Restorative justice needs to be taken seriously

THIS WEEK saw the publication of Lord Bracadale’s “Independent Review of Hate Crime Legislation in Scotland”. This was commissioned by the Scottish Government last year to examine the country's hate crime laws and is a full ...

Can Glasgow survive the arrival of Channel 4?

CITIES ARE FRAGILE ENTITIES especially in the absence of prudent elites and representative community groups capable of foiling unwise decisions. Look around at Glasgow’s boarded-up churches or at the statues of military and religious figures ...

How Holocaust equivalence went uncorrected in The National

THERE IS no issue in this World that drives the glitterati and the chatterati mad like the Arab-Israeli conflict. Not even Brexit. As Rev David Robertson observes, there exists for some political causes a deep ...

SNP’s Growth Commission promises “Austerity Max”

ONE OF THE MANY acknowledged weaknesses of the 2014 ‘Yes’ campaign was the Scottish Government’s White Paper on Independence, particularly in relation to economic issues. In more than 600 pages, there was just one devoted ...

The laid-back Irish are confronted by a life or death choice

“THERE ARE so many children and young people around here” is an observation I’ve heard frequently from other visitors to Ireland.  

The Irish Republic has one of the highest birth-rates in the ...

Confusion reigns at Holyrood over prisoner voting rights

SHOULD prisoners be given the right to vote in elections? That was the issue considered by the Scottish Parliament this week, following a report from the Equalities and Human Rights Committee, published on Monday.

More intellectual rigour and less virtue signalling needed by the SNP government

ELSEWHERE on this website, Murdo Fraser argued about Fracking in the manner an opposition spokesman usually does, legitimately, when a government is in a mess.  My view, however, is a reflection of a deeper anxiety about ...

The fracking ban that wasn’t a ban?

The Scottish government could not have been more clear. One senior figure after another repeated it boldly: fracking had been banned in Scotland.

In October last year, the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon ...

How the SNP baby-boxed itself into a corner

IN AUGUST 2017, the SNP Scottish Government introduced its baby box scheme for newborns. The box itself was to provide a ‘safe sleeping space’ for babies, while the contents – much of it made in ...

Consultation responses force John Swinney to plan his own route

THIS WEEK, the Scottish Government published its consultation findings into the proposed new education bill planned for later this year. It must have made uncomfortable reading for John Swinney and his ministers. Out of 674 ...

The strange case of Irish heritage Scots and the Scottish National Party

IT WAS ALEX SALMOND who I have to thank for alerting me to the changes that were sweeping through Scotland’s Catholic community, (originally of mainly Irish descent).  In mid-2014, not long after the Commonwealth Games had ...

SNP sentencing policy puts criminals before victims

NICOLA STURGEON’S 2017/18 Programme for Government committed her Government to increasing the current presumption against jail terms of 3-months to 12-months, on the basis that short sentences simply do not ‘work’: that short sentences do ...