In Driven By The Wide Boys (my blog yesterday) I pointed to an escalation of the Scottish desire for independence as a likely outcome of the Government’s proposal to steeply increase our nuclear capability.  Of course, I should have known the wide boys would have a plan.  And they do.  Late last night David Davis, a leading Brexiteer, stood up in Parliament and used Parliamentary privilege to further discomfit Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP leadership over the Alex Salmon affair.

Discrediting your opponents is a tried and tested political tool.  ‘Divide and rule’ has been a maxim of rulers since time immemorial.  How well the SNP can get through the present debacle remains to be seen.  An electorate judges a Government by the effects of its policies and the overall competence of its personnel.  Up till now the Scots think Nicola Sturgeon has been doing a pretty good job in comparison with Boris.  Eventually the Tories may help bring her down, but spoiler tactics alone won’t win them many hearts and minds in Scotland.

All over the Western world democracy is not functioning well.  We’ve seen that most recently in the USA as well as here in Britain.  Populism and polarisation are proving injurious to the body politic.  The situation has provided proven opportunities for Russia to exert subversive tactics and China to flirt with them.  These are the spoiler tactics of our ideological enemies.  Democracy faces an existential threat.  Bigger nuclear arsenals are not an adequate answer though.  If it is to survive democracy has to prove its superiority by its results: more wholesome outcomes for the societies which embrace it and wiser, more positive contributions to world peace.

MICHAEL KIRKHAM