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Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Herald Scotland

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Mark McGeogheagan: Political violence is spreading, and Britain is not immune

The world is becoming more unstable and dangerous, and politics is increasingly conducted not through peaceful means but through violence. One only...

21.12.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Starmer's Labour is in trouble as SNP outflanks Sarwar The SNP could scarcely have hoped for a more positive poll in the wake of John Swinney’s first budget as First Minister. Mr Swinney is, of course, a practiced hand at the political art of Scottish budgets, having served two terms as Finance Secretary under Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon.

The SNP could scarcely have hoped for a more positive poll in the wake of John Swinney’s first budget as First Minister. Mr Swinney is, of course, a...

15.12.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Milestones or millstones for struggling Starmer?

Whatever you do, don’t call it a “reset”. Yesterday, Sir Keir Starmer set out six milestones which he has committed his government to achieve by...

06.12.2024 10

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Reform UK is no flash in the pan, and here's why

Reform UK is on the march. Having won 14.3% of the popular vote and five MPs in the July General Election, it is now polling as high as 21% in...

29.11.2024 10

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: MPs should vote in line with their conscience on assisted dying

Next Friday, Members of Parliament will vote on Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which would legalise assisted dying for...

22.11.2024 30

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Three lessons the SNP need to learn after US election

Following the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election in late 2023, I was asked to speak to SNP MPs and staffers at Westminster about the Scottish...

15.11.2024 7

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: How Trump presidency could move indy back up the political agenda

When America sneezes, the world catches a cold. That phrase encapsulates the global economy’s interdependence and the centrality of the United...

08.11.2024 5

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Trump’s no fascist, but he is just as dangerous to democracy

In four days, Americans will go to the polls with Donald Trump as a presidential candidate for the third time. In the nine years since he came down...

01.11.2024 10

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Calm down, Donald. Transnational activism is good for democracy

What do Nigel Farage, Liz Truss, Lynton Crosby, Jim Messina, and David Axelrod have in common? They have all campaigned in elections outwith their own...

25.10.2024 5

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: The key challenges facing the indy movement in the post-Salmond era

Alex Salmond was a singular political talent and one of the privileged few politicians who utterly and irreversibly reshaped their nation’s...

18.10.2024 8

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: There's as much demand for right-wing politics here as in England

This weekend will mark the end of Sir Keir Starmer’s first 100 days in Downing Street and the new Labour UK Government’s first 100 days in power....

11.10.2024 10

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Labour must quickly learn from its rocky start in government

Next week will mark the end of Labour’s first 100 days in power, and the honeymoon is over, if it ever began. The Prime Minister’s personal...

04.10.2024 5

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Can't the parties get together and do a deal on the constitution?

Scotland is heading for one of our most fractured and potentially fractious, Parliaments in the devolution era come May 2026. The SNP's defeat at the...

27.09.2024 10

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Yes supporters won’t find answers debating their past

I’m struck by how retrospective and negative the thoughts of pro-independence politicians and activists have been, as we conclude a week of...

20.09.2024 5

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Scots deserve Parliamentarians who will work across the aisle

As we are told by the Scottish Government, Scotland is facing its most significant fiscal challenge since the Scottish Parliament was convened in...

13.09.2024 9

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Swinney must confront his own members to win in 2026

The SNP faithful gather in Edinburgh today to kick off their first post-defeat party conference in over a decade. It will open with an internal...

30.08.2024 9

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Angus Robertson was right to engage with Israeli diplomat

Few Western governments have avoided a row over their response to events in Israel and Gaza since Hamas' butchering of around 1,200 Israelis on...

23.08.2024 8

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Riots were political: politicians must stop them happening again

The riots that plagued England and Northern Ireland had barely begun before the war of words over their nature, causes, and what should be done about...

16.08.2024 5

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Enough is enough. We must bring social media giants to heel

Mob violence has many fathers. It is a complex and often confusing phenomenon, both organised and disorganised, both intentional and unthinking. The...

09.08.2024 10

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Social media isn't real life but English riots prove its effects are real

Are you, dear reader, coconut-pilled? Do you exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you? Are you, as the presumptive...

02.08.2024 7

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

SNP can be party of government or lead the independence campaign. It can't be both

In the wake of their defeat at the hands of Labour earlier this month many parts of the SNP turned to internal recriminations and blame games. Those...

26.07.2024 10

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Beware: a Trump-Vance pairing could be very bad news for the UK

Sir Keir Starmer’s inbox is packed to bursting point, and that was reflected in this week’s King’s Speech. From overhauling the planning system...

19.07.2024 10

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: SNP must stop the infighting and get back to work

Losing elections is not a particularly fun activity. I remember pounding the pavement in pouring rain in the newly created Scottish Parliament...

12.07.2024 10

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Where does result leave battle between SNP and Scottish Labour?

Yesterday was the first election in my life that I went into the polling station entirely unsure of who I was going to vote for. Since 2010, I’ve...

05.07.2024 5

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Analysis: Labour thinks they can oust SNP at Holyrood but that is far from guaranteed

The 2026 Scottish Parliament elections began to peek over the political horizon last week as the parties launched their Scottish manifestos. Each was...

28.06.2024 7

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Britain's tarnished democracy is in crisis. Here is how to fix it

With just under two weeks to go, we are on course for a ground-shaking general election result. Labour are set to win the popular vote by around 20...

21.06.2024 5

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: It may not work, but there's logic behind Macron's gambit

The response across European political and media classes when French President, Emmanuel Macron announced the dissolution of the French Parliament to...

14.06.2024 10

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: The independence camp still has all to play for

We’re just over two weeks into the election campaign, with a third of the campaigning done, and it looks even more likely now that Labour will pull...

06.06.2024 4

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Why indy is a problem for the SNP - and for Labour A spectre is haunting Scottish politics – the spectre of secessionism. This election is not about Scottish independence, and the issue is nowhere near the top of voters’ agendas, yet the aftereffects and implications of a decade of constitutional obsession loom large.

A spectre is haunting Scottish politics – the spectre of secessionism. This election is not about Scottish independence, and the issue is nowhere...

31.05.2024 30

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Can SNP claw back the voters they have lost to Labour? Here's what the polls tell us

In six weeks, we will have an incoming Labour government at Westminster. Labour will pour cold water on that sentiment. The Conservatives will big up...

24.05.2024 20

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Why both nationalists and unionists should look to Spain

When attempting to secede from a state, as the Scottish independence movement seeks to do, or to defeat a secessionist movement, as the UK’s...

17.05.2024 20

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Unlike Yousaf, Swinney has a strategy and it's taking shape now

For a decade, or what feels like an eternity, the central organising principle of Scottish electoral politics has been the constitutional question....

09.05.2024 20

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Here’s why the assisted dying debate has not been hijacked – yet

When the focus of Scottish politics shifted to Liam McArthur’s Member’s Bill proposing to legalise assisted dying, my heart sank a little, weighed...

12.04.2024 10

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Yousaf has it wrong: the SNP's real fight is with Labour

At the party's National Campaign Council over the weekend, the SNP leadership laid out their messaging focus for the coming General Election. The...

18.03.2024 6

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: There are hundreds of tactics open to Yes movement - so use them

In the months after the 2014 independence referendum, despite having lost by a double-digit margin and despite the resignation of the totemic Alex...

24.02.2024 40

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: The huge gambles Anas Sarwar must take to win

When Scottish Labour politicians and activists gathered at their annual conference a year ago, it was with a newfound optimism, despite doing so under...

17.02.2024 10

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Sunak's poisonous trans comments epitomise Tory election tactics

The Prime Minister’s jibe about Sir Keir Starmer not being able to define what a woman is at Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions should have...

09.02.2024 5

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

A crisis of legitimacy looms over British politics - and Starmer won't change that

A crisis of legitimacy looms over the British political landscape. Confidence in our governing institutions is under severe stress. Living standards...

06.02.2024 10

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: There is a still a path to victory if SNP are willing to take it

In the wake of the SNP’s annus horribilis, from the resignation of Nicola Sturgeon and the bitterness of the ensuing leadership contest to the...

05.01.2024 7

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Reports of the death of independence are greatly exaggerated

A year ago, I argued that if the SNP wanted independence to become a realistic prospect in the coming years, 2023 would have to be the year that the...

30.12.2023 10

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Our governments need to grow up about Scotland’s role in the world

Scotland’s relations with the myriad forms of political communities that have made up the world beyond our borders have existed as long as Scotland...

18.12.2023 5

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: The election that could build the path to victory for Sarwar

It is May 9th 2026 – a Saturday, late in the afternoon. Scotland’s political correspondents gather in stately gardens, sitting before a podium as...

11.12.2023 7

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Kissinger was a vastly overrated bureaucrat

Few sounds are more terrifying than the hum of a squadron of B-52 Stratofortresses. It begins low, distant, as the roughly 80-ton aircraft come into...

04.12.2023 40

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

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