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Iain MacwhirterHerald Scotland |
It is five years since Labour’s then equalities spokeswoman, Dawn Butler, told a BBC interviewer that babies aren’t born with a sex. It was...
This week, the Edinburgh Book Festival has joined the Hay Literary Festival in abandoning its sponsorship deal with the investment group Baillie...
John Swinney has said that he will make sure the public sees enough of him over the election campaign. But do they want to? In the latest Survation...
It is less than three years since Nicola Sturgeon was taking selfies with Greta Thunberg at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow. Now in this election...
There is a distinct air of unreality about the position of the Scottish Labour party as it enters this election campaign. Frankly, many in the party...
The last time John Swinney was leader of the SNP, 20 years ago, the party went on to return only six MPs in the next general election. Labour returned...
There is a weary inevitability about Scotland’s First Minister, John Swinney, promising to eradicate child poverty in his first mission statement to...
The term ‘progressive’ has been much abused in the past decade. Originally a term denoting enlightenment and social universalism, it became...
The expected coronation of John Swinney, a 60-year-old yesterday’s man, as SNP leader is bleak news for the independence movement. When Swinney –...
Kate Forbes has yet to throw her hat into the ring for the SNP leadership race, but already the campaign is underway to block her. As in last year’s...
None of the candidates for the SNP leadership has declared yet, but it is shaping up to be a classic two horse race between the former leader, and...
After the tears, the recriminations. Just who scuppered the putative deal between Humza Yousaf and Ash Regan MSP that could have saved Yousaf’s...
If, as expected, Humza Yousaf resigns today as First Minister of Scotland, it will be the beginning of the end not just for him, not just for the...
Did Humza Yousaf think it through? When he decided, late on Wednesday night, to pull the plug on the Green-SNP coalition arrangement, did he game-out...
When Nicola Sturgeon signed the Bute House power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Green Party in the summer of 2021, she said it would ensure...
I have not been entirely flattering about the performance in government of the Scottish Green party ministers, Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater. I have...
There is what can only be described as a mood of despair in SNP circles following the news that the former party chief executive Peter Murrell,...
It was Cop26 in Glasgow and Nicola Sturgeon was in her element, posing for selfies with Greta Thunberg, David Attenborough and assorted world leaders....
For an image of the ‘progressive nationalism’ that has disfigured Scottish public life over the past decade, look no further than the Scottish...
The Hate Crime Scotland Act has, by common agreement, been an unmitigated disaster. Less than a week old, there are already calls for it to be...
Would you trust this lot with assisted dying? The Scottish parliament’s record on issues of personal liberty has been pretty dire. Yet MSPs...
The Scottish government’s illiberal Hate Crime and Public Order Act isn’t even being enforced yet and already Police Scotland are being accused of...
Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf has plenty to worry about right now with the imminent implementation of his much-criticised Hate Crime...
From next month in Scotland you’ll be able to drop into a sex shop, make an anonymous accusation of hate crime against someone you dislike and...
Humza Yousaf has a gift for landing himself at the centre of crises of his own making. One recalls his advice during Covid for people to ‘think...
The return of ‘Gorgeous’ George Galloway to the House of Commons may not be Keir Starmer’s worst nightmare, but it is certainly the recurrence...
It may seem perverse to claim that the former first minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon saved the Union between Scotland and England. She is after...
Simon Fanshawe has been installed as the rector of Edinburgh University. The arrival of the comedian and Stonewall dissident to the post will...
Nicola Sturgeon ‘could cry from one eye if she wanted to,’ Alister Jack told the UK Covid Inquiry this morning. It was an interesting medical...
We now know from evidence to the Covid Inquiry that Scottish government ministers were as prone to offensive language as Dominic Cummings. Nicola...
The SNP government has rarely demonstrated great respect for legal precedent or the rights of the individual. When Humza Yousaf was justice secretary...
Humza Yousaf has just executed an embarrassing U-turn and effectively banned XL Bully dogs in line with England and Wales. This has inevitably...
It seems that Humza Yousaf is taking diversity seriously – though not as we know it. He has apparently welcomed the Christian fundamentalist former...
As she faced her final press conference of 2022 last Christmas, the first minister of Scotland seemed unassailable. Nicola Sturgeon had negotiated the...
What do you think when you think about teachers? Two things, if you are anything like me: low pay and time off work with stress. It’s a hard job,...
Perhaps the Scottish government thinks it’s a good time to put out the rubbish. With the news agenda dominated by the Scottish Budget and with the...
Scottish nationalists have always looked to Scandinavian countries as models of what a caring, social democratic Scotland would look like if only it...
The first minister of Scotland, Humza Yousaf, has a painful choice following his latest defeat in the Court of Session today over the Gender...