Iain Martin

Never speak on the same platform as Sir Malcolm Rifkind. I tried it once, at a Spectator debate held during the Scottish independence referendum campaign in 2014, and I will not be repeating the experience. The former Foreign Secretary spoke as usual without notes, and with such ringing clarity and confidence that all the other panelists were easily eclipsed. That included Kelvin McKenzie, the former editor of the Sun, speaking in favour of Scottish independence. Sir Malcolm might just as well have recited the Edinburgh phonebook from memory, in his Jean Brodie tones, and the audience would still have cheered him to the echo. It was a magnificent performance from one of the best speakers of his generation. And yet, for all the brilliance, I can’t recall a single word he said.

It ought not to be a surprise that Alex Salmond, Scotland’s former First Minister, has declared that the vote to leave the European Union is the trigger for a second referendum on Scottish independence. Salmond thinks everything is an excuse for another go. If a new Bay City Rollers album suffered poor reviews south of the border, or an English football pundit failed to declare Archie Gemmill’s wonder goal for Scotland against Holland in the 1978 world cup the best ever, Salmond would be right there on the UK’s television screens, chortling at the brilliance of his own wit, before intoning gravely that this insult is surely the final straw for the United Kingdom. Salmond has been demanding a second Scottish referendum almost from the moment he lost the last one.

Ben, an articulate 14-year-old hard at work in the school design and proto-typing centre, is explaining to Lord Baker of Dorking how 3D printing works. Baker, a former Tory education secretary, listens intently before declaring the technology ‘marvellous’. This coming July will mark the 25th anniversary of his leaving the Department for Education — but Lord Baker, who turns 80 this year, has never quite stopped the school reform that he started. We’re at the University Technical College (UTC) in Sheffield, one of 17 such schools which has opened in recent years following the decision by Baker and his late friend Ron Dearing, the former Post Office boss, to make the remodelling of the English schools system their retirement project.

Gordon Brown’s chief fixer is ensconced in Unite, the increasingly militant union. Iain Martin asks if the comrades can be persuaded to hold back a wave of strikes Where is Charlie Whelan these days? What’s the old rascal up to? The trade union fixer, spin-doctoring confidant and close friend of the Prime Minister was on my mind after I returned from a trip to my native Scotland for Christmas. I had booked a rail ticket to take me northwards in time for the big day — £112 first class with Virgin. My only choice, seeing as the Unite trade union had engineered a British Airways strike, rendering my £190 British Airways ticket bought months ago useless. That the industrial action was then cancelled, and that I had two tickets, was no consolation.