The control room: the sinister face of Scotland's NHS

Thursday, 18 August 2011 21:40

20 Comments

• The state-of-the-art hospital patrolled by private security guards

• The £450million contract with a company officially criticised for its care of vulnerable children and women

by Kenneth Roy

Welcome – as they say – to a brave new world. Let me introduce you to 'the facility' (as it is sometimes called).

Dump the UK debt - Part 2

Wednesday, 17 August 2011 20:25

63 Comments

by Hazel Lewry

In the first section of Dump the Debt we took a slightly more than cursory look at what should be Scotland’s share, if any, of UK debt. The answer to this question appeared to be that Scotland should not inherently assume any liability for Westminster’s fiscal and policy incompetence.

The Baron of Aikwood – man of steel …

Wednesday, 17 August 2011 17:06

16 Comments

by Peter Curran

The Scottish Government and the First Minister have to be polite to David Steel, as a former Presiding Officer of the Parliament – but I don’t …

Scotland’s two dying ‘quality’ dailies, The Scotsman and The Herald are in a state of high excitement over Lord Steel’s belated statement on the reason’s for his resignation from his role as one of the two independent advisors who consider complaints on alleged breaches of the ministerial code. No doubt some lazy television producers will also pick up this non-story to save them the trouble of sending someone out of the studio to find some real stories that haven’t already been trailed by the press.

After insanity on the streets, we have insanity on the bench

Wednesday, 17 August 2011 16:49

41 Comments

by Kenneth Roy

One of the most shocking cases to come before a Scottish court in recent years involved the torture of a 14-year-old girl in a car park at a shopping centre in Edinburgh. Two girls aged 14 and a boy aged 13 stripped the victim naked and, during a ferocious attack lasting 45 minutes, left her covered in blood from head to toe and with six two-centimetre wounds on the back of her head, inflicted by stiletto heels. All the while, one of her assailants was filming the assault on a mobile phone.

Wind Farms; Feasible or Folly?

Tuesday, 16 August 2011 21:54

52 Comments

by Mark McCann

If you live in Scotland, you can't fail to notice our landscape is changing. Wind farms are everywhere you look, springing up almost overnight in remote glens or farmland. They either instil awe and wonder or horror and disgust depending on your point of view. I have been driven to write this because I have finally come down off the fence as to my opinion of them.