Holyrood
‘My wife was f king furious’
15 December 2025 For a Labour government that has made much of its plans to tighten up employment rights by banning the cruel practice of fire and rehire, the very public sacking of its popular secretary of state for Scotland during a mini-reshuffle...
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Dog Gone
'Powderhall greyhound racing was a big part of my life in the early to mid-50s,” says Drew, a member of the Living Memory Association, an Edinburgh-based community group. Aged eight, he played football with his friends on Logie Green Road, but their...
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Protecting a minority
No one should jump to conclusions after a terrorist attack. Simple explanations rarely tell the whole complex truth. But neither should anyone be in any doubt that the slaying of Jews in a synagogue in Britain in 2025 on the holiest day of the Jewish...
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Party games: Conference season begins
Less than eight months out from the Scottish Parliament election, not one political party is where they want to be. The SNP remains the favourite to win the most seats in May, but support for the party is far from its peak. Scottish Labour is still...
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Dangers of groupthink
IT’S 2025 AND WE TEETER ON THE BRINK OF WAR IN the Middle East. Two hardline regimes with a long history of conflict are firing missiles at each other. The threat of nuclear obliteration hangs in the air. A seemingly hot-headed US president chooses...
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Yes, you read that right.
Changing the UK’S energy system won’t happen overnight. Which means that oil and gas will have to continue playing a part in meeting the UK’S energy needs for years to come. In the meantime, we’re building the world’s largest o shore wind farm,...
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At your convenience
IT SEEMS I WAS WRONG. IT IS ALL ABOUT TOILETS. AT least that is what some would like it to be and of course a row about where you stand [sic] on urinals distracts from the real issues in Scotland today. And if proof is needed that the Scottish...
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In the shadow of death
THERE’S NOT MANY OF US WHO CHOOSE TO TALK about how we would want to die and yet we have probably all talked endlessly about under what conditions we would not want to live: if I could no longer feed, wash or go to the toilet myself; if I had no legs;...
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ON YOUR MARKS
WITH A YEAR STILL TO GO BEFORE the next Holyrood election, the result already looks to be a foregone conclusion. A number of recent polls have put the SNP comfortably ahead of its rivals, meaning John Swinney is unlikely to be handing over the keys to...
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The poverty trap
THE SNP WILL ERADICATE CHILD POVERTY by 2030. It’s a bold claim. But that is the target, the legal obligation, and John Swinney’s guiding moral mission. But today, less than five years and one election to go to that deadline and with 18 years of...
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WHO’LL BE NEXT IN THE GREAT HOLYROOD EXODUS?
INSTAGRAM IS AN UNUSUAL platform to announce major political news, but it’s the one Nicola Sturgeon chose to confirm she would not be seeking re-election next year. Perhaps it’s a sign of where she sees the next stage of her life and career – as a...
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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Naomi Cunningham, barrister for Sandie Peggie
EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS DON’T USUALLY HIT international headlines. But Sandie Peggie vs Fife Health Board isn’t just dominating the news, it is also consuming politics at Holyrood and Westminster. The case’s details have yet to play out fully but already...
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Scottish Labour conference special
THIS TIME LAST YEAR ANAS SARWAR bounced onto the stage at party conference in Glasgow to the backing track of Sia’s Unstoppable. The pop pick reflected the high-energy mood in the room. Michael Shanks had decisively defeated the SNP in the Rutherglen...
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Blame game
FORMER FIRST MINISTER HUMZA YOUSAF’S currency of late rests on him seeing almost everything through a particular lens, understandably perhaps, a very personal lens, and while I appreciate his pain over the atrocities committed in the Middle East and...
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The art of reinvention
WE NOW HAVE A FUNKY NEW MONIKER FOR SCOTLAND’S first minister, one he has cleverly crafted himself and is using with gusto, laughing with the boys at his own small joke – Full-on John. It comes with a snigger, a side eye, and the tacit understanding...
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eXpletives
In 2025, whose message will cut through? “ON THE SAME DAY, IN THREE different cities, the prime minister, first minister and the leader of Scottish Labour all gave set-piece speeches aimed at seizing the political agenda. Keir Starmer planned to...
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I try to use the word ‘Tory’ quite often to reclaim it
As a crime reporter, Russell Findlay thrived on his anonymity, even his byline picture was a silhouette, but as he steps into the political spotlight as the new leader of the Scottish Conservatives, he tells Mandy Rhodes his motivation to fight...
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Party’s over
THIS IS POSSIBLY my eulogy to the SNP. A once great institution led by political giants with a clear sense of purpose that captured the hopes of a people and carried a nation to the brink of independence. But as hubris turned to nemesis, like the last...
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Seeking justice
IN HER EIGHTH MINISTERIAL brief since being elected in 2007, Angela Constance does not have her troubles to seek. From reduced police numbers and disputes over pay; to overcrowded prisons; controversial early release of offenders; rising homicide...
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