Scotland
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…
The saddest, most romantic view in Britain
Is there a more forlornly romantic spot in Britain than the moors east of Inverness where the Jacobite dream died?…
In fear we trust: how the Tories became addicted to negativity
Strange as it may seem, there are still people around David Cameron who regard the Scottish referendum campaign as a…
This really isn’t how Robert Mugabe would run a referendum
It is not what Robert Mugabe would do. Calm down. These are ‘spiv Robert Mugabe antics’, said the Tory backbencher…
The Sunlight Pilgrims: a chilling tale of the new Ice Age
Every second novel is fated to be measured against its predecessor; and that comparison is particularly hard when the debut…
Referendum rage: a warning from Scotland
Scots know all too well how it feels. The rest of Britain is about to learn
Why the Republican elite couldn’t stop Donald Trump
The political climate that brought about his rise is in fact a worldwide phenomenon
Energy Secretary Amber Rudd on windmill-slaying, North Sea oil and the EU
Energy Secretary Amber Rudd on ending green rackets, supporting Scottish oil and staying in the EU
The embarrassing story of Scotland’s most important 20th century structure
Finding St Peter’s is not straightforward. I approach the wrong way, driving up a pot-holed farm track between a golf…
Charles Moore’s Notes: Are we really going to try Lord Janner’s corpse?
At the end of next week, a judge will decide whether the ‘trial of the facts’ can proceed now that…
The shocking truth about the English and the Scots: they agree
Last year, the United Kingdom came within 384,000 votes of destruction. A referendum designed to crush the Scottish nationalists instead…
Sunset Song is close to masterly
Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song is the best-remembered title of a short career. Born in 1901, he was dead by…
Why I find women-only exhibitions depressing
Modern Scottish Men, a new exhibition celebrating the achievements of male artists in the 20th century, opens next month in…
Rugby referee Craig Joubert is just the man to sort out Syria
Not since Walter Palmer, a cudddly Minnesota dentist, put down his drill and vanished off the face of the earth…
Can the Great British public be made to care passionately about the EU referendum?
It’s early days, I know, but the Outers have convinced me. Britain will not collapse into chaos and penury if…
Centralising, illiberal, catastrophic: the SNP’s one-party state
Nicola Sturgeon’s government is an illiberal, centralising disaster. Time for a revolution
What Scottish professors have to fear from Nicola Sturgeon’s power grab
What Scotland’s professors have to fear from the SNP’s latest bright idea
Horridly magnificent - but real problems occur when anyone opens their mouth: Macbeth reviewed
Who goes to big-screen Shakespeare? Not theatre-goers much, and with reason. Apart from the odd corker by Kurosawa, arguably Olivier…
Will Spain learn from Scotland in the battle for Catalan separatism?
One of the unforeseen consequences of the reunification of Europe after the Cold War has been a resurgence of independence…
I was petrified of the power of the Great Monition, the most terrifying curse of them all
Laikipia A lion has just mauled and partially eaten a warrior who tried to throw a spear in my…
The current scarcity of herring may itself be a red herring
Fish stories come in two varieties: the micro-version of a hundred riverside bars, blokeish boastings of rod-and-line tussles with individual…
Max Hastings’s diary: How sporting tourists play into Nicola Sturgeon’s hands
During our annual odyssey around the Scottish Highlands, I read Tears of the Rajas, Ferdinand Mount’s eloquent indictment of imperial…
Tristram Hunt’s diary: The rainy glories of Devon – and a cold political climate
‘Devon, Devon, Devon/ Where it rains six days out of seven.’ Nothing beats a British seaside holiday. And north Devon…
