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Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat

Herald Scotland

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Alison Rowat: Donald Trump's White Lotus presidency has its eyes on bigger prize

Alison Rowat: Donald Trump's White Lotus presidency has its eyes on bigger prize

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone, and particularly our friends in America, a happy Liberation Day.  Apologies if you...

previous day 10

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Nicola Sturgeon and the poetry that 'saved' her in tough times

Alison Rowat: Nicola Sturgeon and the poetry that 'saved' her in tough times

As the pre-orders flood in for Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir, Frankly, speculation continues about the title.  The publisher's blurb would have you...

26.03.2025 9

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Help! The news is depressing the hell out of me - and I know who is to blame

Help! The news is depressing the hell out of me - and I know who is to blame

No offence to colleagues, but my first port of call in the morning is The Herald’s letters section. Reading it is like dipping into one of those...

20.03.2025 7

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Starmer attack on society's poorest leaves Scottish Labour in trouble

The battle of the closed blinds. Ah yes, I remember it well. It was 2012, austerity was tightening its jaws, and a fresh-faced young Chancellor named...

12.03.2025 4

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

All roads lead to Treasury in hunt for defence cash

Will there be a deal in the desert? How will countries pay for higher defence spending? And what major life test has Chancellor Rachel Reeves passed? ...

11.03.2025 6

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Vettriano was many things but a talented artist was not one of them

As First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney has a lot on his plate. How he manages to get through it all is a mystery. There he was on Monday, his...

05.03.2025 6

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Starmer the charmer has work cut out as peace broker

Days on from Donald Trump and JD Vance’s Oval Office ambush of Ukraine’s president and the outrage shows no signs of abating. If anything, the...

04.03.2025 2

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Dear Susan Aitken, I'm afraid these threadbare excuses for Glasgow's decline won't do

There is a new Agatha Christie adaptation on TV this Sunday. Starring Anjelica Huston and The Wire’s Clarke Peters, it looks just the kind of thing...

26.02.2025 7

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: My unscientific experiment with the Scotcast podcast

In low growth Britain there is one business that is booming - news. No end of material is working its way through the media machine to websites,...

11.02.2025 9

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Sturgeon and Trump would have met their match with this interviewer

One day in October 1989 a man and a woman met in a London television studio to talk. The set was plain, stripped of all but the essentials, and the...

30.01.2025 2

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Chancellor gives short shrift to sexist nickname

One week on from Donald Trump’s inauguration and all roads lead to the US president, including those that run through UK politics. Rachel Reeves,...

27.01.2025 5

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Hurrah for Melania and the hat that cut Trump down to size

Every inauguration picture tells a story of the age, and what a Grimm cast of characters huddled close as Donald Trump was admitted once again to the...

22.01.2025 3

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Piers Morgan and Scots spin doctor spar over Trump mother

The inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the US is shaping up to be one of those occasions at which so many more people will claim to...

20.01.2025 4

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: How do you solve a problem like Elon?

We have missed the boat for the New Year honours, but can someone make a note for next time to give John Swinney a knighthood for services to...

08.01.2025 20

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Change coming at BBC Scotland, but is that the best they can do?

A little piece of Scottish journalistic history takes place this Thursday on the BBC Scotland channel. At 10pm, The Nine will sail off into the...

19.12.2024 6

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: A not so silent Sunday as business leader issues warning for 2025 Just as Christmas seems to start earlier every year, so does the great rush to get away. With the Commons in recess from December 19 and the Scottish Parliament officially heading off two days later, the Sunday politics shows were among the first in the media to shut up shop. BBC1’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg marked the occasion traditionally and politically with a glorious rendition of Silent Night by the German baritone Benjamin Appl, and an interview with the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, about Labour’s plans to “smash” the people smuggling gangs.

Just as Christmas seems to start earlier every year, so does the great rush to get away. With the Commons in recess from December 19 and the...

16.12.2024 9

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Have you met the new delightful and de-lovely Donald Trump?

This year, as every Christmas since the 1950s, the North American Aerospace Defence Command will be tracking Santa as he goes about his...

12.12.2024 6

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

What memoir writer Nicola Sturgeon can learn from Angela Merkel's doorstopper

As someone who earns a sizeable crust from expressing his opinions, Piers Morgan is usually a stranger to the fine Scottish art of swithering....

25.11.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: It's not just Jeremy Clarkson who is being driven to despair by Labour

From all corners of the kingdom they came, determined to have their say about inheritance tax. A sea of waxed jackets and jeans as far as the eye...

19.11.2024 4

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: How Scottish aide scuppered Farage's chances of top Trump job

Almost a week on from the US elections and the chin-stroking among the commentariat continues, not least in those heartlands of pondering, the...

10.11.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: The kids will be all right without an inheritance, won't they?

From employers and home buyers to pensioners and the parents of private school pupils, the queue of those complaining about Rachel Reeves’s Budget...

06.11.2024 10

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Who's afraid of the redoubtable Reeves women? Not new Tory leader Kemi

Gone are the days when new employees would be sent for a tin of tartan paint, a long weight, or other jokey requests. In certain trades, however,...

03.11.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Chancellor Rachel Reeves and the curious case of the iffy book

Rachel Reeves makes history today when she delivers her first Budget. After eight centuries of male Chancellors of the Exchequer, the purse strings...

30.10.2024 30

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: It's that man Gove again. What has he done now?

Appearing on the new BBC Radio 4 series Surviving Politics with Michael Gove, Humza Yousaf revealed that his host had become a verb among Scottish...

23.10.2024 9

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Scotland caught between good cop and bad cop on NHS turnaround

Some news can silence the usual din from party politics and unite society as one. The revelation that Sir Chris Hoy’s cancer is terminal was one...

21.10.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Weeks to go and it's war between Trump and Harris. Terrified yet? Just when you think you are through the looking glass with the US presidential contest along comes another push deep into crazy territory. How does a country get back on track after an election that makes Duck Soup look like The West Wing? It is testimony to American preparedness that some have been thinking ahead to what happens after the polls close on Tuesday, November 5, 2024. One might take comfort from that fact, if only the visions of what is to come were not quite so terrifying.

At age 78 it is late in the day for Donald Trump to be considering a career change, but let no one doubt the man’s willingness to serve his...

16.10.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: a torrent of formal tributes, but one man's tears defined the day

Parliaments have their own ways of marking the death of a member. Protocols are observed, some dating to an earlier age, others less so. As it is...

14.10.2024 4

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Oh dear, Keir. Is it too late for voters to ask for a refund?

Outbreaks are occurring across the country, from Liverpool and Birmingham to Glasgow and London. The condition began in the opinion columns of The...

02.10.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Prime Minister 'absolutely furious' at interview question

Downing Street must have been looking forward to the Conservatives gathering in Birmingham. Labour’s conference week was dominated by rows over...

29.09.2024 2

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Keir Starmer kisses the vision thing goodbye

With time to kill before Keir Starmer’s first speech to conference as Prime Minister, I had a browse through some other landmark addresses. As you...

24.09.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Look who wants to interview BBC's Laura Kuenssberg over pay

Was it the photo of the Siberian kitten that gave it away? Or the conference eve announcement that the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister and...

22.09.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: You don't need Specsavers to see who is wrong in Labour freebies row

As violence once more threatens the US presidential election, the Russian-Ukraine war reaches a dangerous crossroads, and thousands flee deadly...

18.09.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

'We may never know truth about what took place in stranger moments of indyref’

Ten years since the independence referendum? Seems like ten minutes. It is certainly too soon to tell the whole story of those heady days....

16.09.2024 2

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: As border controls tighten the debate on migration must open up

His name was Alan Kurdi and he was just two years old. In September 2015, Alan, his parents and five-year-old brother left their home in Turkey and...

11.09.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: People staring, prime minister? They'll be the unimpressed voters

Westminster has been up and running for a week, and the first prime minister’s questions have been and gone. But nothing says the holidays are over...

09.09.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

'I tried the car key. Nothing. What on Earth was going on?'

You don’t need the Met Office’s State Of The UK Climate 2023 report to tell you that this has been a washout summer. Though it felt like the...

07.09.2024 2

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Danger ahead for Starmer as Blair makes last-ditch bid for legacy

TWO things you can say for certain about Tony Blair’s new book, out this week. One, there will be no Harry Potter-style midnight queues at...

04.09.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Curb boozing at airports, Mr O'Leary? Here is what else should be banned

It is not every week that Michael O’Leary acquires a legion of fans for something he has said, but fair play to the Ryanair CEO. His call to curb...

31.08.2024 2

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Behind every prime minister, there's a cat rolling its eyes

Between sounding the alarm about tough times ahead, mending relations with Europe and battling claims of cronyism, Sir Keir Starmer has had another...

31.08.2024 5

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Thanks to Starmer, everything's coming up roses - for the SNP And just like that we were back in 2009, with a Labour government in power, Oasis set to go off on tour, and the sun shining (except for viewers in Scotland). Happy days were here again in Downing Street. Except they were not. Yes, the Gallagher brothers are getting back together, making a lot of middle-aged people very happy. And yes, that was a Labour prime minister holding court, but unlike Oasis he was not the bringer of good news. Sir Keir Starmer had discovered a problem, quite a few of them as it turns out, and wanted a word. The gist of it was that during the election campaign he had been careful not to promise voters a rose garden. One or two nice blooms, certainly, but nothing Chelsea-standard. Yet when he walked into Downing Street he discovered the previous occupants had taken or killed most of the roses and left the manure.

And just like that we were back in 2009, with a Labour government in power, Oasis set to go off on tour, and the sun shining (except for viewers in...

27.08.2024 2

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Who is Keir Starmer trying to impress with this economic machismo?

The forecast for London on Tuesday promises late summer sunshine and a gentle breeze. Perfect weather to sit in the Downing Street rose garden and...

26.08.2024 4

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

A word to the wise for Sue Gray and other dedicated followers of fashion

Raspberry berets off to the fashion industry for once again trying to sell customers another idea that costs a fortune and looks daft on all but a...

24.08.2024 5

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Behind the scenes at the party conventions

It was all about the speech. Kamala Harris’s address to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago was a now-or-never moment that would either...

24.08.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Nicola Sturgeon and the neverending story of Operation Branchform

It has been a quiet festival season for Scottish politicians. Time was when you could barely swing a canvas tote bag in Edinburgh without hitting...

21.08.2024 4

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: ex-BBC man Jon Sopel and the call that rattled top Labour aide

In the run-up to its landslide victory in 1997 one of the strengths of New Labour was its ability to keep secrets. Though plans were made for the...

19.08.2024 2

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: cheers or jeers, how will you mark Scotland's indyref anniversary?

Regular travellers to Ayr will know them. The bridge folk. They wave Saltires at the traffic, and every now and then a driver gives them a honk....

14.08.2024 2

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: the world-leading idea from Scotland that Trump can't stand

Of all the insults hurled at Donald Trump, few have pierced that famously rhino hide of his. You can count on the fingers of one unnaturally small...

12.08.2024 2

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Dog perfume is the latest thing - now that's what I call barking mad

If you are Christmas shopping this weekend (what do you mean you haven’t started?), be sure to get your paws on Fefe, a new perfume for dogs by...

09.08.2024 5

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Alison Rowat: Who governs Britain, the Prime Minister or Elon Musk? After locking the doors and windows and drawing the curtains they ran upstairs to hide. It wasn’t safe on the ground floor. They had seen the videos of other homes being attacked. “Are we going to die?” one of the children asked. The front door held so the mob turned their attention to the car outside, booting in the windscreen and jumping on the roof. Mum, who works as a carer, wouldn’t be able to get to the disabled woman she was due to visit that night. So the ripples of misery spread.

After locking the doors and windows and drawing the curtains they ran upstairs to hide. It wasn’t safe on the ground floor. They had seen the...

07.08.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat

Fringe: Tory Ruth's comeback chances and what Salmond thinks of Kamala Harris

To everything in politics there is a season. Or at least there used to be. At this point in the summer news cycle, with Westminster now joining...

05.08.2024 1

Herald Scotland

Alison Rowat