Alex Massie

The headline figures in today's YouGov poll for The Times are brutal for Scottish Labour. Labour (27 percent) are still 20 points behind the SNP (48%). But that's the good news. Because everything else is even worse. Consider this: 95 percent of SNP supporters think Nicola Sturgeon is doing a good job. That's impressive or, if you prefer, slightly terrifying. But, hark at this: 39 percent of Labour supporters think Nicola is performing admirably. Her net approval rating amongst Labour voters is just -4. Jim Murphy's net approval rating amongst SNP supporters, meanwhile, is -54. Or this: 67 percent of SNP voters say there is no chance they will change their minds before the election but only 50 percent of Labour supporters are so certain.

Even by the standards of the Conservative and Unionist (sic) party this is an impressively stupid poster. Do they really want to encourage Scots to vote for the SNP? Evidently they do. Of course we know why. Every seat Labour lose in Scotland makes it less and less likely Labour will emerge from the election as the largest party. Consequently, every SNP gain makes it a little more likely David Cameron will have a chance of cobbling together a second ministry. But, my god, think of the price at which that comes. In their desperation to stop Miliband the Tories are prepared to risk the future of the United Kingdom. They might win this election but at the expense of losing their country. As Pyrrhic conquests go, that takes some beating.

Nigel Farage has performed a useful public service this week. Yes, really, he has. The UKIP leader, you see, is a believer in Root Causes. He is, in fact, a Root Causer and, like every member of that miserable tribe, liable to see every event as confirming the righteousness of his own longstanding, stale-breathed, prejudices. You see we - the west generally - bring all this trouble upon ourselves. At home and abroad. It's western foreign policy that explains and motivates Islamic extremism and it's uncontrolled (sic) immigration that's given it room to flourish in France, the United Kingdom and other countries. How very convenient. The idea that the Charlie Hebdo murders are in some way our own fault is hardly a new one and nor is it any longer confined to the ghastly left.

Following the success of the Tories' last anti-UKIP strategy session, I've been leaked details of the latest election planning at CCHQ: [...] I say, what's the most damaging - and widely-held - perception about the Conservatives? Hmmm. That we're the party for the rich? Most unfair, I think we can all agree. Right, moving on, what's next? Let's cut inheritance tax.  Hurrah!   It's the least we can do for ordinary wealthy Britons...  If it weren't for Ed Miliband this election would be over by now. Thank heavens for Ed, then.

We've just had two years of intensive constitutional politics. Time enough, you'd think, for even London-based politicians and commentators to work out how British politics actually works. But if you think that you'd be wrong. Very wrong. Consider our old friend the Barnett Formula. Antiquated and not entirely fit for purpose - it being a 1970s convenience that was itself an updated version of the 1880s Goschen Formula - but hardly a mystery or a terribly complicated piece of financial wizardry. And yet it seems that almost no-one in the Westminster village actually understands how Barnett works. Yesterday, you see, Jim Murphy promised that he would use Scotland's share of the proceeds from Labour's so-called Mansion Tax to hire an extra 1,000 nurses north of the Border.

Behold, the most offensive tweet I've seen in months. You don't have to be an off-grid anarcho-libertarian freedom-squirrel to see there's something distinctly unpleasant - even something dystopian - about this. But such, alas, is the temper of our times. Times in which the state's officers - for such is McPlod - believe they are entitled to monitor your every conversation, your every outburst, your every opinion for evidence that someone, somewhere in Scotland might be offended by your views. Nor is it too extreme to observe that this satisfies, in its essentials, the definition of a surveillance state. Such idiocies are not, of course, confined to Scotland.

Next year's general election looks like being the most gruesomely entertaining in years. Entertaining because no-one knows what is going to happen; gruesome because of the protagonists and the sorry misfortune that someone has to win it. All we can say for certain is that the Lib Dems will receive a doing. I still don't think that person will be David Cameron. In part for reasons previously detailed here. The single biggest thing preventing a thumping Labour victory is Ed Miliband. This is, it is true, a sturdy peg upon which the Tories may hang their hopes but it still may not prove sturdy enough. Not least because, by the standards they set themselves, this government has failed. It came to power promising to put Britain's finances in order.

The conventional wisdom, at least in Britain, seems to be that Barack Obama's presidency has been a desperate disappointment. That is partly a reflection of the extravagant - impossibly so - expectation that accompanied him to the White House and partly, of course, a simple reminder of political reality. And yet it seems to me that you can make a persuasive case that he's been a better President than his predecessor (a dismally low bar, granted) but also a better President than Bill Clinton. This, true, reflects the gravity of the times. Clinton complained in his autobiography that he'd been deprived the chance of tackling the kind of challenges that secure a place in the history books. His years in office were too sunny, too fat, for that.

Is it acceptable for writers to sport their political allegiances publicly? In more sensible times you'd hardly need to consider the question since its answer would ordinarily be so bleedin' obvious. These, of course, are neither sensible nor ordinary times. So it is with the fauxtroversy over whether or not it is acceptable - or, worse, appropriate - for Liz Lochhead to have joined the SNP.  This is a real thing, it seems and yet another example of how politics corrupts most things it touches. Lochhead, you see, is not just a poet she is Scotland's Makar (or poet laureate) and therefore, god help us, it's all very different. For some reason.

Nearly 20 years ago, during one of the many impasses on the road to ‘peace’ in Northern Ireland, Gerry Adams reminded his opponents that the republican movement would set the terms of any agreement. The IRA reserved a power of veto. ‘They haven’t gone away, you know,’ he said. Scotland is not Ulster, of course, but the Scottish nationalists haven’t gone away either. Anyone who thinks the referendum settled this country’s constitutional future hasn’t been paying attention. The long war continues, albeit — and mercifully — in figurative terms. If anything, defeat has encouraged the nationalists to redouble their efforts. The SNP is the only political party in Scotland that can credibly claim to be a mass organisation.

Say this for the current state of British politics: it keeps finding new lows. A while back I made the mistake of suggesting voters might already have priced-in Ed Miliband's shortcomings. The leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition might be a doofus but we know that and, if not exactly tickled by the thought, can cope with it. Reader, I think I may have been mistaken about that. Recent events suggest Miliband's haplessness exists on a higher plane than anyone previously thought possible. One can only assume he secretly doesn't want to win the next election. This, at any rate, seems the only sensible verdict to reach based upon the evidence presented to the court. We have entered a new phase. A veritable Carnival of Dumb.

And so the Age of Nicola dawns. Elected First Minister by the Scottish Parliament yesterday; sworn in this morning. Taking First Minister's Questions this afternoon. Alex Salmond's departure was a long drawn-out affair but it will not take Nicola Sturgeon anything like as long to leave her own distinct impression on Scottish politics. I am not sure why folk at Westminster thought the referendum defeat would plunge the SNP into crisis. That might have been the case if the result had been 65-35 but that, despite what some thought, was never, ever, a likely outcome. Senior SNP strategists knew winning might be difficult but they also reckoned that anything above 40 percent support for independence would be enough to change the dynamics of Scottish - and British - politics for good.