Scotland
The continued existence of the United Kingdom is now at stake
When they come to write the history of the Union’s demise, there will be three guilty men. Tony Blair was…
The Union is in graver danger than ever
The greatest single danger to this government is the state of the Union. Prime ministers can survive many things, but…
Scotland’s chilling new blasphemy law
The new Hate Crime Bill proposed by the Scottish Government is a sweeping threat to freedom of speech and conscience.…
Male violence pulses through Evie Wyld’s The Bass Rock
‘It’s a woman’s thing, creation,’ says Sarah,a girl accused of witchcraft in 18th-century Scotland, in one of the three storylines…
Letters: How to really revitalise the North
Devolved or decentralised? Sir: Paul Collier (‘Northern lights’, 22 February) conflates what devolution has come to mean, in UK terms, with…
The brands regretting calling themselves ‘Corona’
Going viral A few of the businesses which chose ‘Corona’ as a brand name and now have a bit of…
The Scottish literary giants who stoked the fires of Anglophobia
On the Scottish literary giants who stoked the fires of Anglophobia
Deborah Orr rages against her small-town upbringing
Unlike a lot of people in the media, I didn’t personally know Deborah Orr, but I know many who did,…
Indyref2 could be the biggest headache of Boris’s premiership
Nicola Sturgeon is the only opposition leader who survived the general election. She has emerged far stronger. The Tories had…
Corbyn’s problem was not that the media hated him – but that he hated the media
On the morning of the election, we buried my lovely mum. I write this 24 hours later, now on a…
The 15 Scottish seats that could decide the general election
For at least a generation — something we define loosely up here — Scottish hacks have been trying to interest…
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If we do get a good Anglo-American trade deal, we should thank Trump’s mother
In an uncharacteristic fit of almost-robustness, Culture Secretary Nicky Morgan has said she is ‘open-minded’ about scrapping the BBC licence…
Brace yourself for no deal
I AM up on the far north-west coast of Scotland, where the weather is changing every five minutes under vast skies…
Forget Greenland, Donald Trump should buy Scotland
Donald Trump’s attempted purchase of Greenland may have fallen through but if he’s still in the market, there’s some prime…
It’s not just Scotland’s drugs shame – it’s Britain’s
Twenty years ago, the Scottish parliament was reconvened after a lapse of almost three centuries. The logic for devolution was…
Will Boris Johnson break up the Union?
I spent the early part of last week in London, filming what are known in the television trade as PTCs…
Wicked, humorous and high-spirited: Dorothea Tanning at Tate Modern reviewed
Art movements come and go but surrealism, in one form or another, has always been with us. Centuries before Freud’s…
Love is blind, but lust is not; William Boyd’s 15th novel reviewed
William Boyd’s 15th novel begins well enough. In 1894 Edinburgh, a 24-year-old piano tuner is promoted to the Paris branch…
No whisky for breakfast? But this is Scotland!
I begin my 87-day reading tour of the US, UK and Canada on a BA flight that will take me…
The myth of the ‘trustworthy’ Scottish accent
There was once a belief that for TV and radio commercials, a Scottish voice was more ‘trustworthy’. This was particularly…
Give me Shakespeare’s Macbeth over Jo Nesbo’s any day
It must have seemed a good idea to someone: commissioning a range of well-known novelists to ‘reimagine Shakespeare’s plays for…
Kilchoman isn’t a good whisky; it’s a great one
‘What seas what shore what grey rocks what water lapping the bow’. So evocative, which seems strange: one would have…
As a trainee teacher, I saw the damage the SNP is inflicting on Scottish education
Once one of the best in the world, Scotland’s education system has been steadily marching backwards for the past ten…
Notebook
To Skibo Castle for a four-day wedding, a dream of super-luxury and great good fun. I was struck by how…
Diary
Diana Spencer has been dead for 20 years. I was a journalist on the Evening Standard in those days and…
