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On June 23rd 2016 one of the most important political events, certainly in recent British political history, occurred when the best part of 34 million British citizens went to the polls to vote in a referendum. This was no ordinary referendum. It had been promised to the people of Great …

I was born in a small village in rural Aberdeenshire and grew up speaking both English and Doric. It was natural for me to do so because these were the languages that were used in daily life. My father worked in the oil industry and so for a while we …

In a changing world, established settlements are being overturned and ideas once considered ‘unthinkable’ suddenly become possible again. So where does that leave Britain’s historic weights and measures? Who would ever have thought it? That’s been my summary of the events of the year, this year. The whole Trump – …

In the twenty years that followed the 1992 general election, debate on the constitutional framework of the country and ultimately on the Scottish independence referendum was conveniently limited to “The UK”, “the Union” or “the United Kingdom” but not “Great Britain”. This was new. As we shall see below, the …

Leftists do not scream “that’s offensive!” out of overwhelming, saintly concern for the supposed “victims” of free speech. They do so as part of an authoritarian ploy to shut down unwanted discussion and mockery of their own sacred values One does not need to see the dental records of some …

How do we respond to the latest threat from the SNP to break up our country? We must respond in a variety of ways. One of them is humour. The gorillas are on the loose again beating their chests and drinking epic amounts of Ribena. This naturally makes them a …

It is Westminster politicians and journalists, not Brexiteers, who have been short sighted and parochial The Telegraph’s James Kirkup poses an interesting question about the expansion of Heathrow Airport and other national political priorities in the post-Brexit world: Almost 70 per cent of commuting is done by car so roads …

Great Britain has been forgotten before. Without a hint of irony, the world, academics, politics and most of its citizens called the UK “England” for most of its history. Even the great historian AJP Taylor recited his English History without the slightest embarrassment that the story he was retelling was …

While advocating a “soft Brexit” as their fallback position, Remainers contradict themselves and expose the tawdry lies they told during the EU referendum Even Open Britain, the shrivelled husk of Will Straw’s failed Remain campaign group Britain Stronger in Europe, has now effectively admitted that leaving the European Union need not be …

Whichever fat fingered BBC technician “accidentally” substituted some film of a psychotic rampaging gorilla for the latest film of Nicola Sturgeon making threats deserves some sort of award. Give that man a Nobel Prize for services to humour. There is a long history in Britain of turning people like Sturgeon into …

It is only through writing that I can really know what I think. My views develop and change. The fundamentals don’t normally change a great deal, but the details do. My method is not scholarly. I find most academic writing to be desperately dull and pointless. I rarely now write …

It is time for a Believe in Britain campaign. Purpose In recent decades we have seen the growth of regional and national identities. There is the obvious growth of SNP and demands for Scottish independence, but also in Wales – Plaid Cymru now take part in UK-wide general election TV …

It takes real courage to speak out against the Cult of the NHS, particularly for people on the political left who are expected to be the biggest cheerleaders of all From a brave commenter at Left Foot Forward, reacting to the same piece of sentimentalist NHS idolatry which prompted my …

There is a reason I’ve been writing so much since the EU referendum and with perhaps a higher intensity than before. I returned from holiday in early July only to find one of my friends and colleagues in absolute bits. I remember that whole period of uncertainty leading up to …

https://youtu.be/HZEw9MwhoQ0 This five-year-old girl actually makes a better case for Corbynism than many writers at the Guardian, Left Foot Forward or LabourList. Someone give her a weekly column and a podcast! A few years ago, US comedian Bill Maher brought to our attention a 14-year-old wannabe conservative talk radio host …

Overall, this year’s Conservative Party Conference was a success. It was so wonderful to see the Conservative Party finally be united in support of Brexit. Guido Fawkes said it right when he said Theresa May’s Brexit speech was the speech many of us have hoped for decades to hear a Prime …

What is the name of your country? A simple question. To those citizens of the islands north of France there are now many answers – the United Kingdom, Scotland, the Republic of Ireland, Wales, Northern Ireland, England, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, Cornwall? There are in fact two …

When I stand at my bus stop waiting to go home I watch the lorries pass by. Nearly every single one has a combination of Scottish flags somewhere in the cab. There is usually a phrase about Scotland being bonnie or being forever. Sometimes there are bits of tartanry dotted …

I am running out of things to write about Scottish politics. Maybe it is just that I have written too much. I certainly imagine that my opponents think this. There is a special place in their hearts for me. Eventually they all blow up and say something nasty even if …

Since Tony Blair opened the floodgates to Eastern European workers they have swarmed into Britain, the wages are many times higher here. At the end of last year there were more than two million mainland Europeans working here (an increase of around 200,000 in the year) and more than half …