Robbie Dinwoodie

Columnist and Leader Writer

A daily newspaper journalist since January 1974, I was deprived of my first front page splash by Richard Nixon's resignation. I could forgive him Watergate, but not that. I covered Northern Ireland in the 1980s, joined the then Glasgow Herald in 1989, and turned to political journalism in 1994. Married with children and grandchildren, I consider myself a Humanist, with strong political views but have carried no party card since 1971.

A daily newspaper journalist since January 1974, I was deprived of my first front page splash by Richard Nixon's resignation. I could forgive him Watergate, but not that. I covered Northern Ireland in the 1980s, joined the then Glasgow Herald in 1989, and turned to political journalism in 1994. Married with children and grandchildren, I consider myself a Humanist, with strong political views but have carried no party card since 1971.

Latest articles from Robbie Dinwoodie

The chill of cold callers

SOME readers of a certain vintage may recall signs on gates which declared: “No Hawkers, No Circulars.” Sometimes there was also a mention of a dog as a deterrent. How quaint.

Greed was never good

AS THE star of the movie Wall Street, Gordon Gekko, memorably put it: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” But, then again, Gekko was a fictional character, unlike Martin Shkreli, who you would be hard-pressed to make up.

Herald View: Sporting legacy a long game

THERE is a point in seeking to establish a direct, provable link between the hosting of major sports events and the health or wider social benefits to the host city. It is not easy to prove, as the examples of the London Olympics, the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow or those eight years previously in Manchester demonstrate.

A more decent, less violent generation

ONE of the saddest things about becoming an oldster, and I’ve had my bus pass for getting on for a year now, is that you realise what a bunch of miserable old gits many of your fellow seniors are.

Robbie Dinwoodie: De-coding PolSpeak

I STARTED a Twitter storm this morning. Actually, I say storm but it was more of a light flurry, but it generated a deal of interest when I observed after listening to Liz Kendall being interviewed on the wireless: Why do people who are about to obfuscate always say: "To be clear . . .”?

Union rights and the pendulum

PICTURE the scene: You make a mild comment about union power and how the Government is right to continue efforts to curb it lest we return to the bad old days of the seventies when the nation was held to ransom by the “barons” of the labour movement.

Good play, well made but, oh, the audience

THE interaction between performers and audience is at the heart of live theatre. If jokes fall flat it dulls the impact of the whole production, hence the canned laughter that became such a staple of dire televised comedies.

Robbie Dinwoodie: No end to Manifest Destiny

YOUR starter for ten, no conferring: Which ethnic group in the United States is most likely to die a violent death at the hands of law enforcement officers? Most of you will say black people, especially young males. You will be confident of this because protests across the US at the latest shootings of black citizens by white police officers have featured in UK news broadcasts in recent months.

Robbie Dinwoodie: The rights time

WHEN the wolf is at the door civil liberties and human rights all too often disappear out the back. A fine exception during these hard times has been advances in gay rights, a phrase intended to encompass the wider LGBT communities.