Without university expansion widening access must disadvantage some

A FEW WEEKS AGO I had the privilege of being the guest speaker at a higher education event in Stirling University which was attended, amongst others, by the secretaries of our nineteen higher education institutions. ...

Time for a Department for Veterans Affairs in Scotland

TWO RECENT EVENTS prompted me to delve into the lives of ex-service men and women – or veterans as we now seem to know them – living in Scotland. The first was the awful and ...

The Prime Minister's Mansion House speech in full

Theresa May lays out in more detail the shape of Brexit the UK Government Government is aiming for...

We should ALL be working for a clean Brexit, not doing the EU's work for it

I HAD an article published in The Herald just before the EU Referendum vote. You can read it here, I think it remains valid, but I did not imagine the result would not be ...

Why advancing disaster in electricity supply goes unrecognised

WE ARE SOMETIMES told by our elders and betters that history repeats itself, but that later generations still fail to learn the lessons.  Perhaps so, but events never repeat with every detail unchanged.  Two episodes ...

Was Morrissey wrong about Sturgeon's hand being in our pockets?

I AM no particular fan of the singer Morrissey, late of The Smiths, in relation to either his music or his politics. But, just occasionally, he gets it right.

Last weekend Morrissey ...

Why we desperately need a new government

GLOBAL HISTORIANS USE the expression ‘European Miracle’ to describe how Europe from around the eleventh century expanded exponentially in terms of economic growth and intellectual, technical, commercial and philosophical innovation till it could overtake (indeed ...

The SNP must drop ‘Whitabootery’ and face its responsibilities

WHAT IS IT about politicians, and especially politicians holding government office, that they cannot recognise they are being disrespectful to voters when they resort to “whitabootery”?

Scotland needs to face up to ...

Wrong assumptions lose political campaigns

ASSUMPTIONS. In politics, as in life itself, if you make the wrong assumptions then you will come a cropper; you will make a mistake, a misjudgement and you will be found out. The best thing ...

Outside the Customs Union the Brexit Diet will be the healthiest yet

IMAGINE IF there was just one decision you could take that would make you healthier. Just one moment on one day that would change everything.

Imagine a country where the incidence of ...

The ‘Pay More, Get Less’ Budget

THE CHOREOGRAPHY was worthy of The Greatest Showman, P.T. Barnum. Just two hours before Derek Mackay was due to stand up in the Scottish Parliament Chamber to present the Budget Bill at Stage 1, it ...

Put Out More Flags

FlAGS HAVE long been emotive emblems. From 1789 and throughout the nineteenth century, the warring sides in France were recognisable by their respective flags, the fleur-de-lys for conservative, clerical monarchists and the blue-white-red tricolour for ...