Devolution

The legacy of devolution – 25 years on

12 May 2024 8:00 pm

Winnie Ewing, SNP royalty – Madame Écosse to those who had served alongside her in the European Parliament – opened…

To save the Union, ignore Gordon Brown

12 January 2022 10:38 pm

As he blasts his way through the remaining support beams of the UK constitution, Gordon Brown is doing more to…

Devolution doesn't work in a crisis

13 August 2021 11:35 pm

One of the worst features of devolution is the tendency of devocrats to insist on doing their own thing in…

No, Boris didn't 'snub' Sturgeon

6 August 2021 11:45 pm

One of the reasons the SNP has dominated Scottish politics for so long is that it is extremely adept at…

Boris could make devolution reform his legacy – if he has the ambition

25 July 2021 2:27 am

Today marks two years since Boris Johnson accepted Her Majesty’s invitation to serve as her fourteenth Prime Minister. His tenure…

King of Fortress Wales: an interview with Mark Drakeford

19 June 2021 3:23 pm

Mark Drakeford sits opposite me in a small conference room on the third floor of Cathays Park, the nucleus of…

Scrapping English votes for English laws could spell trouble

17 June 2021 9:56 pm

It has been almost 45 years since Tam Dalyell first asked the West Lothian Question. It is a damning indictment…

Could Holyrood ever be abolished?

9 April 2021 3:04 am

Although Alex Salmond and his Alba party have understandably been getting most of the attention, the separatists aren’t the only…

Boris was right: Scottish devolution has been a disaster

17 November 2020 6:00 pm

Boris Johnson says devolution has been a ‘disaster’. This has the rare quality for a Boris statement of being true…

Why are the devolved nations so ungrateful?

24 October 2020 9:00 am

One of the things I hadn’t anticipated about the pandemic is that it would turn me into an English nationalist.…

Devolutionary theory: How Westminster is killing the Union

21 October 2020 4:25 pm

Robert Conquest’s third law (which may not have been his third law) says that the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is…

In fear we trust: how the Tories became addicted to negativity

30 April 2016 9:00 am

Strange as it may seem, there are still people around David Cameron who regard the Scottish referendum campaign as a…

How Wales was betrayed by its (Labour) government.

12 July 2014 9:00 am

Devolution has left my country with catastrophic misgovernment

How Alex Salmond could lose his referendum and still wreck the United Kingdom

8 February 2014 9:00 am

From a kind of torpor about this year’s Scottish referendum, Lord Lang of Monkton has roused me. You may remember…