Stephen Daisley
@JournoStephen
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Opinion journalist, critic, sketch and leader writer. Mail. Spectator. Substack. Pauline Kael was right about Hiroshima, Mon Amour. John Fetterman stan account.
Scotland, United Kingdom
Joined January 2012
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Some sincerely oppose Kate Forbes because of her faith. Others, in what we might call the professional SNP, use this as cover. What really worries them is the prospect of a leader who demands results. They’ve been coasting for years. Forbes would mean shaping up or shipping out.
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So, as I understand it, the Islamist threat to MPs is so severe the Speaker had to upend parliamentary procedure to appease it, but also the Islamist threat is being overblown by the right, but also also MPs need more protection. From Islamists. Whose threat is overblown. Gotcha.
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One of the unfortunate things I’ve noticed today is people referring to the Hate Crime Act as ‘the SNP Hate Crime Act’. It’s actually ‘the SNP-Labour-Green-Lib Dem Hate Crime Act’. Those are the four parties that voted for the legislation. All four deserve credit for their law.
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Read this tweet.
Read it again.
And again.
What we are seeing across the Western world is an outbreak of collective madness.
Police are at the entrance to the Radisson Blu hotel in Glasgow - where athletes are registering for the World Athletics Indoor Championships.
No athletes from Israel competing but demo organisers here say they’re angry they weren’t banned from doing so anyway.
@LBC
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‘I’m convinced Shona Robison’s not really the Deputy First Minister but rather a member of the public who popped into Holyrood to use the loo but, after a series of comical misunderstandings, was ferried into the chamber to answer questions.’
#FMQs
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For more than a decade, I’ve been writing about antisemitism. I thought I understood how deep the problem was in Western mainstream politics, media, academia, the institutions. For the first time, I find myself shocked by the volume, reach and openness of Jew-hatred in the West.
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‘Scotland has almost no ministerial talent to speak of. We have the middling and the mediocre. We have a self-perpetuating elite whose only principle is to keep themselves in power. We have too many Angus Robertsons when one is already one too many.’
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The Michael Matheson story is about more than an iPad. it’s about the institutional failings of Scottish politics.
My latest
@MailOnline
column.
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The smart thing for Humza Yousaf to do would be to ask Kate Forbes to be his new health secretary.
The smart thing for Kate Forbes to do would be to say no.
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8 Jul 2020: Scotland lists countries exempt from Covid quarantine. Spain isn’t on it.
19 Jul 2020: SNP ministers told Spain ‘will never approve EU membership for an independent Scotland’ if it’s not on the list.
23 Jul 2020: Spain is added to the list.
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A feminist campaigner writes a newspaper column critical of Scottish Government gender policy.
An opposition politician tweets out the column and echoes its criticisms.
Police Scotland records the tweet as a ‘hate incident’.
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David Cameron’s streak of being wrong about absolutely everything remains unbroken.
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Every last word of this, by
@douglaskmurray
. A British government minister is being run out of public life by Islamist thugs and our political class would rather prate about mean tweets and microaggressions than face up to it.
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The mayor of London, speaking in his official role, through his official communications channel, issuing a foreign policy statement at odds with that of HM Government. In a proper country, this would be called usurpation. In post-UK Devolutionland, no one will bat an eyelid.
Thousands of innocent civilians have already been killed in Israel and Gaza. With the humanitarian crisis set to deteriorate even further, I’m calling for a ceasefire.
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‘The news filtered through shortly before FMQs: Michael Matheson was resigning to spend more time with his roaming charges. It was a grievous loss to the health service, which will now have to settle for being mismanaged by someone else.’
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My latest
@MailOnline
column breaks the great taboo of Scottish politics: pointing out that devolution has benefited Scotland’s political class but failed her people.
If you like it, please share. If not, there’s a lively comments section underneath!
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My latest column is on Nicola Sturgeon, deleted messages, and a legacy of failure and vanity.
‘Sturgeon has always had an inflated sense of her own virtue. She’s so holier-than-thou she should come with her own brand of incense.’
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I have no legal training but as someone who earns a crust watching people speak at Holyrood and pointing out which ones do okay and which ones should have called in sick that morning, the Lord Advocate’s performance is leaning in one direction and it’s not the former.
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It’s remarkable how many lifelong Tories are going out of their way to tell me, unprompted, that they’ll be voting for a different party in the election. Most striking of all is their tone: sheer, unbridled contempt. They aren’t fed up with the Tories, they downright hate them.
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The October 7 massacre may have taken place 3,000 miles away, but it has exposed a deep moral and intellectual rot in Britain’s institutions.
Me in the
@spectator
.
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Two thoughts after reading Lady Haldane’s judgment:
1. Alister Jack’s gamble in blocking the Gender Recognition Reform Bill has been vindicated
2. Michael Foran, whose legal advice was pivotal to the s.35 order, has made one hell of a name for himself
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And so it falls to me to give the take that will please no one:
1. David Cameron is right to warn the Scottish Government to stop breaking foreign affairs protocol
2. UK Government warnings mean little when they keep failing to back them up with action
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Me in the
@spectator
pointing at the massive elephant in the room:
‘If there was no Scottish Parliament, there would be no Hate Crime Act.’
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Humza Yousaf meeting Turkish authoritarian Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and discussing reserved foreign policy without a Foreign Office official present is not a one-off.
The Scottish Government has been at this for years now. The time for warnings has passed.
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‘Angus Robertson is what passes for an intellectual in today’s SNP. He and Mike Russell have shared custody of the party brain cell.’
My sketch of
#FMQs
is up at
@MailOnline
.
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MSPs are getting a £4,500 pay rise, taking them to £72,195, just as they are considering public service cuts.
SNP finance secretary Shona Robison says ‘the size of the workforce will have to reduce’. So will the number of MSPs now have to reduce, too?
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New column on the Hate Crime Act and why the Hate Monster shows the elite’s contempt for ordinary Scots.
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@jk_rowling
Not a lot of people get to lead their own cult. A niche LinkedIn update if nothing else.
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My sketch of Sturgeon at Covid inquiry.
‘Since day one of the pandemic, Sturgeon was always going to end up here. Her unprecedented powers, those sweeping lockdowns, the life-or-death stakes – all fated her to a rendezvous with her own record one day.’
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Alister Jack vs. Pete Wishart at Scottish Affairs select committee:
AJ: ‘The Westminster Parliament is sovereign.’
PW: ‘Don’t we know it.’
AJ: ‘You do indeed know it… You may not like it, but it is sovereign.’
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Alistair Darling reached the top of UK politics but never became one of *those* politicians. He did great, historic work for his country but he was endlessly humble. He was a decent man, a hard worker and a patriot. May we see a thousand more like him.
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Kate Forbes is the only person to emerge from the Covid inquiry with her reputation enhanced.
That she was excluded from Nicola Sturgeon’s inner circle is the best character reference anyone could ask for.
Humza is stuck with his dancing partner... and there’s another waiting to step up
www.mailplus.co.uk
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Kate Forbes:
• Opposed self-ID ✅
• Against Section 35 petition ✅
• Called for DRS pause ✅
• Urged HPMAs to be dropped ✅
• Handed over her WhatsApps ✅
Backing Humza Yousaf was the biggest political own goal since Labour chose Foot over Healey.
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‘The pandemic might have been just another media opportunity for TV’s Nicola Sturgeon but to everyone else, it was a matter of life and death. And because the stakes were so high, Scotland put its trust in her. She betrayed that trust.’
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Remember this when they’re are at your door in the autumn asking for your vote.
(Yes, it’s a Commons election, but you can base your vote on whatever you like.)
Ask candidates:
1. Do you support the Hate Crime Act?
2. Why did your party vote for it?
3. Would you back a repeal?
One of the unfortunate things I’ve noticed today is people referring to the Hate Crime Act as ‘the SNP Hate Crime Act’. It’s actually ‘the SNP-Labour-Green-Lib Dem Hate Crime Act’. Those are the four parties that voted for the legislation. All four deserve credit for their law.
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Why Nicola Sturgeon should not resign as an MSP over the deleted messages scandal.
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Alistair Darling 1953-2023.
He saved the country. Twice.
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A British government minister targeted by Islamists is standing down from politics for his own personal safety.
Don’t pretend you’re shocked. Don’t tut that something must be done.
This is just how things are in Britain now.
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Thought Alister Jack did well at Scottish Affairs committee. Good-humoured, restated Section 35 order was about law not politics, set out UK Govt’s financial and other backing for Scotland, said SNP ministers can’t disregard devolution settlement whenever it suits them. 1/2
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Alister Jack urges Humza Yousaf not to appeal Lady Haldane’s judgment on Section 35, regardless of what the Scottish Greens want him to do:
‘If he is bullied by Patrick Harvie, Lorna Slater and Ross Greer, that is a weakness on his part.’
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Scotland Office minister
@John2Win
tells the Scottish Affairs select committee there is a ‘growing frustration’ among councils and businesses in Scotland that Westminster is sending a more generous block grant to Holyrood but the Scottish Government isn’t passing the benefit on.
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‘Independence. That fixation of the fundamentalist, that panacea of the parochialist. This year marks a decade since we voted No, but for the past ten years, the SNP has kept the wound open, prodding it whenever political expediency requires.’
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A blistering, unequivocal condemnation of
@CelticFC
fans who celebrated Hamas murdering Jewish men, women and children at the weekend. The statement comes from Celts Against Antisemitism (
@cfcagainsthate
), a fan group which says ‘Celtic is grappling with an antisemitism issue’.
Statement: Celts Against Anti-Semitism
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This is a product of the Whitehall mentality that tries to find every way imaginable to appease the Scottish Government. Doing so achieves nothing for the UK and only emboldens Holyrood. They expect parity of esteem because Whitehall has encouraged them to do so.
NEW: First Minister
@HumzaYousaf
tells
@LBC
he’s still not been briefed by UK Gov on Middle East latest - despite asking three days ago - “disappointing”.
Says he’s sceptical of any UK military intervention in region - when asked if he supports RAF shooting down drones.
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When elites complain about too much focus on ‘culture wars’, what they mean is: ‘Quiet, peasants. We set the terms of political debate, not you.’
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John Pilger was all this and more, but the thing I have never been able to get out of my mind was the time he called Barack Obama ‘a glossy Uncle Tom’. It was such a clarion example of ‘my racism isn’t racism because I’m left-wing’.
The Australian former journalist, atrocity revisionist, war crimes denier and conspiracy theorist John Pilger has passed away aged 84.
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Scottish Secretary Alister Jack tells the Scottish Affairs select committee that he ‘supports’ David Cameron’s letter to Angus Robertson on foreign affairs ‘one hundred percent’. Gives four further examples of Humza Yousaf meeting foreign heads of government.
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Wow. International law says the UK can’t sell arms to a friendly country fighting a defensive war after being invaded. Guess we had best withdraw from whatever treaties, conventions or institutions impose this crazy restriction on us.
EXCL: Three former supreme court justices, including the court’s former president Lady Hale, are among more than 600 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges warning that the UK government is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel
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I doubt there are as many as three issues on which I agree with Joanna Cherry but between Cherry/Miller and women’s sex-based rights she has shown the kind of courage and tenacity that you want from an MP. If only we had more like her.
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This week’s column is on Humza Yousaf ‘winging it’ during the pandemic — and the decline of the public servant.
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@jk_rowling
Yeah, if I ever become head of a cult, I want it to be official. ‘De facto’ sounds an awful lot like ‘no pension scheme or dental plan’.
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The Scottish Greens have spent years campaigning to destroy oil and gas jobs. Now they’ve succeeded, and Scotland’s last oil refinery is to close down, they’re offering workers their ‘solidarity’.
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‘Devolution has fallen far short of expectations. We shouldn’t shy away from acknowledging this. A settlement designed around one political elite transferring its powers to another was never going to serve the people of this country, and so it has proved.’
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This is how you know the Scottish Government is struggling financially. It’s been forced to cut spending on things it shouldn’t be spending anything on in the first place.
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And the Tories have not lifted one finger against any of it. In fact, under David Cameron, they devolved two further tranches of powers to an SNP-run Holyrood and amended the Scotland Act to make Holyrood ‘permanent’ and rename the Scottish Executive ‘the Scottish Government’.
Blair's constitutional reforms:
Devolution
Incorporation of ECHR into UK law
Human Rights Act
H of L reform
Creation of UK Supreme Court
What a damaging legacy for the United Kingdom.
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A weird false memory is being created in which David Cameron’s tenure as Prime Minister was a time of stability and seriousness in government.
It wasn’t. It was a time of chancers, bullshitters and incompetents, and Cameron ranked first in each category.
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‘Instead of open government, we have government by cloak, dagger and burner phone. Instead of process, we have political expediency. Instead of accountability, we have an untouchable ruling class.’
My latest
@DailyMailUK
column.
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Alister Jack confirms he is minded to seek costs from the Scottish Government following the Court of Session judgment on Section 35.
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A polemic on the Hate Crime Act and the Scottish establishment:
‘Typically to be found living in the most fashionable neighbourhoods of Glasgow and Edinburgh, this Waitrose junta is driven as much by class and status anxiety as it is by any ideology.’
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.
@TheFP
publishes the kind of longform journalism increasingly hard to find because it costs money, takes time and isn’t algorithm-friendly. It fills the curiosity gap left behind when legacy media came to see their role as enforcers of the new ideology.
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@michaelpforan
To be fair, your critics all have LLBs from the Dunning–Kruger School of Law.
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‘UK spies have infiltrated the SNP? For one, MI5 hardly needs to keep Scottish independence at bay when the SNP is already doing a first-class job of it. For another, any spy sent to gather intelligence at the Scottish Government is in for a short shift.’
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While the focus in Scottish politics lately has been on iPads, I decided to write instead about laptops.
Because the SNP government has postponed its free laptops for schoolchildren scheme.
Again.
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The Scottish Government must heed the Cass Review findings. Young Scots deserve the same quality of healthcare as their peers in England.
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The other examples of Humza Yousaf’s meetings cited to the Scottish Affairs select committee by Alister Jack are:
1) Prime Minister of Lebanon
2) Acting PM of Pakistan
3) President of European Commission
4) President of the European Council
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack tells the Scottish Affairs select committee that he ‘supports’ David Cameron’s letter to Angus Robertson on foreign affairs ‘one hundred percent’. Gives four further examples of Humza Yousaf meeting foreign heads of government.
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Some thoughts in the
@spectator
on Ash Regan’s defection.
‘Humza Yousaf has no means of taking the nationalist cause beyond where Nicola Sturgeon left it, dumped by the side of the road, bloodied and broken after being run over by the Scotland Act.’
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I would urge everyone to read this by
@DavidGHFrost
, who has recently returned from Israel where he met survivors of the Be’eri massacre.
His thoughts are among the sharpest and most clear-sighted we have heard from a prominent figure in UK politics.
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‘For years, I’ve been saying SNP ministers should get back to the day job. Now I’ve seen what they’re like at the day job, I think I’d rather they went back to banging on about independence.’
My sketch of this week’s
#FMQs
.
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A British government minister has been intimidated into leaving politics by Islamists, but nothing will change.
The entire government could resign tomorrow for the same reason, and nothing would change.
This is just the kind of country we are now.
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Humza Yousaf: ‘I won’t take any lectures from Anas Sarwar on winning elections.’
@AnasSarwar
: ‘I’ll give you lessons on how to win elections come the next election.’
Ooft.
#FMQs
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Scottish Labour backs the pause on puberty blockers for children and calls for the Cass Review findings to be applied to Scotland.
Talk about the tide turning.
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‘Fergus Ewing has allegedly been thinking for himself. In the SNP, no less. Officially, the suspension is for voting against the Government on a confidence motion in Lorna Slater. Somehow, he had got it into his head that she wasn’t very good at her job.’
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‘The First Minister can take Erdogan on a tour of all the sights. The Unfloatable Ferries. The Undualable A9. The Never-ending A&E Queue. They’ll cover a lot of ground but I’m sure someone can lend them a camper van.’
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‘It was the most shameless use of a political offspring since John Gummer, and at least his kid got a burger out of it.’
My sketch of Michael Matheson’s statement on his £11,000 iPad bill.
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The man that Sir Keir Starmer tried to make Prime Minister. Twice.
NEW: Jeremy Corbyn refuses to state that Hamas is a terrorist organisation, and also refuses to state that they should be removed from power.
@piersmorgan
@PiersUncensored
#piersUncensored
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The October 7 effect in Britain:
⚠️Worst year on record for antisemitism in modern UK
⚠️ Assaults on Jews — up 96%
⚠️Damage to Jewish property — up 146%
⚠️Threats — up 196%
⚠️School antisemitism — up 232%
⚠️University antisemitism — up 203%
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‘There was a surreal quality as MSPs preened and pontificated about Gaza. Characters who’d struggle to be recognised at their own constituency surgery were lecturing heads of foreign states and international bodies on What Must Be Done.’
My Mail sketch.
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Tomorrow’s Scottish Daily Mail column is on the Hate Crime Act. No punches are pulled.
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‘I’m not saying we should shutter the Scottish parliament. True, it has the potential to be the most architecturally avant-garde multi-storey car park in Europe—and would probably do the country more benefit in that guise—but that’s not how things work.’
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You don’t need to be told this happened in London. Whenever someone speaks like this in public and the crowd applauds at the end, you can make an educated guess that it’s London, ground zero for Islamism in the West.
Mohammed El Kurd at the pro-terror rally in London today:
“We must normalize massacres as the status quo”
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.
@X
limits a
@Conservatives
politician’s post for ‘violent speech’ for saying Hamas ‘must be destroyed at all costs’.
What the hell,
@elonmusk
?
For the avoidance of doubt: Hamas is a terrorist organisation. It must be destroyed at all costs.
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The Cass Review shows how quickly an ideology can capture institutions when political commitment counts for more than evidence.
We have some experience of that in Scotland, too.
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The next election will ask us to choose the least worst among some truly dismal leaders:
‘In Scotland we are confronted by the prospect of Humza Yousaf, Rishi Sunak or Sir Keir Starmer. The fourth horseman of the apocalypse must be delayed somewhere.’
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Beholding the sheer direness of
#FMQs
and once again marvelling that we built a statue to Donald Dewar.
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Today, October 19, was meant to be
#indyref2
day. But Nicola Sturgeon blew it and now her successor Humza Yousaf is dragging his party down in the polls. They were handed every opportunity and they squandered them all.
Me in the Mail:
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Since the Scottish Government published another independence white paper today, I decided to write a little more about why we need a Royal Commission on Devolution to recommend reforms to a flawed system.
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A number of voices have been very concerned about what they regard as misrepresentation of the Hate Crime Act by journalists and the law’s opponents.
I can’t help but notice that some of these voices seem less concerned about the Scottish Government misrepresenting the Act.
We and
@ForWomenScot
are calling on the Minister for Victims and Community Safety to stop misrepresenting the law.
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‘Starmer doesn’t need Scottish seats to win the next election’ but SNP MPs will somehow have influence over him after the election, according to this SNP MSP.
Make it make sense.
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NHS Scotland should follow NHS England in ending the routine prescribing of puberty blockers.
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This is a welcome, if surprising, move. Institutional neutrality is still a principle worth fighting for.
NEW: Scottish Parliament staff will no longer be able to wear personalised lanyards - including rainbow lanyards - to minimise the "risk of perceived bias".
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I’ve written about the defacing of the Amy Winehouse statue.
‘They hate you because you’re Jewish. They hate you because you won’t be their kind of Jew, willing to denounce Israel, renounce Zionism and debase your people and yourself for their approval.’
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‘If Humza Yousaf was trying to convince us he had something to hide then he did a fine job.’
My sketch of
#FMQs
and the missing WhatsApp messages.
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Scotland’s only gender clinic pauses the issuing of puberty blockers to children.
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Have some cold/flu thing. Watching Columbo episode ‘Murder by the Book’, and thinking: ‘This looks really good for early Seventies police procedural TV.’ Looked up the director. Little-known guy called Steven Spielberg.
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Jesus, some of the replies to this. And a lot of them from people who would probably consider themselves terribly progressive.
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‘The Hate Crime Act comes forth in measured-sounding legalese but it is another glimpse at the face of woke totalitarianism, an imposition by progressive tyrants hellbent on cowing and criminalising every last word and idea they disagree with.’
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‘It’s the most audacious hit on a Ewing since JR took two in the gut from Sue Ellen’s sister.’
My sketch of this week’s
#FMQs
at Holyrood.
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