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Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Herald Scotland

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This Labour government is devoid of the courage or ingenuity to meet today's crises

This Labour government is devoid of the courage or ingenuity to meet today's crises

The world has changed, as the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, reminded us on Wednesday. Who could disagree with her? The new Trump administration has...

28.03.2025 6

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Could this be the man to save Western democracy?

Mark McGeoghegan: Could this be the man to save Western democracy?

Combating the rise of illiberal democracy and new authoritarianism that characterise countries like Russia and Hungary, and increasingly the United...

22.03.2025 5

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Sir Keir seems to value balance sheets over voters’ lives

Mark McGeoghegan: Sir Keir seems to value balance sheets over voters’ lives

A legitimacy crisis loomed over British politics as we approached the general election in July last year. Research by King’s College London had...

15.03.2025 20

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: How Putin's 'traditional values' have won over the American right

The scramble among European leaders to respond to US President Donald Trump’s dramatic shift in policy towards Ukraine and Russia has been matched...

07.03.2025 6

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

How would an independent Scotland survive in this dangerous new world?

The question of what it means to be an independent country has been a fraught one for a long time, not just for the Scottish independence movement but...

01.03.2025 6

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Anas Sarwar as a champion of Scots working-class communities? That's not going to fly

In the wake of Labour’s election defeat in 2010 and Ed Miliband’s victory over his brother in the subsequent leadership contest, political...

22.02.2025 7

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Why Labour aping Reform is doomed to failure

How can Labour fight off the threat of Reform UK? That question is becoming increasingly pressing for Sir Keir Starmer’s party as polling shows...

15.02.2025 7

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

I needed the NHS - that was when I found out how broken it really was

Two years ago, I was eating breakfast in my flat in Maryhill, stressed about a presentation I was due to give that morning to dozens of staff at the...

08.02.2025 10

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Who is to blame for epidemic of social loneliness? We all are - and that includes you

Take a stroll down Kinross High Street on a Friday or Saturday night, as I often do walking the dog, and you’ll observe a carousel of cars stopping...

01.02.2025 7

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Don't get too excited, SNP: this lead may not be all it seems John Swinney and Kate Forbes have steadied the ship and stemmed the outflow of voters from the SNP to Labour. But they are yet to encourage back enough of the voters they lost to begin rebuilding the voter coalition that ensured SNP electoral hegemony from 2014 to last year.

The SNP’s start to 2025 has been rather buoyed by recent polling suggesting that it has opened a significant lead over Labour on both Holyrood...

25.01.2025 5

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: We must protect ourselves against the MAGA-fication of Big Tech

In the last two decades, Big Tech companies have become an increasingly central component of American global power, and geopolitical players in their...

18.01.2025 6

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Kemi Badenoch's exploitation of the grooming gangs scandal is a disgrace

If you came into 2025 hoping for a return to politics as normal, whatever that means, you’ll have been sorely disappointed by this week at...

11.01.2025 4

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Support for the Union slips as backing for independence edges ever upwards After years of SNP decline following Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation, the escalation of Operation Branchform, and a disastrous stint as First Minister for Humza Yousaf, it feels profoundly weird to be starting 2025 thinking things are looking up for Scotland’s party of government. Likewise, that Labour’s prospects of taking power at Holyrood look rockier after dealing the SNP a hammering in the July general election than they did beforehand.

After years of SNP decline following Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation, the escalation of Operation Branchform, and a disastrous stint as First...

04.01.2025 3

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

Mark McGeoghegan: Our democracy is for sale - and that's dangerous thing

Private money corrupts the political classes and distorts the democratic process. There’s no simpler, clearer, or more accurate description for the...

28.12.2024 5

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan

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,...

15.12.2024 5

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 5

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 6

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 20

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 3

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 3

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 4

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...

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 2

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. I...

11.10.2024 8

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 ratings...

04.10.2024 1

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...

27.09.2024 3

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 3

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 2

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 2

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 1

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...

16.08.2024 1

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....

09.08.2024 8

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 4

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....

26.07.2024 2

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 2

Herald Scotland

Mark Mcgeoghegan