So how did you end up writing for a newspaper?
I've been doing that for a long time. I first wrote for the Herald in the 1970s and intermittently ever since.
What’s been the highlight of your career?
Promoting Pink Floyd in Dunoon when I was student. As a politician, being part of a successful Labour government for eight years.
What’s your favourite part of Scotland and why?
Where I live - Uig in the Isle of Lewis.
What was the last book you read?
The Happy Traitor about the life of George Blake
What are you going to be writing about for The Herald?
My column's tagged 'From the Edge" so it's a view of events from the perspective of the Scottish periphery
What will be the biggest stories of 2021 and the next decade?
Covid recovery, hopefully, and the scandal of child poverty, if enough people care
What do you make of the government’s (both) response to Coronavirus?
I go by the numbers rather than the spin and on that basis they have both done equally badly.
Who’s going to win the Holyrood election and why?
The Nationalists are pretty much bound to be the biggest party but otherwise wide open. Scotland needs to decide if it wants the next five years to be dominated by fruitless argument about the constitution or if the powers of devolution should be used to make real progress.
What will happen with indyref2 after the election?
Not a lot, apart from the usual noise and grievance-mongering
Why should Scots sign up for a Herald subscription?
The past year has proven once again that the written word matters and diversity of opinion matters. We need newspapers and they have to be paid for.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
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