Shortly before the second general election of 1974, the late John P Mackintosh attempted to explain the rise of the Scottish National Party to a predominantly left-wing (and English) audience in an essay for the New Statesman.

A few days after a majority of Britons backed Brexit in June 2016, this newspaper reported that Nicola Sturgeon had been in talks with London Mayor Sadiq Khan and the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo.

The Scottish Labour Party, I think it’s fair to say, hasn’t had a good decade.

“Scotland”, declared a young Alex Salmond in May 1975, “knows from bitter experience what treatment is in store for a powerless region of a common market.”

In his new book, “The End of British Party Politics?”, the political scientist Roger Awan-Scully captures the paradox of last year’s general election in Scotland.

The sight of Scottish ministers boarding flights to far-flung destinations in order to “sell Scotland to the world” has been a familiar one for more than half a century.

Today in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister will explain her decision to authorise airstrikes against Syria alongside France and the United States.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended an “in conversation” event with the American sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild at Harvard University.

In this country, where the dank, grim days of winter are as short as a resigned sigh, the onset of some decent, dry spring weather doesn’t half raise the morale. Well, it would if the coronavirus wasn’t lurking all over the parish.

It wasn’t that long ago that health experts were championing golf as a soothing, morale-boosting haven away from the ravaging rigours of the coronavirus.

To say that amateur golf in Scotland has been slow to adapt to change is putting it kindly. But where the rise of the nomads, the Equality Act, the credit crunch and repeated faltering reform efforts have failed, perhaps Covid-19 will finally be the shock that thrusts the sector into a meaningful if seriously belated overhaul.

THE Open Championship will not take place at all this year.

ONE of the trying things about being a drinks columnist is the number of wines I have to taste in order to write this Shakespearian text for you guys. Products have to be really special to stand out from the crowd and, thankfully, they occasionally still do.

With the Six Nations rugby in full flow (come on, Scotland – I’m forever the optimist) now is a great time to look at amazing beverages from all the nations competing.

WEEK two of the lockdown and I don't know about you, but I’m feeling a bit playful, so how about instead of a boring old wine column, we take a look at a drink that can be fun for all the family?

While lockdown has seen some people turn to DIY, it doesn't all have to be on the home or garden.

Construction work on the NHS Louisa Jourdan will conclude today with the hospital standing operationally ready to treat patients from tomorrow.

YOU could call it state-sponsored sanctimony. In times of crisis or national emergency we’re all urged to pull in the same direction and put partisan politics behind us. How dare you talk about inequality and the plight of the disadvantaged at a time like this? Those who tend to be loudest in rebuking these social pariahs are often those who stand to benefit most from any suspension of scrutiny.

HEALTH boards across Scotland have spent almost £17 million on sending scans to other parts of the country and across the world by private companies amid a staffing crisis.

NICOLA Sturgeon has suggested the coronavirus lockdown in Scotland could end later than the one in England and that she might seek powers to close the Border.

DISGRACED former finance secretary Derek Mackay will be entitled to a £12,000 golden goodbye payment this week – despite not being seen in public for three months.

Penn State Shenango's Upcycled Art Contest will be held in conjunction with the campus' annual Earth Fest on Saturday, April 4.

The annual Earth Fest event and the K-6 Upcycled Art Contest have been canceled for this year.

Following the University-wide commencement ceremony on May 9, Penn State Shenango will host a virtual celebration for the Class of 2020.

Low-cost European carrier Wizz Air has announced plans to resume some flights from Luton Airport on May 1.

THE Scottish Government has been formally approached by Swedish architects proposing that a bridge to Northern Ireland can be built ... and combined with 140 wind turbines to power hundreds of thousands of homes.

People arriving in the UK could be forced to quarantine for two weeks to halt the spread of coronavirus under plans for the "second phase" of the Government's response.

It crosses one of the most scenic waterways in Scotland and is the second busiest by volume of passengers in the country.

THE UK Government is “actively looking at” quarantining people arriving from abroad as criticism mounts over the country dragging its feet compared to other parts of the world.

Quarantining people arriving from abroad is being “actively” looked at, a senior member of the UK Government has admitted, as criticism mounts over the country dragging its feet compared to other parts of the world.

SCOTLAND’S towns and cities have seen a “stark decrease” in toxic traffic fumes since the coronavirus lockdown came into force.

MORE than one-quarter of people in Scotland want police to take tougher action against those who flout lockdown rules, a survey has found.

LOCKDOWN may start easing soon, but it seems likely to be a long time yet before any of us find ourselves in an actual physical pub. It’s not of course the booze we’re missing – we can get plenty of that – but the company, the conviviality, the atmosphere, the feeling that, in the late hours, almost anything might kick off. So, for those who cry inside every time they walk past their closed-down local, or wake-up having dreamed of standing with a pint at the bar, here’s a few ways you

If Scotland really does have such fabulous seafood, why do ordinary citizens find it so hard to tap into this much eulogised catch? The problem has been that subsequent governments have fixated on international exports, not food for citizens.

FRANKLY? The restaurant world is going mad. Consider this: I order a home delivery from Yu-ca-taco early on Friday evening. For Saturday night. By text of course.

SCOTLAND's foremost angling organisation has set out a bid to allow people to take part in the sport as lockdown measures are eased saying it carries a "low inherent potential" for Covid-19 transmission.

PLANS for league reconstruction have been scrapped after Ladbrokes Premiership clubs indicated there isn't enough support for the proposed changes at this time.

It’ll be five years next month since Gerry Cinnamon released his debut single Kampfire Vampire on Glasgow-based micro-label First Run Records, a half decade in which the Castlemilk-born singer-songwriter has gone from jobbing gig jockey on the city’s DIY scene to a bona fide musical phenomenon with combined Spotify plays of well over 100 million.

IN April 2004, the Victoria & Albert museum in London staged an exhibition of the work of Vivienne Westwood. The show was a celebration and a culmination of the fashion designer’s move from the margins of the industry in the 1970s, where she was creating clothes for the punks who hung around the King’s Road, to her 21st-century incarnation as first among equals in British haute couture.

A FEW weeks ago, Wendy James was trending on Twitter. It’s been happening quite often over the last few months, a result of BBC Four’s repeats of Top of the Pops reaching 1988 and 1989, the years in which a pink-lipsticked, bra-flaunting James launched herself on the public consciousness as the brash, blonde frontwoman of Transvision Vamp.

Glasgow's Summer Nights at the Bandstand festival has become the latest major music event to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

WE start at the low point. “It’s hard doing music,” Jill O’Sullivan admits. “I love it. I feel compelled to sing and play and write. But I was thinking of quitting.”

DRAKE - DARK LANE DEMO TAPES

To make up for lost opportunities for college admissions testing during the coronavirus crisis, the board plans to offer the test more often in the fall, including some test administrations during the school day.

I’m not sure it was wise for Nicola Sturgeon to invoke Nelson Mandela in her speech on the next steps (sic) to independence. He was a revolutionary who pursued a campaign of non-violent direct action, including strikes, boycotts and other acts of civil disobedience. That’s what many ardent Yessers were hoping against hope she might authorise.

Writers have been ransacking the Brainy Quotes website looking for inspiration for their coronavirus think pieces. But there is really only one that matters: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”. Franklin D Roosevelt’s epigram is appropriate because it is as disingenuous as it is paradoxical.

Next week, Nicola Sturgeon is promising to outline her proposals for lifting the lockdown. Good luck with that. She is unlikely to open the schools because she can't rely on parents to send their children.

“It's not the end; it's not even the beginning of the end; but it is perhaps the end of the beginning”. Churchill's famous wartime speech after the battle of El Alamein in November 1942 was an ambiguous rallying cry. After all, by saying it was only the beginning, he was suggesting that there could be worse to come.

A is for Audible

FACE it – we are going nowhere. Even if we had a particular place to venture the regulations would not permit. For the foreseeable we shall have to contract out our travelling to others. On the upside, no airport hassle. On the downside, no giant Toblerone.