The European Court of Human Rights has given one of the most extraordinary judgments it has ever handed down. It ruled that Switzerland had acted unlawfully in failing to take adequate steps to combat climate change, and that this failure was a breach of human rights.
The much-maligned Hate Crime Act, passed by the Scottish Parliament three years ago, finally comes into force on 1 April. So, what exactly does the Act do - and what does it not do?
This has been a turbulent six months in Scottish politics, yet there has not been as much change as there should have been.
We do not have the right to disrupt one another’s lawful activities, and nor should we have.
LAST month Rishi Sunak set out his vision of why all school children in England and Wales should study maths until they are 18. When the UK is one of the least numerate countries in the OECD, when more than eight million adults in this country have numeracy skills below those expected of a nine-year old, and when a third of young people in England and Wales fail to pass GCSE maths, one can readily understand why the Prime Minister is so keen to improve maths skills. Mr Sunak is onto something, and he makes a good case.
“WHEN the herd moves, it moves” was Boris Johnson’s memorable way of explaining to himself, as he resigned as prime minister on the steps of Downing Street, how he had morphed from historic election winner to unwanted liability.
In the 1990s the most important site of Scottish politics was well away from government. It was not John Major’s Conservative administration in London that determined the future of Scottish policy: rather, it was the Scottish Constitutional Convention.
In the 1990s the most important site of Scottish politics was well away from government.
The SNP leadership race has been revealing not only for the state of the SNP, but for the health of Scotland’s other main political parties, too. Not one of them comes out of it well.
UNIONISTS have been concerned for some time about the way the Scottish Government seems to have been able to get away with developing aspects of its own foreign policy, despite this being one area of governing which supposedly is well and truly reserved to London.
