Scotland

Letters: The Scottish government must be held to account

16 April 2022 9:00 am

Backward devolution Sir: Thanks for once again highlighting the many issues with government in Scotland (‘Sturgeon’s secret state’, 9 April).…

Nicola Sturgeon’s secret state

9 April 2022 9:00 am

Holyrood is one of the most opaque regimes in the democratic world

Covid is rising again. Should we worry?

11 March 2022 11:50 pm

For some time now, Covid has been rising in Scotland – there are now more Scots in hospital with Covid…

No, Scottish independence is not like the war in Ukraine

2 March 2022 8:43 am

Perhaps it’s the absence of any oppression of their own country that compels Scottish nationalists to latch onto the oppression…

Unmasking 'panda diplomacy'

23 February 2022 5:39 am

The star of the Beijing Winter Olympics wasn’t an athlete: it was Bing Dwen Dwen, the spacesuit-clad panda mascot. It…

We could learn a thing or two from Swiss democracy

14 February 2022 11:55 pm

There was another referendum in Switzerland over the weekend. This one was about protecting the young from the evils of…

Nicola Sturgeon’s last laugh

12 February 2022 9:00 am

I was delighted to discover that the University of Bristol has been advising students how to address those who identify…

Sex, trans rights and the Scottish census

22 January 2022 2:20 am

It takes some doing to make a census interesting. So congratulations to the National Records of Scotland (NRS). NRS, which administers…

To save the Union, ignore Gordon Brown

12 January 2022 10:38 pm

As he blasts his way through the remaining support beams of the UK constitution, Gordon Brown is doing more to…

Scotland's 70-page dossier finds no evidence for vaccine passports

21 November 2021 9:38 am

Nicola Sturgeon wants to extend vaccine passports in Scotland, and today her government released a 70-page document purporting to show…

Why Boris is losing his fight against Sturgeon

5 October 2021 5:38 pm

Gavin Barwell has made a good point, albeit inadvertently. Theresa May’s former chief of staff has a book out, imaginatively…

As COP26 looms, Glasgow is facing a waste crisis

2 October 2021 9:00 am

With COP26 weeks away, the city is in the middle of a waste crisis

Will Scottish independence really be 'Brexit times ten'?

18 September 2021 4:00 pm

Scottish civil servants are to start work on a ‘detailed prospectus’ for independence so the Scottish government can hold another…

Amateurish and implausible: BBC1's Vigil reviewed

18 September 2021 9:00 am

Tense, claustrophobic, gripping, thrilling, realistic: just some of the adjectives no one is using to describe BBC1’s Sunday night submarine…

Scotland's census sex muddle is bad news for transgender people

3 September 2021 4:42 am

What is your sex? It is a simple question and one that we can all surely answer. When it comes…

A narrow escape in Britain’s most treacherous mountain range

28 August 2021 9:00 am

Twenty-five years ago, my cousin Jock, a Scottish priest, rang in shock. Two priest friends, David and Norman, had been…

The blind spot in the SNP's 'war on drink'

19 August 2021 3:30 pm

Scotland’s grim reputation for abnormally high drug fatalities has become embedded in the public consciousness over the past year. The…

David Keenan, literary disruptor in chief

14 August 2021 9:00 am

Near to the heart of this wild and labyrinthine novel — on page 516 of 808 — a character in…

Devolution doesn't work in a crisis

13 August 2021 11:35 pm

One of the worst features of devolution is the tendency of devocrats to insist on doing their own thing in…

Don’t pick a fight with the SNP

7 August 2021 9:00 am

Since the Holyrood elections in May, the campaign for Scottish independence has been noticeably quiet. But that is about to…

No, Boris didn't 'snub' Sturgeon

6 August 2021 11:45 pm

One of the reasons the SNP has dominated Scottish politics for so long is that it is extremely adept at…

Boris could make devolution reform his legacy – if he has the ambition

25 July 2021 2:27 am

Today marks two years since Boris Johnson accepted Her Majesty’s invitation to serve as her fourteenth Prime Minister. His tenure…

Joan Eardley deserves to be ranked alongside Bacon and de Kooning

17 July 2021 9:00 am

Claudia Massie on the unjustly neglected artist Joan Eardley, who deserves to be ranked alongside Auerbach, Bacon and de Kooning

The life cycle of the limpet teaches universal truths

17 July 2021 9:00 am

Adam Nicolson is one of our finest writers of non-fiction. He has range — from place and history to literature…

Who can make the Scottish Lib Dems great again?

13 July 2021 8:32 pm

Willie Rennie’s resignation — announced, as only he could, via a self-shot video while climbing Benarty Hill in western Fife…