The power of education: Part I – How it empowers people

MY VIEW OF EDUCATION is a very simple one. Education is empowering. Without education, or with an inadequate education, a child’s life chances are stunted. Education begins in primary school, and that is where the ...

Sturgeon’s grandstanding in the pandemic: it’s what she does

SCOTLAND’S FIRST MINISTER is a boundless talker.  Unfortunately for her there is only one inflection – boundless self-assertion. For five years she has used bluster and invective as the facts about how appallingly her administration performs ...

Bye bye naps, scary movies and say ‘Cheese!’

The Mummy Diaries

WEEK THREE in the big brother house, err I mean self-isolation. Our new routines are starting to become the new normality and although it’s tough not being able to ...

Ausnahmezustand anxiety in St Andrews

AT LAST MONDAY’S Coronavirus briefing Housing Minister Robert Jendrick announced the UK was now on “an emergency footing” in a way “unprecedented” in peacetime.

Even “unprecedented” is rapidly becoming old hat. “It ...

Calderwood's double standards sinks the simple message below the waterline

LATE ON SATURDAY night the Sun published pictures of Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Catherine Calderwood out for a walk with her family and dog on Earlsferry golf course. She was spending the night at ...

Indesit Proposal: we need to plan now for prolonged shutdowns

I HAVE BECOME the latest victim of the Coronavirus. I'm perfectly well though, not remotely infected, but my ancient Indesit washing machine has decided just now to silently leave this world, like tears in rain, ...

Musings of a REAL Tank Commander – Part 1

AS FAR BACK as I can remember, I always wanted to be a soldier.* I can’t really explain why, it’s just the way it was. My Dad had been subaltern in the Highland Light Infantry ...

Planning Edinburgh's future in the time of Coronavirus

WHEN Edinburgh Council went into an early recess and cancelled Committees, emails started coming in from a few constituents asking whether the current consultation Choices for City Plan 2030 would be extended.  My initial, optimistic, response was to ...

Scandal, pandemic and minority nationalism

A POLL released on 29 March giving the SNP 51 per cent of the vote in Scotland has been greeted with disbelief and gloom in quarters anxious to see the wings of the nationalists clipped.

Dangerous decision by Sturgeon needs to be challenged

THE ESTABLISHMENT by Nicola Sturgeon of a separate Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) from that of the Prime Minister is a desperately worrying decision. The obvious thing to say first is that Dr Catherine ...

Full lockdown: how not to kill your kids & banish the baking!

The Mummy Diaries

IT’S ONLY week two of proper isolation and I’ve already drank my lockdown reserves of red wine and eaten the kids emergency stash of chocolate. Although I did manage ...

ThinkLockdown: a right Royal misjudgement?

EVERYTHING IS GRIST to the nationalist mill, and there is no reason to think that the Covid-19 pandemic would be any exception. The weekend’s influx of visitors to the Highlands and islands brought cries to ...