TWO big issues highlighted in recent days were global warming and depletion of the world’s fish stocks. Fortunately, I was able to study both problems first-hand in Lisbon. One of the bigger carbon footprints last week was left by the...
Read more » | Comments (0)
GOOD news for frequent flyers. The ban on taking liquids on board flights at UK airports is to be relaxed. From tomorrow, passengers will be able to carry bottles of toiletries as long as they are contained in a clear,...
Read more » | Comments (0)
The nation is being asked to vote on the top 10 pivotal moments in Scottish history. Over three programmes, beginning on November 10, these people, events or things will be presented by their champions, and a fourth programme on November...
Read more » | Comments (0)
The Awards Season is with us already, starting last week with the Q Magazine awards wherein the award-winning Arctic Monkeys pronounced the award-winning Take That “bollocks” and The National Television Awards where Deal Or No Deal was anointed the greatest...
Read more » | Comments (0)
News of a solid set of results for FirstGroup next week may be good news for shareholders in the company and the Scottish economy. But what cheer for Scotland’s commuters? The rail operator clocked up 75 million passenger journeys last...
Read more » | Comments (1)
Donald Macrae on Scotland's economy
The Scottish economy grew by 2.2% over the year to mid- 2006 – a shade behind the comparable UK figure of 2.3%. Within that total, services provided the bulk of the growth in GDP with an annual increase of 2.9%...
Read more » | Comments (4)
Trevor Royle on a cold-war standoff of state and army
In most parts of the world, a military commander’s promise of support is as good a reason as any for a politician to start packing bags and booking flights to unknown destinations. It’s a sure sign that their jacket is...
Read more » | Comments (0)
Iain Macwhirter on the state of democracy
Do we live in a democracy? I only ask. Of course, we elect people to parliaments – three of them, if you include the Scottish and European parliaments. But what do our elected members do when they get there, apart...
Read more » | Comments (0)
A report last week showed that teachers in Scotland’s mainstream schools are still identifying some children with autism as being indisciplined. The research by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education went on to suggest that too many autistic children were under-achieving...
Read more » | Comments (3)
Muriel Gray on the urgent need to save civilisation
Elaine C Smith, whose brilliant stand-up skills remain unbeatable, used to include a routine about how we perceived the future as children. She expressed her disappointment that 40 years ago we were told, with some conviction, that when we reached...
Read more » | Comments (2)
An extended curfew on the streets of Baghdad and in other provinces throughout Iraq; a climate of increasing violence, the discovery of 83 bodies showing signs of torture and a promise to open the gates of hell if a death...
Read more » | Comments (0)
Trevor Royle on why cluster bombs should be banned
There are few more hallowed places on God’s Earth than the rolling chalk downlands of the Somme or the wooded expanse of the Ypres salient to the north. Within their acres, hundreds of thousands of young men fought and died...
Read more » | Comments (0)
Ken Symon on an economic watershed
Twenty years ago, the City of London embarked on a remarkable transformation. The far-reaching reforms that became known as the “big bang” and saw a significant change in the way shares were traded, came into effect on one particular day:...
Read more » | Comments (0)
Many years ago, as a sneer-faced Goth wearing a bloke’s army surplus military jacket because that’s how ‘tough’ I was, the Remembrance Day service at Whitehall in London beamed from the television as a symbol of all things the ‘righteous’...
Read more » | Comments (0)
AROUND 18 months ago, following a minor car accident and what I felt to be a dismissive appointment with my doctor who told me to take more painkillers and get off my crutches, I was diagnosed with a strain, or...
Read more » | Comments (0)
WHEN I was a lad in the 1950s in Brock Road in the hamlet of Househillwood, which was an autonomous region of the People’s Republic of Pollok, there was a man called Colin Gemmell who was the street’s banker....
Read more » | Comments (0)
SOUTH Dakota is a conservative sort of place. It barely counts as a fly-over state for the sophisticates of America’s coasts, glancing down on the farmlands from 30,000 feet. Below, the descendents of west European immigrants have made little impact...
Read more » | Comments (0)
Remembrance Sunday no longer serves to commemorate only military triumphs of the past. Most of us, if we paused in silence for two minutes, gave thanks to parents and grandparents for their part in events which, although we know them...
Read more » | Comments (0)
Last week, as a result of disclosures in this paper, the Scottish parliament agreed to review the system of living allowances which has permitted MSPs to make large gains on the Edinburgh property market at the public’s expense. None of...
Read more » | Comments (0)
Muriel Gray on a debate that demeans the war dead
Journalist Jon Snow’s refusal to wear a poppy while reading the news, his subsequent comment about “poppy fascism” and Christian calls to wear a white poppy instead of red to make a pacifist statement, all contributed this week to the...
Read more » | Comments (0)
Iain Macwhirter on the cost of the war for Britain
Look, I too am opposed to the death penalty. But sometimes even I wonder if there should be an exception made; for Tony Blair. After all, there we were last week condemning Saddam Hussein for causing the deaths of tens,...
Read more » | Comments (1)
IF you were to sketch a picture of a futuristic utopian community, it would probably incorporate some serious, state-of-the-art family planning. No-one would have babies unintentionally, and everyone who wanted children would conceive at precisely the right time for themselves...
Read more » | Comments (0)
NEVER muddy the language. George Orwell, even in his clumsy Etonian prose, showed us where obfuscation leads. State psychopaths are fond of bland terminology, the better to excuse their crimes. Bureaucrats adore jargon, the better to justify a want of...
Read more » | Comments (1)
THE decision by Young’s Seafood to send Scottish langoustines on a 17,000-mile round trip to Thailand has been met with protest and some derision. The company justifies its move on grounds of cost and quality. It is cheaper to have...
Read more » | Comments (0)
One and a half long pop years ago, for one month only in May/June 2005, Britney Spears – still a global pop entity at the time, even as she was clearly unravelling in a cyclone of emotional idiocy – presented...
Read more » | Comments (0)
Trevor Royle on Segolene Royal, the new socialist hope
It’s not easy being a woman in politics. For all that the glass ceiling has been broken by people as different as Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi, there’s still a suspicion in men’s minds that a politician wearing...
Read more » | Comments (3)
Another week, another exposé of the parliament’s wretched Edinburgh Accommodation Allowance. Where John Home Robertson billed the public for renting from his son, and where transport minister Tavish Scott admitted to renting from his sister, the Sunday Herald has now...
Read more » | Comments (0)
Muriel Gray on the SNP’s ‘interesting’ policies
Don’t you hate it when artists use the word ‘interested’ when discussing their work? You know the sort of thing. Some sullen, unshaven creature will be filmed standing beside a melted plastic box topped by a toaster and a doll...
Read more » | Comments (10)
Guest Vocals: Karen Torley
I am delighted to see that Briton Mirza Tahir Hussain has at last been released after 18 years on death row in Pakistan. Here I can only applaud the decision of Pakistan’s president Pervez Musharraf to use his discretionary powers...
Read more » | Comments (0)
Iain Macwhirter on pugilism in politics
During the Queen’s speech last week, Tony Blair jeered: “However much you dance around the ring, at some point you’ll come within reach of a big clunking fist.” The “dancer” is, of course, the Tory leader David Cameron; the “clunker”,...
Read more » | Comments (0)
On Tuesday 28 November at 15.30, Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport Patricia Ferguson MSP answered questions relating to her ministerial portfolio in the inaugural Sunday Herald Digital Debate.
It proved an interesting session. The Minister thoroughly enjoyed this new method of meeting the public and broke the Scottish parliamentary typing record into the bargain ... You can read the questions and her responses below. About Patricia Ferguson: Born...
Read more » | Comments (33)
A VULNERABLE soul, in care, is subjected to abuse and cruel neglect. Her pleas for help are ignored, and by the time she reaches hospital it is too late; she dies in distress having undergone an amputation for the gangrene...
Read more » | Comments (0)
YOU'LL HAVE had your debate. It took about an hour on Thursday for the decision to be taken by the UK Cabinet to replace Trident. The consultation will be an empty one, taking place over the Christmas holiday season, and...
Read more » | Comments (0)
OUR FAMILY lives in Scotland but shops, when we need a biggish supermarket, in England. Somehow it doesn't quite count as Border reiving in the old style. These days, for better or ill, there is precious little argument over the...
Read more » | Comments (1)
