Scotland

Labour has found Sir John Major rather useful in this Parliament, with his criticisms of government policy and praise of Ed Miliband’s energy price freeze. But his op-ed in today’s Telegraph in which he demands that Ed Miliband rule out a coalition with the Scottish National Party is rather less helpful. What makes this call even more unhelpful is that many Scottish Labour MPs are desperate for Miliband to rule out a pact because of the damage that shacking up with the SNP would do for their brand in Scotland. They will also have emerged from a bloody battle in which many of their number will have lost seats to

Has the SNP threat to Labour in Scotland abated? Not yet according to Lord Ashcroft, who has released his latest round of constituency level polling. Focusing on the SNP/Labour marginals, Ashcroft has found that in five current Labour strongholds, the SNP are on track to swipe away four of them: Ayr, Carrick & Cumnock, Dumfries & Galloway Edinburgh South West and Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath — the latter of course being represented by Gordon Brown. The only good news for Labour is East Renfrewshire, where Labour has a one-point lead. Thankfully for the party, it’s their leader Jim Murphy’s seat.  In the single Conservative Scottish seat, Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale & Tweeddale, the Tories are neck

One of the things that even its critics, such as myself, have to concede that the European Union has been good at is making clear what it has funded. By contrast, in this country there’s little to tell you that the taxpayer has paid for something. But this is changing. The government will tomorrow, as I mention in the Mail on Sunday, announce that all publicly funded infrastructure projects will now be branded with a Union flag logo and the message ‘Funded by the UK Government.’ This will apply right across the UK and should provide some clarity as to who is paying for what; using this branding will be

Are the SNP poised to become Westminster’s kingmakers? On this week’s View from 22 podcast, Alex Massie discusses this week’s cover feature on the role the Scottish nationalists could play after the next general election. If the SNP wipe out Labour north of the border, will questions about the future of the union be back on the table? How is propping up a Labour government second prize for the SNP? And are the Scottish elections in 2016 more important to Scottish labour than this year’s battle? James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman also discuss why the upcoming election will not be very general. Are any of the parties planning to fight a national

Today’s Scottish Conservative conference in Edinburgh proved unexpectedly interesting. No, really. Or, rather, yes, really. Or whatever. David Cameron spoke, you see, and so did Ruth Davidson and they said very different things. For important Prime Ministerial timetabling reasons (ie, he needed to get back to London) Cameron spoke first and thus, unusually, served as the warm-up guy. Which merely helped emphasise the difference between what the Prime Minister said and what the Scottish Tory leader had to say. Some of this was a question of substance.Cameron declared that the national question is “settled” whereas Davidson warned that “This isn’t over and it hasn’t gone away”. Only one of them

At last, the picture is becoming clearer. We now have a better idea of what the SNP will demand in return for its support to put Ed Miliband in Downing Street. Nicola Sturgeon didn’t use the term ‘red line issue’ but this was the clear message underlying both the broadcast interviews she made this morning and her keynote speech at UCL. We have known for some time that the SNP leadership does not favour a formal coalition with Labour. Rather, it would look for a ‘confidence and supply’ deal, backing Labour’s Budgets and opposing no confidence motions and expecting concessions in return. And now there appear to be two ‘red lines’ – concessions

With every week that goes by, the more likely it is that the next election could result in a stalemate with neither Labour nor the Tories able to put together a deal that gives them a majority in the Commons. One Downing Street source, who has crunched the numbers, predicted to me last week that, because of what is going on in Scotland, the Tories will be the largest party on 280-odd seats. But if the Tories have only 280-odd seats, even deals with both the Liberal Democrats and the Democratic Unionists wouldn’t give them a majority. But Labour wouldn’t be able to stich one together either. For, as I

The dramatic rout of Scottish Labour continues. Polls suggest the SNP will take 55 out of 59 seats and of the 14 constituencies surveyed by Lord Ashcroft, only Glasgow North East is set to remain in Labour hands. Such political collapses are rare in UK politics – so what’s going on? Prior to 2011, the dividing line of Scottish politics was ‘to be or not to be’ Labour. This was a huge advantage to a party which, faced with split opposition, managed to win 69% of Scottish seats in 2010 with just 42% of the vote. The singular success of Alex Salmond was, first, to turn the SNP into the clearest and most credible opposition to

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_5_Feb_2015_v4.mp3″ title=”James Forsyth and Alex Massie discuss Labour’s problems north of the border” startat=1118] Listen [/audioplayer]Just four months ago Scotland was the scene of great cross-party co-operation — unprecedented in peace-time politics. Gordon Brown was offering advice on David Cameron’s speeches, Douglas Alexander and the Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson turned themselves into a formidable debating duo, and Charles Kennedy was being hailed by Labour strategists as the man who would save the Union. Even George Galloway got in on the act. One of the oddest sights I have witnessed in politics was the Respect MP gushingly introducing the Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, at

There are still perfectly reasonable, thoughtful Labour MPs who sincerely think their party has a good chance of winning a majority in May, even though most of their colleagues are reconciled to being the largest party. I’ve found more of them in Parliament in the past few weeks than I have found Tories who think the same about their party. But today’s Ashcroft poll may well mean that the verbs in that first sentence have to change into the past perfect. There were still perfectly reasonable, thoughtful Labour MPs who sincerely thought their party had a good chance of winning a majority in May. Then the Ashcroft poll came out,

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

While the behaviour of the Westminster mob at PMQs is often reminiscent of playground bickering, the women of Scotland are taking a more civilised approach as they prepare for First Minister’s Questions. Far from any hostilities between their opposing parties, Nicola Sturgeon has been joshing on Twitter with Ruth Davidson, Leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, and Kezia Dugdale, Deputy Leader of Scottish Labour. The trio put their politics aside to support Andy Murray in his match at the Australian Open. @RuthDavidsonMSP I’m sure we could come to some arrangement – @kdugdalemsp? — Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) January 29, 2015 @RuthDavidsonMSP @NicolaSturgeon yes, there in a minute, looking for the Pimms — Kezia Dugdale (@kdugdalemsp) January