Stephen Daisley

Foreign relations are among the most political functions of a government. Ministers favour or disfavour other states based on calculations about which relationships might better serve the national interest. Human rights violations are condemned here, while a blind eye is turned there. Dictators are treated as democrats and democrats as dictators depending on the diplomatic needs of the day. It’s a dishonest, venal, hypocritical business conducted by people with almost no morally redeeming characteristics. Like I said, it’s politics.  Too many state actions are compelled – or claimed to be compelled – by law or judicial interpretation of the law.

France intends to recognise a state of Palestine at the United Nations, which I’m sure will be followed by UK recognition of the same. We can be sure of this because the UK does not have an independent foreign policy when it comes to the Middle East. Inside or outside of the European Union, London’s stance on Israel and the Palestinians has become indistinguishable from the position of the European Commission. The European Commission simps for the Palestinians and Britain simps for the European Commission. I take the somewhat contentious view that Britain should simp for itself, which is why in my occasional (read: incessant) Coffee House posts recommending, beseeching, UK recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel I have made a case based on the British national interest.

The trials of Sandie Peggie are a parable of where power lies in a country when lies are power. Peggie is a nurse from Fife, by all accounts a hard-working professional dedicated to her vocation and her patients. Things went awry, however, when she objected to undressing in a changing room in front of Dr Beth Upton, a male medic who identifies as a woman. If that sentence sounds absurd, that’s because it is, but we are supposed to pretend otherwise – especially if we want to be considered good people. Dishonesty is the best policy. Following a complaint from Dr Upton, Peggie was suspended by NHS Fife in January 2024, and she took the health board and Dr Upton to an employment tribunal.

Ross Greer is for Palestine, trans rights and riling up the Daily Express, making him the ideal candidate to lead the Scottish Greens. At an event in Glasgow today, the West Scotland MSP put himself forward as a successor to Patrick Harvie, who is standing down after 17 years at the helm of the environmentalist party that occasionally takes an interest in the environment. Under Harvie’s leadership, the Greens have prioritised cultural and identity politics over economics and ecology, helping to push the Gender Recognition Reform Bill through Holyrood and press for free bus travel for asylum seekers (an idea pinched by the SNP-run Scottish government).

The scenes of a tearful Rachel Reeves are all anyone is likely to remember from yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions. The Chancellor wept openly, her expression distraught; it was difficult to watch. The death of Princess Diana and the extraordinary outpourings of public grief that followed marked the end of stiff-upper-lip Britain. Vestiges remain, however, and we still become uncomfortable at the sight of the prominent and powerful brought to tears. It triggers a Pavlovian response in much the same way that the mention of religion in polite company has our toes scrunching in our shoes, as we try to dig a hole to escape the awkwardness. The tearful politician has been with us for some time In fact, the tearful politician has been with us for some time.

Spare a thought for Chris Coghlan, who has learned to his horror that not only is the Pope a Catholic, his own priest is one too. The Liberal Democrat MP, who voted to legalise assisted suicide, attends St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Dorking. He complains to the Observer that Father Ian Vane ‘publicly announced at Mass that he was… denying me Holy Communion as I had breached Canon Law’. Coghlan believes this represents a ‘completely inappropriate interference in democracy by religious authorities’. If you’re not a Catholic, at this point you’re thinking one of two things: ‘No thanks, I’ll leave the Papists to their internal disputes’, or ‘Canon Law would be a cracking name for a courtroom series about a priest turned barrister’.

A more gracious person would refrain from saying, ‘I told you so’, but I’m not a gracious person. So, as George Galloway announces his backing for another Scottish independence referendum, allow me to say – nay, crow – I told you so.  Galloway, leader of the Workers party, says he and his party ‘support the right of the Scots to self-determination’ and that ‘the time for another referendum is close’. He adds: ‘Speaking personally, I can no longer support the British state as presently constituted.

Stephen Fry has accused J.K. Rowling of being ‘inflammatory and contemptuous’, ‘mocking’ and adding to ‘a terribly distressing time for trans people’. Fry, who narrated the Harry Potter audiobooks, has damned their author for saying ‘cruel’ and ‘wrong’ things and for failing to ‘disavow some of the more revolting and truly horrible, destructive – violently destructive – things that people say’. He suspects that she’s been ‘radicalised by Terfs’, charged her with kicking up ‘a hornet's nest of transphobia which has been entirely destructive’, and dismissed her as ‘a lost cause’.

A small but not insignificant morsel of data on the state of education after 18 years of the SNP running Scotland. New figures show the gap between the poorest and wealthiest school leavers has widened to a five-year high. In the least deprived areas, just 3 per cent of school leavers fail to go to a ‘positive destination’, the Scottish Government’s term for higher or further education, training, employment or voluntary work. Yet in the most deprived areas, areas like the former Lanarkshire industrial town from which I’m writing this, more than one in ten children leave school to what is euphemistically called ‘other destinations’, i.e. unemployment.

For those who feel Scottish politics has become a little dull of late, fear not: a rebel faction within the SNP is plotting to make things very interesting again. Today’s Glasgow Herald brings the news of a secret summit of top SNP insiders at which plans to remove incumbent party leader (and Holyrood first minister) John Swinney were discussed. The paper says 25 ‘senior’ figures gathered on Monday to consider the boss’s future after the SNP’s surprise defeat in last week’s by-election in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, a seat they had held uninterrupted since 2011.

If the problem with Labour is that it believes in nothing, the problem with Reform is that it believes in everything. The dispute over the burqa is only the latest example. Few things unite supporters of Reform like opposition to benefits for anyone other than themselves In pushing Keir Starmer to ban the burqa ‘in the interests of public safety’, new MP Sarah Pochin undoubtedly spoke for a significant section of the party’s supporters. For that matter, polling has previously indicated the British public’s backing for a ban. For some, it is indeed a safety issue: presented with a stranger, covered head-to-foot, identifiable only by their eyes, how can we know who that person is, whether they ought to be there, and what their intentions are?

For some time now, I’ve been documenting a growing devoscepticism in Scotland, only to be assured, variously, that voters are not sceptical of devolution, that some are but their number isn’t growing, and that some are and their number is growing but it’s all just boomers and so it doesn’t matter anyway. It ought to trouble devolutionists that one in three Scots would shutter the Scottish parliament tomorrow Eight years ago, I wrote about a poll showing one in five Scottish voters supported the abolition of the Scottish Parliament. Last year, it was a poll recording satisfaction with devolution at just 50 per cent, with 26 per cent of voters and 49 per cent of Unionist voters expressing disillusionment.

In less than 72 hours, the polls will open in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse for a Scottish by-election like no other in recent memory. The Holyrood seat is located in the Central Belt, once unshakeably Labour and now firmly SNP. What makes this by-election so extraordinary is that Reform, a party which has never won an election in Scotland, has come from nowhere to mount a credible challenge to the mainstream parties. The bookmakers have Nigel Farage’s outfit as second-favourite to win on Thursday, and inside Labour and the SNP there are some who fear a drop in turnout and an electorate scunnered with the major parties could hand a narrow victory to Reform.  The likeliest outcome is that the SNP retains the seat.