Scotland

Back when the Iraq war was new and innocent and still pretty popular I recall a Scotsman headline announcing that, with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards entering the city, there was now the sound of Bagpipes in Basra. There was something thrilling, something tribal too, about this. Regardless of the arguments about the war, the skirl of the pipes summoned and honoured the ghosts (real and imagined) of warriors past.  One of those warriors was Piper Bill Millin and he is dead now. He may be the most famous piper of the Second World War and his obituary merits quoting at length: Bill Millin, who died on August 17 aged

Good to see that Craig Levein, the new Scotland manager, has a sophisticated grasp of football tactics. As this note left in the dressing room last week demonstrates: Final score? Sweden 3 Scotland 0.

Meanwhile, in other Glasgow news the city’s evening paper makes its readers an offer they can’t refuse. I believe this exhausts my annual quota of posts making gentle fun of Glaswegians. [Hat-tip: Kevin Schofield]

First things first: it is extremely inconvenient, even embarrassing, that Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi is still alive nearly a year after he was released from Greenock Prison on the grounds that he was believed to have not much more, and perhaps fewer, than three months to live. Nevertheless, the fact that he has lived longer than expected does not advance or give any greater credence to the notion that there was some conspiracy designed to free him come what may and regardless of any other considerations. Nor is there any evidence, despite recent press reports, that BP (everyone’s favourite whipping boy now) played any role in Kenny MacAskill’s decision to send

Meanwhile, good sense vis a vis the criminal justice system is going viral at an alarming rate. At the Scottish Parliament MSPs voted  – 63-61 – to reject a (typically illiberal) Labour amendment (backed by the Tories too) that would have imposed mandatory six month prison terms for anyone found carrying a knife in a public place. And now they’ve only gone and endorsed a proposal that creates the presumption that prison sentences of fewer than three months are generally to be avoided on the reasonable grounds that they don’t do much good for or to anyone. It’s probably necessary, alas, to point out that opposing mandatory minimum sentences for

Like the Devil’s Kitchen, I’m late getting to this story travesty. The most enraging aspect of it is, of course, that one can no longer be surprised by this kind of behaviour. Yet again the police and the criminal justice system prove themselves out of touch with common sense or decency. A grandmother has been jailed for five years for possessing a “family heirloom” World War II pistol. Gail Cochrane, 53, had kept the gun for 29 years following the death of her father, who had been in the Royal Navy. Police found the weapon, a Browning self-loading pistol, during a search of her home in Dundee while looking for

Sunder Katwala has already done a terrific job dismantling this fatuous piece of New Statesman guff by James Macintyre. But that doesn’t mean other people can’t play the game too. Macintyre, you see, wants to see a United British football team. Not, mind you, because he thinks it might be better than England’s but because this is needed “for the sake of the Union”. Yes, really. Macintyre’s piece is remarkable, not least because I’m not persuaded it contains even a single sensible sentence while every one of its assumptions is wrong and each of its dubious interpretations is as hopeless as anything ever produced by a Russian linesman. It’s so

Hats-off to the Wall Street Journal for featuring the Amber Nectar of the Gods (Fizzy Pop Division) on their front page yesterday to report on how Barr’s are responding to the latest piece of interference from the meddlers at the Food Standards Agency: For nearly half a century, the man behind “Scotland’s other national drink” has been Mr. Barr. Since 1961, the six-foot-six Mr. Barr has borne the responsibility of blending the Irn-Bru recipe first concocted by his great-grandfather and great-uncle 109 years ago. But these days, Mr. Barr’s drink is threatened. The U.K. Food Standards Agency is pushing British food-and-beverage makers to remove artificial coloring agents that may cause