Stephen Daisley

Trump can’t override everything

6 March 2025 5:09 am

‘There are judges in Jerusalem,’ Menachem Begin is reputed to have proclaimed, following a court ruling which he believed vindicated one…

Trump is a bully but it’s a mistake to stand up to him

5 March 2025 4:58 pm

Everything they taught you in school is a lie. Carthage was not salted, Canute knew he couldn’t control the tide,…

What Europe can learn from the White House clash

2 March 2025 4:26 am

The Trump-Zelensky summit is a geopolitical Rashomon. Some saw a lying, maniacal bully and his snarling sidekick berate a patriot…

Palestinians blew their best chance for peace

27 February 2025 9:51 pm

Every time the Palestinians rebuff a peace proposal, commentators reach for an observation by the Israeli diplomat Abba Eban: ‘The…

Scotland’s public sector is growing out of control

20 February 2025 3:31 am

There is a perception that Scotland is a socialist basket case where a mammoth public sector is showered with English…

Parliament is embarrassing itself

18 February 2025 12:07 am

Sidney Low said that ‘government in England is government by amateurs’, and parliament seems to be doing its level best…

Israelis and Palestinians will be here again, and again, and again

16 February 2025 2:43 am

‘When the Lord returned the captives to Zion,’ Psalm 126 goes, ‘we were like dreamers. Our mouths were filled with…

The question that should be asked about the West Bank

12 February 2025 5:03 am

In all the argle-bargle over Donald Trump’s proposal for Gaza, there have been countless questions about legality, morality and feasibility.…

Trump’s ICC sanctions will test an outdated institution

8 February 2025 10:25 pm

Once you get beyond trade and maritime borders, you will find that much of international law is, pace Clausewitz, the continuation of…

How John Swinney changes his stripes

4 February 2025 5:00 pm

Turning around a government that has lost its way is one of the trickiest feats in politics, all the more…

At least Rachel Reeves is trying

30 January 2025 2:41 am

Rachel from accounts is settling up. In a speech at Siemens Healthineers near Oxford, the Chancellor signalled her commitment to…

Against the death penalty, even for Axel Rudakubana

25 January 2025 4:36 am

Should the Southport killer swing? Lee Anderson thinks so. The Reform MP posted an image of a noose on X,…

Axel Rudakubana should never have been free to kill

23 January 2025 6:29 am

Coulter’s Law, named after its originator, the right-wing polemicist Ann Coulter, holds that the longer it takes the authorities or…

Nine reasons why Trump means business this time

22 January 2025 4:54 pm

Since Franklin D. Roosevelt, every new US administration has been judged on its first hundred days, but it is in…

It’s no surprise that democracy is losing its appeal

15 January 2025 9:54 am

The Guardian reports that one in five voters under the age of 45 would prefer to do away with democracy…

Devolution is shortchanging England

5 December 2024 6:28 am

The English taxpayer is not the primary audience for the Scottish government’s annual Budget, but one wonders what they might…

The slippery slope to the return of the death penalty

30 November 2024 7:42 pm

Parliament has voted to proceed with Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill, which will see the NHS offer terminally ill people…

Britain has a blasphemy law in all but name

28 November 2024 7:16 pm

Anyone outraged by Labour MP Tahir Ali calling on the government to introduce blasphemy laws has clearly not been paying…

Why Scots are less angry than the English

27 November 2024 4:48 am

The Scots have long been stereotyped as dour, miserable whingers, and we finally have proof that this is pure slander.…

The International Criminal Court must fall

23 November 2024 4:03 am

The arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant should be the last the…

Democrats don’t need their own Joe Rogan

16 November 2024 4:02 am

One of the new cliches of American politics is that progressives need their own Joe Rogan. The comedian turned podcaster…

How will progressives explain Amsterdam’s latest anti-semitic violence?

13 November 2024 3:06 am

Since the scenes of Jews being hunted, beaten and kicked as they lay on the ground pleading for mercy in…

Amsterdam shows the limits of liberalism

9 November 2024 6:43 am

Whenever Jews are killed or beaten, on 7 October or last night in Amsterdam, well-meaning sorts solemnly intone that this…

Will Democrats blame Israel for Kamala Harris’s defeat?

6 November 2024 8:10 pm

One of the few western nations where public opinion was in favour of Donald Trump returning to the White House…

My unsolicited advice to Kemi Badenoch

3 November 2024 3:30 am

If there are two things new leaders of political parties dread, it’s unsolicited advice and Scotland. The advice because, even…