Alex Massie | The Spectator columnists & writers

The impossibility of separating Scotland from Britain

Most histories of the United Kingdom fail to account for, or even acknowledge, just how unusual a country it is. One of the strengths of a history of Scotland within the United Kingdom is that it cannot avoid emphasising the sheer strangeness of Britain. It is a country quite unlike other European nations for it is, at heart, a composite state: a Union of four other nations creating a fifth which exists alongside – and sometimes above – its constituent parts. The tensions and interplay between these identities form part of Murray Pittock’s handsome new history. Although titled a ‘global history’ of Scotland, it is also, inescapably, a history of Britain itself, albeit one written from an ultra-northern perspective.

Boris’s implosion was inevitable

So it ends as it was always likely to end: as a disgrace inside a shambles, lost in a fog of delusion. Boris Johnson’s fate was sealed the moment he became Prime Minister. As was apparent to those who cared to look, nothing in his past suggested he would have the chops to be a successful Prime Minister. The manner of his departure now is wholly in keeping with the substance of his premiership. In years to come, we may wonder how it ever happened at all even as we do our best to forget it did. This has been a low and embarrassing period in British political history. There have been failed prime ministers before and shameless ones too but few, if any, who can match Johnson’s inadequacies. Even his great election triumph was built on a false prospectus.

Who cares if Angela Rayner is a champagne socialist?

What is it about Angela Rayner that so thoroughly irks so many Conservative MPs and their friends in the press? The Daily Telegraph could scarcely contain itself last week when it reported – exclusively! – that Labour’s deputy leader had attended a Glyndebourne performance of The Marriage of Figaro even as – get this! – other things were happening elsewhere. Not only had she attended the opera, she was seen attending it. Worse still, she was spotted drinking champagne. The nerve and the state of her! Dominic Raab, whose parliamentary performances make Iain Duncan Smith’s seem alert, agile and vibrant, was at it again today. ‘Where was the right honourable lady when the comrades were on the picket line last Thursday?’ he demanded.

Another Scottish independence referendum is coming

Despite what the SNP and its supporters insist, Nicola Sturgeon did not 'announce' a second referendum on independence today. Far from it. Her statement to the Scottish parliament quietly accepted that a referendum is highly unlikely to take place on 19 October next year. The 2014 referendum – an act of self-determination that inconveniently produced the wrong outcome for the SNP – was an agreed plebiscite. All parties and Scotland's government agreed it should take place and that its outcome would be politically, if not legally, binding. This is still the path Sturgeon would prefer. Holding such a referendum, however, requires a section 30 order by the British government, which accepts the Scottish parliament’s right to legislate on an otherwise reserved matter.

The game is up, Boris Johnson

The worst possible outcome for the Conservative and Unionist party is also a pretty lousy result for the country. That this needs saying – that Tory MPs need reminding of this – is itself yet another data point supporting the proposition that Boris Johnson’s leadership has thoroughly corrupted the party. So what to do now? This is now the necessary question. Since Johnson will not depart voluntarily he must be pushed. Those cabinet ministers with an ounce – imperial measurements, obviously – of moral fibre must surely recognise the game is up. This barky won’t float. You cannot credibly lose the support of 40 per cent of the party – including a chunky portion of the payroll vote – and remain in office. For we are now in the enjoyably ludicrous situation of having a prime minister who does not command the confidence of the House of Commons but a government which does.

The Prime Minister must go

It isn’t just the fines. It isn’t just the behaviour that has led to the Prime Minister being issued a fixed penalty notice by the Metropolitan police. It isn’t just the lies told about that behaviour, lies issued with the most sweeping confidence inside and outside the House of Commons. It isn’t just the fines and the indifference to the rules he and his ministers set for everyone else and demanded they follow – on pain of arrest – and the lying about that behaviour and the cavalier assumption that public opinion can go hang. It is all of those things wrapped together. All of this makes the Prime Minister’s position intolerable and a fellow possessing a greater amount of self-awareness or – to employ an old-fashioned term – honour, would read the room and do the decent thing.

Rest in peace, Shane Warne

Headingly, July 22nd 1993 and the opening day of the fourth test that summer between England and Australia. This, as it happens, was my first time attending a test match. And although we – my father, brother and I – had travelled from Scotland to Leeds hoping to see England prevail against their oldest, greatest, rival, expectations were prudently low. Australia were, after all, already 2-0 ahead in the series and there was little sign England were capable – or even believed themselves capable – of hauling themselves back into contention. There was the excitement of seeing test cricket in person. And, secondly, and more importantly, there was the prospect of seeing Shane Warne bowl. The 22 year-old Victorian was already a sensation.

Boris must go!

Conservative sympathisers, Conservative voters and Conservative parliamentarians have a simple choice to make this week. Do they stand by a Prime Minister who besmirches his office and whose moral credibility diminishes a little more each day he remains, squatting, in Downing Street? Or do they, instead, accept the obvious reality that Johnson is not fit for the office he holds, draw the obvious conclusions from that recognition, and do the decent thing? For every Tory MP and cabinet minister who fails to act this week deserves to be judged themselves. These MPs might be weak or venal or cowardly or blind or simply stupid but they cannot claim to be ignorant. Those who fail to support this Prime Minister’s removal soil whatever remains of their own reputations.

Boris’s dwindling bunch of supporters must now come clean

Oh for heaven’s sake, come off it. British politics has long had a comfortable relationship with the absurd but this week – not yet over, its revelations not yet exhausted – takes a very pretty biscuit nonetheless. I do not imagine that 'Downing Street apologises to the Queen for party revels' is quite the kind of headline Conservative prime ministers dream of. And while Boris Johnson has a copper-clad alibi for the suitcase-of-booze party in as much as he was at Chequers that night, it remains the case – as has always been the case – that a government is led from the top. Consequently, the character of the man or woman at its pinnacle slowly but surely informs other aspects of the government’s behaviour. It is a question of culture.

Douglas Ross is right: Boris Johnson must go

In May 2020 Douglas Ross resigned from Boris Johnson’s government. Though only a junior minister in the Scotland Office – Ross was not at that time a member of the Holyrood parliament or leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party – Ross was still the most senior figure to resign in protest at how the government handled the Dominic Cummings affair. Ross was clear: Cummings had plainly broken the government’s own Covid rules and, this being so, decency demanded he clear his desk. No-one, not even the great Cummings, could be thought indispensable. As it happens, the Cummings story broke just a couple of days after the Prime Minister and his then fiancee attended a BYOB post-work piss-up in Downing Street.

The unfathomable inadequacy of Boris Johnson

There is no room for wriggling here and not just because multiple witnesses put Boris Johnson and his wife at the scene of the stupidity. If Boris Johnson had not been aware that 100 people who work in the same building as him had been invited to a post-work BYOB shindig, even he might have noticed a crowd of 30 to 40 gathering in his garden. And he might then have popped a prime ministerial head out of the window and asked what the bloody hell the partygoers thought they were doing. But of course nothing like that happened because the Prime Minister must surely have known about it all along. The invitation, after all, came from his principal private secretary, not some rogue Downing Street employee. But, once again, even if by some heroic act of ignorance the Prime Minister did not know about the party in advance he certainly knew about it when he attended it.

The joy of Boris’s bungled by-election

By any reasonable standard the result in the North Shropshire by-election must be reckoned the funniest in years. Perhaps even decades. All governments need checking from time to time and desserts are always served justly. So this is a welcome result and not just because it is, viewed objectively, hilarious. Nevertheless, it is quite an achievement to lose a seat held by the Conservatives, in one shape of another, for 120 years. To do so just two years after winning more than 60 per cent of the vote and a majority of almost 23,000 votes is quite something. To do so to the Liberal Democrats, who took just ten per cent of the vote in 2019, is really quite something. But who can doubt it is a thoroughly deserved kind of disaster for the Conservative party? In the first place, this was a by-election the government brought upon itself.

Boris Johnson is eating reality

It is neither fair nor correct to say it was obvious from the moment Boris Johnson became Prime Minister that he was not fit for the job for this was a truth obvious long before Johnson entered Downing Street. Nothing in his career suggested a man capable of making a success of one of the country’s most demanding jobs. What was foreseeable was in fact foreseen. Voters may be excused for accepting Johnson’s promise to ‘Get Brexit Done’ and for preferring him to the grisly prospect of Prime Minister Corbyn — but those Tory MPs who put that choice in front of them have no such excuse. They knew the calibre and character of the man they chose and they cannot claim to be surprised by what has happened since. It was always a punt and the more honest Johnson backers will admit it.

Is this the beginning of the end for Nicola Sturgeon?

The SNP are holding their annual conference this weekend and, the times being what they are, it is a virtual affair. Speeches have been recorded in advance and I understand at least one cabinet minister was informed his first effort failed to meet the required standard and needed to be recorded again. Perhaps it was insufficiently boosterish. As is by now a matter of time-honoured tradition, no SNP gathering — whether in person or via video — can take place without the announcement of a fresh push for a second independence referendum. These are launched every spring and then launched again every autumn. That none of them ever produce anything of substance must now be considered part of their charm. A sham performance for a party willing to believe in anything except reality.

Boris’s rail betrayal is no surprise

A promise made is merely a promise waiting to be broken. If events complicate life for all governments it is nevertheless apparent some governments are more likely to abandon their promises than others. And by now no-one should be surprised that a government led by Boris Johnson finds it easier to jettison its pledges than to honour them. It is the nature of the creature. Today it happens to be High Speed Rail, but yesterday it was something else and tomorrow it will be another thing altogether. The Prime Minister’s inconstancy is his constancy. Even so, the watering down of previous plans to – at long last – invest seriously in transport connections across much of the north of England is a shameless piece of promise-smashing and remains so even if judged by the Prime Minister’s lengthy form on such matters.

Owen Paterson’s defenders are treating voters with contempt

Nothing more surely demonstrates the Conservative party’s grip on power than its apparent determination that Tory MPs should be able to breach long-agreed, long-respected, House of Commons standards on what constitutes fit and proper behaviour for an MP. The parliamentary party’s decision to save Owen Paterson from the consequences of his own behaviour is itself remarkable. That such efforts are now be supported by the government is something close to breath-taking. They do it because they calculate they can get away with it. And they are, miserably, probably correct to conclude as much. If you wished a demonstration of Tory supremacy and Labour impotence you could hardly ask for better than this. There may often be something to be said for a government armed with a mighty parliamentary majority; there is often, as this squalid episode demonstrates, much to be said against it too.

Humza Yousaf has revealed a dark truth about the SNP

American journalist Michael Kinsley once observed that in Washington DC a 'gaffe' should be understood as a moment in which a politician or public official inadvertently blurts out a truth it would have been better, and certainly wiser, to leave unsaid. By that standard Humza Yousaf, currently serving as health secretary in the Scottish government, is a mighty friend to journalists. Pondering the meaning and significance of what has become known as the Alex Salmond affair, Yousaf told the comedian Matt Forde that the conflict between Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon was 'really upsetting because it could have done our cause a hell of a lot of damage – it still might do our cause a hell of a lot of damage'. Sometimes it is better not to say the quiet bit out loud.

Has Nicola Sturgeon run out of ideas for Scotland?

On Tuesday, another 4,323 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in Scotland. A reminder, if it were needed, that the pandemic continues even though 80 per cent of the adult population are now fully vaccinated. The schools are back and the start of the new university year next month suggests more new cases are all but certain. The worst of this iteration of the pandemic may be in the past but it isn’t over. Indeed, it is so far from being over that the First Minister felt it necessary to warn that a fresh round of restrictions may be necessary should case numbers continue to rise. Even if that proves unnecessary and even if you are minded to think Sturgeon’s caution excessive, it is obvious that Covid will be a part of life for the foreseeable future.

Is Boris brave enough to confront the truth about the NHS?

If a government does not wish to break a manifesto promise it should punt fewer such 'promises' into its manifesto. The modern mania for throwing everything possible into a manifesto – the better to proof it against interference from the House of Lords – renders manifestoes nothing more than a job lot of largely spurious pledges. The vision thing is notable for its absence and the vision thing is more important – and more revealing – than a grocery list of promises. Still, if you must break a promise it is no bad thing to start with a large and stupid one. The Conservative commitment not to raise any of the major taxes during this parliament was doubtless designed to impress voters, but if it did so it achieved its goal at the expense of betraying the party’s lack of seriousness.

The callousness of the Conservative foreign aid cut

A billionaire who reduces his or her charity is a billionaire asking to be judged and found wanting. When they do so, not on the basis that their charity is squandered but because they fancy keeping more of their wealth for their own purposes, they demand to be judged and found wanting all over again. This morning, the United Kingdom and its government is that billionaire. The government has won its campaign to reduce Britain’s foreign aid contributions. As so often, a much-vaunted Tory rebellion delivered rather less than it promised. As a consequence, money will be withheld from some of the world’s poorest peoples and kept instead by some of its wealthiest. There are, for sure, reasonable arguments to be had on the destination and efficient use of the UK’s aid budget.

Scots, not Boris Johnson, are blocking IndyRef2

So what does it all mean? The first thing to bear in mind is that more than one thing may be true at the same time. This is, then, both a historic and thumping victory for Nicola Sturgeon and a mild disappointment. Historic because, after 14 years in power, Scottish voters have handed the SNP a fourth consecutive term in office; a modest disappointment because the SNP made little progress on their 2016 performance. Five years ago, Sturgeon lost the majority - albeit this was an accidental majority - she inherited from Alex Salmond and she failed to regain it this week. Doing so would have required everything to fall into place for the nationalists. They would have needed to pick up seats such as Dumbarton, Edinburgh Southern, and Aberdeenshire West to have a real crack at a majority.

Scots, not Boris Johnson, are blocking IndyRef2

Scottish nationalism is no better than any other kind

Even the Americans are noticing Nicola Sturgeon now and if you are – like many nationalists – the kind of Scottish nationalist forever on the lookout for external validation, lengthy articles featuring the first minister in The New Yorker and The Atlantic is the kind of thing to make you proud. There has always been a strong streak of what I like to think of as Sally Field nationalism – 'And I can’t deny the fact that you like me! Right now, you like me!' However happy it might be, it cannot quite escape being cringeworthy. But there we have it; nationalism is essentially myopic and all nationalisms are alike in that respect. This is a view challenging the sense, almost universally accepted by Scotland’s nationalist movement, that it should never be compared to other forms of nationalist sentiment.

Does anyone doubt Boris’s leaked ‘bodies’ comment?

Of course Boris Johnson raged, King Lear-like, that he was prepared to 'let the bodies pile high in their thousands' if the alternative was subjecting the country to a third lockdown more dispiriting than either of its dreary, even grim, predecessors. I say ‘of course he said it’ not just because at least three different sources have confirmed to at least three different reporters that the Prime Minister did say it but also, and significantly, because it would be so wholly in character for the Prime Minister to have said it. If it sounds like the sort of thing he would say, that is largely because it is the sort of thing he would say. Nor have his denials been convincing. His quick 'no' before pivoting to more important things (which no-one currently thinks more important) had more than a tinge of a child caught red-handed who knows he must put up a show of innocence while understanding this is all it is: a required show that persuades nobody.

The nationalists’ vaccine fallacy

The trouble with nationalism of any and every sort is that, in the end, it eats your brain. As evidence of this we may simply note Nicola Sturgeon’s assertions this week that the success of Britain’s vaccination programme should in no way encourage the thought an independent Scotland might have struggled to match this happy development. According to Sturgeon, there is 'absolutely no evidential basis to say Scotland would not have vaccinated as many people as we’ve vaccinated right now' if it were an independent state. This is, to use the technical term, bollocks on a tartan pogo-stick. It would be vastly closer to the truth to argue the contrary, noting there is precisely zero evidential basis for thinking an independent Scotland would have vaccinated anything like so many of its citizens as has been made possible by the United Kingdom’s startlingly successful vaccine procurement programme.

Alex Salmond is a gift to the Unionist cause

If Alex Salmond and his new Alba party did not exist, pro-Union parties would find it necessary to invent them. Perhaps, of course, that is what has happened. Be that as it may, Salmond’s emergence from the swampy waters of his own disgrace is the best thing to have happened for Unionism in a long, long time. Salmond may be an innocent man in the eyes of the law, but he is not a good one in the eyes of the public. Remarkably, he is less popular in Scotland than Boris Johnson. That reflects, doubtless, the manner in which Nicola Sturgeon’s friends and agents have turned against him and the sad lack of charity still bestowed upon him by his longstanding Unionist opponents. Even so, it is quite an achievement. Scotland agrees on very little these days but it can still just about collectively spot a wrong ‘un.

Salmond’s comeback is a pitiful sight

When Alex Salmond lost his seat at the 2017 general election, he finished his concession speech with a quotation from Sir Walter Scott’s poem, 'Bonnie Dundee': 'And tremble false Whigs, in the midst of your glee/You have not seen the last of my bonnet and me.' Well, it is true that we have heard far too much from Alex Salmond in the years since but all roads, I suppose, led to the wholly unsurprising announcement this afternoon that Salmond is getting back into the game. Hell hath no fury like an ego ignored. The Alba party – Salmond’s new venture – will contest seats on the list portion of May’s Holyrood election. Its chief purpose, Salmond says, will be to play its part in the creation of a nationalist super-majority that will shame even Boris Johnson – that famously shame-conscious man – into conceding an independence referendum it is very much not in his interests to concede.

Sturgeon’s future now hangs in the balance

At First Minister’s Questions this afternoon Nicola Sturgeon accused Ruth Davidson of peddling baseless conspiracy theories, dredged up from 'the bottom of the barrel'. For all that Davidson, like the rest of Sturgeon’s political opponents, might profess that their interest in the Salmond-Sturgeon affair rests on nothing more than ‘just the facts, ma’am’, the First Minister was clear their concern is primarily opportunistic and political. If they wished to pal around with Alex Salmond and his cronies in some kind of 'old boys club' that was their prerogative, but the people of Scotland will deliver their verdict in May’s elections. And there is, of course, some truth in that charge. The Salmond affair is the opposition’s last, best, chance of damaging Sturgeon, and by extension, the SNP before the election on 6 May.

David Davis’s bombshell leak spells trouble for Nicola Sturgeon

The first thing to be said about David Davis’s dramatic intervention in the Salmond-Sturgeon affair is that it is a masterful piece of concern-trolling. The second thing to be said is that this does not matter. Davis, speaking armoured by parliamentary privilege, revealed information passed to him by a 'whistleblower' that has hitherto been kept secret. On the face of it, there are very good reasons explaining why the SNP and the Scottish government would wish to keep it that way. Ostensibly, Davis’s intervention is motivated by concern that the Scottish parliament and its members lack the ability to pursue the truth wherever it may lead. He came, he said, to strengthen the Scottish parliament, not to bury it. MSPs should, he suggested, henceforth enjoy the parliamentary privileges he enjoys as the member for Haltemprice and Howden.

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