Scott Crichton Styles

THE death of Queen Elizabeth (who was certainly not the “Second” of Scotland) and the accession of King Charles III (happily a regnal number of equal accuracy for Scotland and England) has naturally provoked much discussion in nationalist circles about whether an independent Scotland should be a monarchy or a republic.

NICOLA Sturgeon last week kickstarted the new independence campaign. This will be a political campaign which will be fought

ON Wednesday, New York judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that the civil action raised by Virginia Giuffre, alleging that she was sexually abused by Prince Andrew, can go ahead. He has strongly denied all the allegations against him.

AS 2022 dawns, one question in the mind of every indy supporter is when will the Scottish Government introduce the bill for a second referendum? But if the British establishment has their way, the thoughts of the Scots will be on monarchy, not democracy and independence.

The world watched in bemused horror as Boris Johnson, Prime Minster of the United Kingdom, completely lost the plot during his speech to the CBI.

DOMINIC Cummings, the brains behind the Brexit campaign and the first 18 months of the Johnson Government, is a man who has a very poor opinion of his own political creation.

ON Wednesday, drunk with power, Boris “Teflon” Johnson finally overreached himself by trying to neutralise the House of Commons anti-sleaze rules and to prevent Tory MP Owen Paterson from being suspended for 30 days from the Commons. Reluctant Tory lobby fodder voted as instructed by their three-line whip even if many of them may have had strong misgivings.

“NEVER look a gift horse in the mouth” is probably the instinctive reaction of every Scottish council of whatever political persuasion to the announcement by London of more cash for local projects. Even the most passionate SNP council can hardly object to being given a few extra million for a pet project. But “beware the Tories come bearing gifts”: this gift horse might be the beginning of a Tory Trojan horse strategy!

THE appalling killing of Sir David Amess, Tory MP for Southend West, generated shock right across the political spectrum of the UK. Instantly, one thought of the 2016 murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox who was killed on her way to a surgery and of the incident in 2000 where an attack on Nigel Jones MP resulted in the killing of his aide Andrew Pennington. In response to the murder of David Amess it seems likely that physical security around surgeries and elsewhere will be improved for both MPs and MSPs. But as well as improving the physical security of MPs, and other elected representatives such as MSPs and councillors, consideration should be given to changing the criminal law to protect them.

LAW and democracy are the twin pillars upon which the British constitution is supposed to rest and that which the Tories claim to venerate – in practice the Tories’ attitude to both is highly selective.