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Catriona StewartHerald Scotland |
You - no sniggering at the back. We're talking about an honourable member's member today so straight faces and no nonsense, please. It's a serious...
As far as retorts go, it's sailing close to the wind. "You show me yours," Angela Rayner scoffed at the Tory MPs who would have her publish her tax...
The day of the Emma Burke Newman verdict I posted this on social media: "I feel invincible and powerful and joyful on my bike, and this is stupid...
You never know what's next in this job, which is one of the many things I love about it. Certainly I never imagined myself being introduced at the...
I have more fingers on one hand than I have facts about my father. Let me rhyme them off: his name was John, although, because his family were...
As the internet has already pointed out, it could have been worse. Children who tour Willy Wonka's chocolate factory fare miserably; they end up...
How far back do we go to identify the root of the rot? Too far to fit into this column, so let us travel back just four years to one of Boris...
After hearing the word "change" 61 times it began to have less clarity, not more. Labour is the self-styled party of change and, good God, don't...
I might have proposed a drinking game, if that wasn't so bad for the nation's already poor health and so expensive, given the hike to minimum unit...
I might have proposed a drinking game, if that wasn't so bad for the nation's already poor health and so expensive, given the hike to minimum unit...
The crux of The Promise is perfection. And why not? Scotland prides herself on being a socially progressive and forward-thinking country, and there...
You could call it many things. but if you wanted to be kind you might call it imposter syndrome. There have been a great number of jaw-dropping and...
What is the purpose of the UK Covid inquiry? One might wonder. The inquiry is designed to examine decision-making during the Covid-19 crisis to...
Some good news for once. Public Health Scotland says no cervical cancer cases have been detected in women who received the human papillomavirus (HPV)...
I was trying to find that famous line from Bill Bryson when he writes about his home town, Des Moines, Iowa. This was it: "I come from Des Moines,"...
That vibration you might have felt was the collective shudder of a dozen Scottish Government communication officers as they read the social media feed...
You'll have heard of the Post Office scandal now, right? A TV drama has done what the media and ferocious campaigners could not do and engaged the...
There's something that can change in a person as soon as they sit behind the wheel of a car. Otherwise mild-mannered folk become aggressive with...
One night, when my grandmother was dying, she said, “I don’t know what I’m still here for.” She didn't say it to me, particularly, but more...
The number of new teachers fleeing the profession has spiked this year as opposition politicians blame poor pay and violence in classrooms for the...
It's party season. There are dance floors to dazzle. I've always found it difficult to part ways with a dance floor once we have made each...
Keir Starmer is the son of a toolmaker. You will likely already know this because he’s told us. He’s told us time and again. It is in Sir Keir's...
Folk will go on the internet and set out all sorts of personal scenarios in which they believe themselves to star as the hero. More often than not,...
The Glasgow Subway. It's adorable. Round and round she goes, underground she goes. One of my favourite visual gags is when a novice comic overlays...
Perhaps, like me, you were surprised to awaken in Victorian Britain last week. Over here, paupers sleeping on the streets and over there, milk-fed...
The truth, the whole truth and everything except the truth. Boris Johnson's testimony, as slippery as a wet fish, was infuriating, offensive,...
It’s a worry when you’re relying on Ant and Dec to give good counsel. On a livestream interview, the hosts of I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of...
Strong words, but what action? That's the question to be asked as Glasgow City Council declares a housing emergency. This week the city joins Argyll...
I switched on the radio on Saturday to hear a panellist on a politics show repeatedly mentioning foreigners in quite negative tones. What were these...
"We’re not great fans of self-checkouts," said Nigel Murray, managing director of Booths. "We pride ourselves on great customer service and you...
Hands up, I barely lift a finger. But I do help out on an allotment that I have the brass neck of referring to as "my allotment". I weed and I plant...
Well, thank goodness and sound the common sense klaxon. Here comes Esther McVey to make sure all is right with the world. Our new minister without...
Suella Braverman is gone but her hard right, cruel, divisive politicking cannot and will not be forgotten. Her shadow will loom large over both the...
In Seattle earlier this year I took the light rail from Tacoma airport into downtown. There were three men sleeping in the carriage. Given the state...
This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter. A flutter, a spin, a punt – such light words for a pastime that can have...
I had a 1950s-style upbringing in the 1980s in what was a very low-tech household and I point to that as my excuse when I'm routinely flabbergasted by...
Stella has gone to live on a farm. Stella has gone to reinvent herself as a star of stage and screen. Stella has gone to make another young driver...
Let's talk about sex. Well, let's talk about how we talk about sex to young people. Uncomfortable yet? If you're not, then lucky you because the...
Yellow warnings, rising to amber warnings, rising again to red - Humza Yousaf must surely look at the increasing severity of the storms pummelling...
The worst thing, and I appreciate that's a bold claim given the great many things one could name, about social media is the misapprehension it has...
Buoyant or boring? That seemed to be the two options to describe the overall vibe of the Labour party conference - and either one deemed a flattering...
For months now I've felt a sense of disgruntlement at every new Tory talking point. Who is too lazy to recycle – even into seven bins – when the...
The list of names is a roll call of my childhood. Kilsyth Pool. I used to swim there with my two cousins. My aunt would take us swimming in Kilsyth...
It's easy to be negative. It's the human condition to luxuriate in a right good moan. It's certainly the human condition to direct that moan at...
For geriatric Millennial curmudgeons like myself, the notion of a ban on phones in the classroom is only interesting from the perspective of great...
Boobs. Boobs everywhere, is how I remember the culture of the late 90s and early Naughties. Looking back, it was a noxious era to be moving from...
This is the story of how I came to play the clarinet. Bear with me, I appreciate that's a less than scintillating start. At primary school I was...
What are girls made of? Unhappiness, it seems, and can anyone claim surprise? The annual state of the nation survey for Girlguiding UK details...
Gillian Keegan is a woman who doesn't like to stand still. Nor does she seem to like others to stand still, which is perhaps why she's so fixated on...