their collective memory of the second world war. If only that were true. Would any other country make so little of its crucial

The Spectator

Barometer | 23 April 2015

Any answers? Nigel Farage accused the audience in the BBC opposition leaders’ debate of being left-wing. Need insulting an audience destroy a political career? — Former US Vice President Dan Quayle did it on a number of occasions, telling an audience of American Samoans in 1989: ‘You all look like happy campers to me.’ Two years later he upset the American Bar Association by asking: ‘Does America really need 70% of the world’s lawyers?’ — Current US Vice President Joe Biden told a crowd in Wisconsin in 2010: ‘You’re the dullest audience I’ve ever spoken to.’ — Nigel Farage has done it before. In December he said to Russell Brand

Isabel Hardman

Breaking: Politician spotted talking to a real voter

I’ve just witnessed an extraordinary moment on the campaign trail in Edinburgh. No, it’s not this, but a political party leader talking to a real voter. This is Ruth Davidson, Tory leader, talking to a random voter in Edinburgh. I know he was a random voter because I ran after him to check. You never know, after all. He wanted to ask Davidson some questions about migrants drowning in the Mediterranean. So he wandered up to her and asked them. And she answered. What’s more, the answer seemed natural, he said. Well, this is strange. Strange, at least, for this campaign. The reason the Tories in Scotland are doing these

Tuesday

Sebastian Payne

Campaign kick-off: 16 days to go

The Tories are partying like it’s 1992. Sir John Major is being wheeled out today to reinforce what Michael Fallon and others have said: the SNP are dangerous for Britain. Labour will continue with its ‘NHS week’ by promising more money and outlining what they will do on entering government. To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, here is a summary of today’s main election stories. 1. Major moment While Tony Blair’s standing has gone down since he left office, John Major’s has increased. He is now looked upon fondly by many Conservatives, coming from a time when the party won majorities and didn’t have to worry

Monday

Fraser Nelson

Five rules of politics that Nicola Sturgeon has broken

Nicola Sturgeon met my Auntie Patsy over the weekend, then was kind enough to tweet a picture of their encounter (below). Seeing her sandwiched between the two people most likely to break up the union was odd, but so was discovering that many members of my extended family are now voting SNP. Aunt Patsy is, I’m afraid, a typical example: like 1 in 50 Scots she has joined the SNP in the last seven months. She wasn’t really into politics until recently, but has caught the bug (there is a lot of it about in Scotland). .@FraserNelson just met your lovely (@theSNP voting) auntie in Inverurie. She says hello pic.twitter.com/gsfDUPlMoG —

Thursday

Alex Massie

Scotland’s new national faith

The Church of England’s catechism begins ‘What is your name?’ The old Presbyterian catechism favoured in Scotland asked a better, sterner question: ‘What is the chief end of man?’ The difference is telling and, in this general election, illuminates something useful about the differences between politics north and south of the Tweed. Nicola Sturgeon is a populist, certainly, but she is offering something stronger on the side. If England’s election offers a meek choice between Cameron and Miliband, Scotland’s is a faith-based affair. The answer to the catechism’s question, in these irreligious days, appears to be that man’s chief end is to glorify Scotland and enjoy her for ever. It

Matthew Parris

The power of collective grievance

When last Sunday Pope Francis took the brave step of acknowledging the Armenian tragedy as the ‘first genocide of the 20th century’, he knew he was entering a minefield. On 24 April Armenians will commemorate the 100th anniversary of their genocide. There can be no single date for a genocide but that was the day the entire leadership of the Armenian people was arrested by the Ottoman government in Constantinople, now Istanbul, whose successors are the modern Turkish state. The Ottomans had never trusted Armenians, who were Christians, and had long suspected them of being a fifth column within the empire. There had already been pogroms. But now began a

Saturday

James Forsyth

What’s going on in Scotland

If the election in England is the political equivalent of trench warfare with Labour and the Tories inching forwards and then back, what’s going on in Scotland is a rout with the SNP driving all before it. What is remarkable is how the Nationalists are even in with a chance of winning seats such as Edinburgh South West that voted No by a more than twenty point margin. At the moment, everything their opponents throw at it seems to bounce off the SNP. The so-called Sturgeon memo, which claimed that she had told the French Ambassador that—contrary to all her public protestations—she would prefer Cameron to Miliband as Prime Minister,

Friday

Sebastian Payne

Campaign kick-off: 27 days to go

It’s the Conservatives’ turn to try and bounce back today. After the ‘dead cat’ thrown onto Ed Miliband’s kitchen table, it looks as if Tories parties will be hoping to return to policy — not slashing non-doms — and move away from personal attacks. To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, here is a summary of today’s main election stories. 1. Polls everywhere, but not a lead in sight No fewer than five opinion polls were released yesterday, three of which showed Labour leads while two had the Conservatives ahead. The Guardian went as far to deem Thursday as ‘The day the polls turned’, but there is still no clear frontrunner at this

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 9 April 2015

The Scottish way of death Nicola Sturgeon said the SNP would block a rise in the state pension age on the grounds that it would be unfair to Scots, who don’t live as long as the English. — The idea that the Scots die early was fuelled by a study by the Glasgow Centre for Population Health in 2006, which found male life expectancy in the Calton area of Glasgow to be 54: less than in many developing countries. — The figure, derived from statistics collected between 1998 and 2002, was exaggerated by the presence of a large number of hostels in the Calton taking in drug addicts from other

Sebastian Payne

Podcast special: polls and personal attacks

With 28 days to go, is the momentum beginning to move towards Labour? In this View from 22 podcast special, Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth, Isabel Hardman and I discuss the latest polls and campaign developments. Five new polls have been released today, three of which show a Labour lead — should the Tories be worried? Have the two Scottish leaders’ debates made any difference to the SNP’s vote? And was Michael Fallon’s attack on Ed Miliband premeditated? You can subscribe to the View from 22 through iTunes and have it delivered to your computer every week, or you can use the player below:

Fraser Nelson

Sturgeon hints that the SNP would never back a Labour budget

“Is it sensible to spend your way out of debt?” ran the opening question in the last night’s Scottish leaders debate – marking it out, straight away, as something very different from politics-as-usual. It was set in Aberdeen, hence the greater concentration of common sense. The six-way debate was feisty and refreshing, and of a calibre higher than the seven-way UK leaders’ debate. Scotland has joined Denmark in producing the best political drama, except this is real. Nicola Sturgeon won last week’s UK debate, I’d give Tuesday’s to Tory leader Ruth Davidson. I’m not sure anyone won, or lost, last night – but unlike last week’s melee, we did learn

Sebastian Payne

Campaign kick-off: 28 days to go

Trident is set to be the big issue today — but the fight isn’t just about policy. Several newspapers have splashed on the news that the Tories are attempting to embarrass Labour over whether they would allow the SNP to box them into scrapping our nuclear deterrent. To help guide you through the melée of stories and spin, here is a summary of today’s main stories. 1. Fallon vs. Miliband The Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has launched an attack on Ed ‘backstabber’ Miliband in the Times today — claiming that he would trade renewing Trident for SNP support to prop up his government. ‘Ed Miliband stabbed his own brother in the back to become