Wednesday, 07 March 2012 17:32

28 Comments

By Kenneth Roy
 
I woke up on Monday morning to the exciting headline on the BBC:
 
Lockerbie bomber Megrahi ‘visited Malta for sex’
 
It has taken 23 years for sex and Lockerbie to become strange bedfellows. We have had the deaths of 270 people, the life sentence imposed on the families of the victims (grief, without parole), the trial in the Netherlands …

Tuesday, 06 March 2012 23:44

8 Comments

By Kenneth Roy

A controversial public figure has died young in a foreign country in circumstances not yet fully explained. He was so young and so controversial that the event has been the talk of the steamie almost from the moment the body was found in a Lahore hotel bedroom.

Paul McBride, the late QC, was a successful lawyer who was known to a wider public as an active supporter of Celtic Football Club. He had a lot to say about the Scottish Football Association (who threatened to sue him at one stage), the Scottish Labour Party (which he left), the Scottish Conservatives (which he also left, after the election of Ruth Davidson as its leader), and the Scottish National Party (to which he was well disposed latterly).

Tuesday, 06 March 2012 01:36

41 Comments

By Dave Taylor

A YouGov poll has shown that as many Scots want to stay in the EU as want to leave, in contrast to views in England and Wales.

The demographically balanced poll of 1007 Scots was part of a wider GB poll conducted between 12th – 21st January 2012.  All percentages quoted in this article are of those who expressed an opinion, the don’t knows and those who said they would not vote have been factored out.  14% in both Scotland and England (17% in Wales), were “Don’t know / would not vote”.

Monday, 05 March 2012 22:12

12 Comments

By Gerry Hassan, The Scotsman, March 3rd 2012

Scotland’s population is changing, its mix and its make up, and who and where we are, with huge consequences for the future.

General Register Office for Scotland population predictions estimate a Scotland of 5.8 million people in 2035, the highest ever figure for the nation; a rise of 10.2% overall in numbers, made up of 8.9% through migration and 1.3% in natural change.