Category: Scotsman
16 February 2012
Life as an elected representative is not conducive to being a parent. My place of work is Edinburgh and the kids school is at home in Shetland. I’ve missed too many parent nights at schools to say nothing of concerts and appearances of the children in one place or other. This is where a politician [...]
9 February 2012
Amidst meetings in London this week, an hour became clear. I beetled up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. Normal gallery visits include children to whom the consideration of art is considered mind improving, broadening and the deepening of one’s experiences of growing up. Or if you are 11, crushingly boring. “That is [...]
2 February 2012
There is a lot to be said for a mid-winter festival. It breaks up the monotony of the lengthy North Atlantic winter; it creates a tremendous buzz in the town and the local economy in the form of pubs, restaurants, hotels and taxis boom for a week in January. This is the Up Helly Aa [...]
26 January 2011
It is all over. Well it is now. This famous or for the Tartan Army, infamous, commentary accompanied the Geoff Hurst goal in the 1966 World Cup Final. The year I was born and still the last time England won an international football championship. Scotland
19 January 2012
Those citizens of Scotland who believe that their Parliament might wish to debate the somewhat serious state of the nation’s economy are going to have to take a break for the next 2 and a half years. After last week’s independence debate, led for the Scottish Government by the First Minister, next week Parliament will [...]
5 January 2012
One holiday morning I listened somewhat groggily to a radio review of the year. It considered how the House of Commons has reasserted itself as a national forum over the past year. Perhaps this reflects a 2011 where news stories from around Europe and further afield have surpassed the melancholy economic prognosis at home. 2012 [...]
22 December 2011
It is a brave Government Minister who takes on Scotland’s seats of learning. As a trade union block, the University Principals know how to push the right buttons, rally academia and keep the Capital’s tearooms in a state of suspended animation. So Mike Russell has not. The Higher Education Minister had a clear choice between [...]
15 December 2011
Preokret is the Serbian for turn around. The Serbian Liberal Democrats are running a national campaign on this change message and as I waked across central Belgrade to the former Yugoslavian federal Parliament people of all ages were stopping to collect leaflets and sign a petition. How nice it was to find voters receptive to [...]
8 December 2011
Big is beautiful when it comes to politicians. Vanity projects are deemed essential to the heart beat of the nation and the bigger the railway, road or hospital the greater the accompanying Ministerial rhetoric. I should know. There were plenty of these in the first
1 December 2011
Edinburgh Zoo