HeraldScotland

Profile: Iain Macwhirter

HeraldScotland:

Columnist

Iain Macwhirter is the political commentator of the The Herald and the Sunday Herald, an author and documentary film and radio presenter and a former Rector of Edinburgh University. He has worked at both the UK Parliament and Scottish Parliament, presenting the BBC2 programmes Westminster Live, Scrutiny and, from 1999, the BBC TV Holyrood Live programme from the Scottish Parliament.

Latest articles from Iain Macwhirter

Alex Salmond at his Alba Party ‘s Lothian launch with candidate Alex Arthur

Iain Macwhirter: Alba needs a U-turn after its car crash campaign

WHEN Labour was trying to make itself electable again in the 1990s its media advisers developed a tick-box approach to avoiding policies and attitudes that might discourage voters. It was called “eliminating the negatives”. Alba seems to be doing precisely the reverse. In its short life, Alex Salmond's party appears to be piling up as many negatives as possible.

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Social media nastiness on the death of Prince Philip is a sad reflection of the times

Social media nastiness on the death of Prince Philip is a sad reflection of the times

HOW they speak about the dead reveals the character of the living. The display of mindless nastiness on Friday about Prince Phillip on Twitter told us much about the kind of people there who call themselves the left.

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CARTER BAR, SCOTLAND - JULY 13: A general view from the view point on the A68 at Carter Bar, at the top of Redesdale in the Cheviot Hills on the border between Scotland and England on July 13, 2020 in Carter Bar, Scotland. In a TV interview on Sunday,

Iain Macwhirter: Sturgeon’s border problem could possibly kill Yes vote stone dead

IN the days and weeks before the worst rioting in Belfast in decades, signs appeared all over the city announcing: “Loyalists will NEVER accept a border in the Irish Sea”. They were signed: “Unionists against the Northern Ireland protocol”. Borders, real or imagined, cause trouble. And that applies to Scotland as well as Ireland.

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cottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie

Iain Macwhirter: Alba shows up Holyrood as a parliament of virtue-signalling careerists

THE prospect of Alex Salmond returning to parliament has spread panic in the Holyrood chicken coop. It only took one opinion poll suggesting his new party, Alba, might deliver a handful of seats, to reveal the instincts of the Scottish political establishment: which is to shut him out by discrediting Holyrood's electoral system.

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First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party speaks to camera in Partick in Glasgow, Scotland, where she is launching the SNP virtual electoral campaign ahead of the upcoming Scottish Parliament election which is to be held on

Iain Macwhirter: Independence is in Sturgeon’s DNA just as much as Salmond’s. However ...

Alex Salmond’s Alba party has failed to ignite the heather, at least so far. There’s five weeks to go and anything could happen, but last week’s opinion poll showing doesn’t suggest that Scottish voters were waiting with bated breath for the opportunity to back the former SNP leader and deliver his super-majority. Yesterday’s man, say the SNP gleefully, with no tomorrow.

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Former First Minister Alex Salmond

Iain Macwhirter: Why Sturgeon needs to shut up about Salmond

ONLY Alex Salmond could dominate a debate by not being there. The candidates in the first virtual hustings on BBC TV last night tried to ignore the ghost at the feast. But it was hard – not least because Nicola Sturgeon's position on her late mentor is a contradiction.

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Iain Macwhirter: The SNP say Alex Salmond's unfit for office, but that doesn't mean people won't vote for him

Iain Macwhirter: The SNP say Alex Salmond's unfit for office, but that doesn't mean people won't vote for him

He's back. Like a superannuated Terminator, Alex Salmond has returned for what must surely be the final sequel in his political franchise.

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GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - MARCH 27: First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the Scottish National Party, speaks to the media outside the Covid 19 vaccination centre at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow while on the campaign trail for the Scottish Parliamentary

Iain Macwhirter: Hating Boris isn’t enough – this election will be difficult for the SNP

“So who WOULD you vote for?” I asked one of my oldest political friends, who’d worked for nearly two decades at a senior level in the SNP. “Nobody, certainly not this lot”. He meant the present leadership of the Scottish National Party and Nicola Sturgeon in particular.

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St George Cross flag of England against a blue sky.

'The dog that finally barked': Iain Macwhirter reviews new books on English nationalism

How Britain Ends: English Nationalism and the Rebirth of Four Nations

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Iain Macwhirter: Nicola Sturgeon will not resign over misleading parliament, but she does protest too much

Iain Macwhirter: Nicola Sturgeon will not resign over misleading parliament, but she does protest too much

I THINK we can be sure that Nicola Sturgeon is not considering resignation after having been found guilty of misleading Parliament by the Holyrood Harassment Committee.

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