Scottish Labour and, by extension, Ed Milliband may well be the net losers in the wake of the Scottish Referendum. It is being hit by the double whammy of mass defection in its heartland constituencies to the YES campaign and being ensnared by the Tories in failure
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A steady column of journalists and politicians from the Republic of Ireland has been paying tribute to the late Ian Paisley for his pivotal role in the Peace Process. Former Taoiseach, Bertie Aherne, said that he was a big man with a big heart while the current
Read more →The weekend message from the polls precipitated an unexpected and rushed recalibration of the Better Together Campaign which would not have been out of place in a Whitehall Farce. Had Nick Clegg dropped his trousers in Galashiels today, the picture would have been complete. However, for now
Read more →The First Minister, Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling will meet again in a BBC Network Referendum debate tonight. Since the Kennedy/Nixon encounter of the fifties, television debates, in my view, have assumed undue and unproven importance in persuading the electorate. It is highly unlikely that five o’clock shadow
Read more →Many in the education bubble were saddened to learn of the death yesterday of Sam Galbraith, the former Children’s Minister at Holyrood, who had responsibility for Education when I was President of the EIS. He had also been a Minister in the first Blair Government and, with Donald
Read more →Eclectic is scarcely adequate to describe the motley crew of celebrities, who were undoubtedly recruited by some bright, young Downing St sage and asked to tell the people of Scotland of their undying affection for the place and its people. A principal organiser was historian and TV
Read more →As the name proclaims, this is a photo website but I rarely say much about the hobby in these blogs. Next month, we have been invited to the marriage of a family friend and I began to reflect on wedding photography. Good quality cameras are now comparatively
Read more →It would truly be a very brittle heart that was not moved to sympathy for the relatives of all those who died on the Malaysian flight which plummeted to earth on the sunflower fields around Donetsk . That emotion will be felt deeply too by the Russian people and by
Read more →The Tory spin machine has been in overdrive, trying to convince us that women have arrived and in future will be treated as equals to male colleagues and receive promotion on merit. We know in reality that the cabinet re-shuffle was about presentation for the next election.
Read more →There was a news-clip last week of a young Prince George taking a few stumbling steps in a polo field with his mother watching carefully over him. His father and uncle were , presumably, actively engaged in a chukka. A good part of my childhood was spent
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