Comment
Divided they stand: The pursuit of Scottish independence
The launch of the Yes Scotland campaign saw some unlikely travelling companions hit the road together in pursuit of independence
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Revealing past convictions may bring justice for some victims of crime, but how many innocent people will it condemn?
RETIRED Chief Inspector Les Gray still recalls the frustration of seeing “career” criminals being presented as lily-white by defence lawyers who are all too aware of their client’s past history.
Claire Black: “She looked confused. I probably did too – maybe she had a pet rabbit?”
STANDING in the supermarket queue the other day, I concentrated on lining up my groceries by order of size and density – with attention paid to the order in which they would be packed into my bag (What? Isn’t that what everyone does?).
Fordyce Maxwell: Liz wondered up to the last minute why a 12-year-old was getting married
AS A festivity-closer, Loch Lomond was new to me. It involved a lot of jumping up and down and several in-and-out rushes similar to Auld Lang Syne melees while the band belted out “You tak the high road…” at a tempo Kenneth McKellar would not have recognised. Along with, I seem to remember amid the mayhem, an occasional burst of the Proclaimers’ “I would walk 500 miles”.
Andrew Eaton-Lewis: Antony Hegarty wants to change the world, and it’s life-affirming to see
HERE’S a challenge. Whatever kinds of cultural events you enjoy going to – comedy shows, concerts, exhibitions, plays, films etc – try, between now and August, only to go to ones that are not part of a festival.
Leaders: Blurred vision on independence
FRIDAY’S launch of the Yes Scotland campaign marked a sea-change in the debate about Scotland’s future.
7 commentsRupert Thomson: We can rebuild confidence after Creative crisis
CREATIVE Scotland is proving very unpopular at the moment. Arts professionals and commentators are furious, others deeply anxious.
Gerald Warner: Yet more volatile ingredients added to Iran’s explosive mix
PROGRESS was reported last week at the end of the so-called P5+1 talks in Baghdad on Iran’s nuclear activities. “Progress”, in the context of negotiation with the Islamic Republic of Iran, means simply that none of the attendees pulled their opponent’s hair or left in a rage.
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Dani Garavelli: Olympic spirit? Let the Games begone
‘If the torch symbolises anything, it’s the organisers’ cynicism’
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Duncan Hamilton: Rainbow alliance proves independence will embrace political diversity
IF THE perfect film should engage a whole spectrum of emotion, the launch of the Yes campaign at an Edinburgh cinema on Friday ticked most of my boxes.
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Tam Dalyell: Why our political leaders could use some proper work experience
‘Many – not all – of our political leaders need to grow up for the sake of the country’
Scotland on Sunday cartoon - 20/05/2012
As former England captain David Beckham lights the Olympic flame in a London ceremony, G8 leaders may find their dreams of maintaining the eurozone go up in smoke
Comment: What is there to ‘like’ about Facebook flotation?
FEW flotations have captured the public’s imagination in quite the same way as Facebook’s first day of trading on Friday. As one observer stated, it was rare for such an event to take place in which everyone has a stake in the outcome.
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Comment: Pain in Spain a headache for everyone
TWO telephone calls out of the blue at the end of last week brought disturbing news. The first was from a well-connected source in Brussels; the second from a contact in Spain.
Duncan Hamilton: Centralisation as a response to euro crisis would leave us all the poorer
Charlemagne knew a thing or two about expanding empires. He knew also about quelling local rebellions and converting unwilling peoples to a new ideology. It was, therefore, perhaps appropriate that German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was awarded the Charlemagne Prize in Aachen. The award is for those who have effectively promoted the concept of a unified and cohesive Europe. It is not known whether anyone from Greece had a vote, but I somehow suspect not.
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Dani Garavelli: Language policy sure to be lost in translation
EVERY couple of weeks I have the same row with my eldest son. As he sighs theatrically over his French homework, I burble on about the merits of being able to converse with people from other countries.
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Drumlanrig: Vintage nickname for Joan McAlpine
THAT the ex-journalist and now SNP MSP Joan McAlpine should enjoy a lavish lunch with Alex Salmond came as little surprise to her former newspaper colleagues who have long associated her with fine wine.
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Gerald Warner: Removing taint on Scots peers would be a noble jubilee gesture
LAST week’s report in Scotland on Sunday about the petition being sent to the Queen, requesting her to mark her Diamond Jubilee by reversing the Acts of Attainder passed against 18th-century Jacobites, subjecting their descendants indefinitely to “corruption of blood”, relates to issues at the emotional core of Scottish history.
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Geoff Mulgan: New generation of pioneers waiting to be switched on
YOU might have thought that learning about information technology in schools would be exciting and infinitely motivating. After all, teenagers find it hard to tear themselves away from games and social media. Left to their own devices, they have no difficulty creating new characters, stories and home movies.
Johann Lamont: Don’t let Alex Salmond’s sideshow detract from the powers we have already
ALEX Salmond seems to have learned the wrong lesson from Tony Blair. The lesson from Blair is not that cosying up to Rupert Murdoch is the key to success.
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Leaders: Shameful way to treat anyone
Scum. Gypos. Mongs. Thieves. Beggars. Paedos. As we reveal today this is how Glasgow’s Roma population are viewed by officials in Scotland’s largest city.
Analysis: Reality is bleak for immigrant families
OXFAM is best known for fighting poverty overseas but we do it right here in Scotland too. We began working with Roma families in Govanhill more than five years ago because of the desperate situation many had found themselves in.
Why are Batang Kali’s victims still awaiting justice, when their killers long ago admitted their guilt?
THE men were relaxing after a hard day tapping trees, the women chopping wood to prepare dinner, when the soldiers swooped on the isolated rubber estate of Sugai Rimoh near the Batang Kali river in Malaya on 11 December, 1948.
4 commentsLynn O’Rourke: ‘The eager plant watering activity has dried up’
I’M not sure our recent burst of planting activity is going to reap the rewards I had hoped for. Will I ever learn not to absentmindedly make promises?
Scotland on Sunday extra
Get more from Scotland on Sunday online. Click on the articles below to view our videos, official reports and more.
Scotland on Sunday cartoon 13/05/2012
Our cartoonist reacts to the news that Ed Miliband has called for Jeremy Hunt to step down...
Euan McColm: SNP’s pragmatists may be the catalysts for a second question
THROUGHOUT the SNP’s steadily impressive modernisation, one of the greatest challenges facing the leadership has been how to bring along the fundamentalists, those diehards who rallied to the roar of: “Independence – nothing less!”
Duncan Hamilton: House of Lords adds unexpected sparkle to dull political debate
CLEMENT Attlee wonderfully described the House of Lords as being “like a glass of champagne that has stood for five days”. But will it stand for much longer, given the commitment to reform in the coalition Queen’s Speech?
Bill Jamieson: Mixed messages cloud the picture
WE’RE reversing. We’re slumping. We’re growing. We’re slowing. It’s a Double Dip. No it’s not. Yes it is.
Pick your way through the maze of conflicting data in the past week and you could go down in a spin with Signpost Sickness.
Dani Garavelli: Sex abuse evidence we can’t ignore
IT’S DISGUSTING the way Nick Griffin and his cohorts are using the systematic abuse of up to 50 vulnerable girls in Rochdale to oil their hate campaign.
Martin Sime: Referendum debate must grasp nettle of welfare
WE MUST always remember that the poorest people in our society are the most dependent on public expenditure. Even the smallest difference to their income or costs can play havoc with their ability to feed and clothe their families or do the everyday things many of us take for granted.
Gerald Warner: Last rites in death bed vigil for Sick Man of the Eurozone
ENDGAME is approaching in the slow death of the euro currency. It has been doing so for a long time, since the EU oligarchs have striven officiously, by every means at their disposal, to keep its life support system turned on.
Marriage of inconvenience
The controversy surrounding same-sex marriage is shaping up to be the biggest battleground of them all for the SNP, writes Eddie Barnes
Analysis: Political implosion seems an augur of wider economic collapse
GREECE is becoming almost ungovernable. Since last week’s election, three of the political parties have tried to form a government. Each has failed. Now it has fallen on the president to bring the parties together, appealing to them to create a government of national unity.
Analysis: Care home drugs put elderly at risk
THIS report from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) is a welcome contribution to a growing body of evidence showing where and how residential care can be improved, and follows on from the Scottish Parliament’s Health and Sports Committee’s inquiry into the regulation of care for older people, which found incidences in some care homes of residents being medicated to “manage their behaviour”.
Leaders: Drug habit that needs breaking
OUR news report today revealing that elderly patients in Scottish care homes are being prescribed cocktails of powerful drugs “inappropriately”, with possible harmful consequences, raises very serious issues.
Lynn O’Rourke: ‘Bunting should be fluttering in a gentle breeze’
THE PEAR tree in our garden has turned green, almost overnight it seems. It was all blossom blowing furiously about in the biting cold wind for a while, but suddenly it’s fresh and green again, heralding the onset of summer.
Scotland on Sunday cartoon 06/05/2012
Our cartoonist reflects upon the aftermath of the Scottish council elections...
Claire Black: Online attacks diminish us all
I MAKE no secret of my fondness for salty language. But the vitriol that’s floating about the internet like a thick, rank layer of scum is starting to make me feel queasy.
Fordyce Maxwell: The words ‘easily assembled’ in a flat pack can produce a cold sweat
‘THE cheque’s in the post” and “I was just thinking about you” are usually quoted as examples of great lies. I think that “easily assembled” tops them both. Opening a flat pack to find those words on the instruction leaflet can produce a cold sweat and mild hyperventilation.
1 commentAndrew Eaton-Lewis: Film hype goes beyond a joke
FOR the past few days I’ve been nursing an idea for an elaborate practical joke. I will never get to do it, for reasons which will quickly become obvious, but I can dream.
Gerald Warner: Cameron must beware the Tories’ pantomime hero
GOLLYGOSH! He’s back – Boris the mop-haired, overgrown public schoolboy and nemesis of the bendy-bus has shambled back into office as the Dick Whittington de nos jours, a lone Conservative salmon swimming upstream against the tide of electoral rejection.
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Euan McColm: Salmond’s ‘unstoppable’ juggernaut seems to have hit its f irst road block
FOR people who have just won an election, my chums in the SNP might be a little happier. Of course, they’ve all been enthusiastically explaining to me that they got more councillors and a bigger share of the vote than Labour on Thursday.
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Duncan Hamilton: A coalition meltdown can only boost the Yes vote for independence
WITH the SNP becoming easily the largest party in Scotland and Labour successfully winning a majority in the totemic Glasgow City Council, the public perception of the Scottish local elections this week will probably be that of a score draw. But what relevance for Scotland did the UK results have as a whole?
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Claire Prentice: We have to face up to the scale of online sex
TEETERING on vertiginous heels, Anna Friel was photographed peering into the window of a Soho sex shop last week. She was in character as the long-suffering wife of porn mogul Paul Raymond, who dominated London’s square mile of sleaze in the 1960s and 70s.
3 commentsGraeme Smith: The big question - what kind of Scotland do we want?
WHEN the Scottish Government’s consultation on the independence referendum closes this week and with continuing doubt remaining on key issues of process, at least one conclusion can be clearly drawn.
1 commentLeader: Independence is not overriding priority for all
HOW did the local elections go for the SNP? That is an obvious question to ask in the wake of last Thursday’s political convulsions among Scotland’s local authorities.
6 comments- Family mourn death of Glasgow ‘fight’ schoolboy
- Rangers takeover: Duff & Phelps threaten legal action against BBC
- Today’s youth not fit to be employed, says car firm Arnold Clark
- Rangers administration: Fans fear Duff & Phelps claims could scare off Green
- Rangers takeover: triple penalty punishment enough, says Johnston
- Alistair Darling leads ‘No to independence’ fight over tea and biscuits
- Scottish independence: SNP flip-flops over Nato
- Scottish Independence: SNP ‘won’t be Yes campaign’s only voice’
- Scottish independence: Alex Salmond’s pledge to sign up 1m voters
- Today’s youth not fit to be employed, says car firm Arnold Clark
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Weather for Edinburgh
Sunday 27 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
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Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
