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![]() Alison RowatHerald Scotland |
I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone, and particularly our friends in America, a happy Liberation Day. Apologies if you...
As the pre-orders flood in for Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir, Frankly, speculation continues about the title. The publisher's blurb would have you...
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...
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...
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? ...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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...
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,...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
This year, as every Christmas since the 1950s, the North American Aerospace Defence Command will be tracking Santa as he goes about his...
As someone who earns a sizeable crust from expressing his opinions, Piers Morgan is usually a stranger to the fine Scottish art of swithering....
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...
Almost a week on from the US elections and the chin-stroking among the commentariat continues, not least in those heartlands of pondering, the...
From employers and home buyers to pensioners and the parents of private school pupils, the queue of those complaining about Rachel Reeves’s Budget...
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,...
Rachel Reeves makes history today when she delivers her first Budget. After eight centuries of male Chancellors of the Exchequer, the purse strings...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Outbreaks are occurring across the country, from Liverpool and Birmingham to Glasgow and London. The condition began in the opinion columns of The...
Downing Street must have been looking forward to the Conservatives gathering in Birmingham. Labour’s conference week was dominated by rows over...
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...
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...
As violence once more threatens the US presidential election, the Russian-Ukraine war reaches a dangerous crossroads, and thousands flee deadly...
Ten years since the independence referendum? Seems like ten minutes. It is certainly too soon to tell the whole story of those heady days....
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Between sounding the alarm about tough times ahead, mending relations with Europe and battling claims of cronyism, Sir Keir Starmer has had another...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
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...
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...
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...
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...