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Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca Mcquillan

Herald Scotland

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Rebecca McQuillan: Will the sun ever set on SNP Scotland? Never underestimate the SNP. After more than 17 years in power and counting, the party could well emerge as the largest party in Holyrood once again next May, meaning they’ll get first dibs on trying to form yet another government for yet another five years.

Rebecca McQuillan: Will the sun ever set on SNP Scotland? Never underestimate the SNP. After more than 17 years in power and counting, the party could well emerge as the largest party in Holyrood once again next May, meaning they’ll get first dibs on trying to form yet another government for yet another five years.

Never underestimate the SNP. After more than 17 years in power and counting, the party could well emerge as the largest party in Holyrood once again...

friday 20

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: North Sea oil interests praising Trump? That didn’t take long Well here’s a thing: Aberdeen and Grampian Chambers of Commerce (AGCC) is praising the climate change sceptic Donald Trump, would-be wrecker of the Paris Agreement, after he said the UK should open up the North Sea to more oil and gas drilling, and “get rid of windmills”.

Rebecca McQuillan: North Sea oil interests praising Trump? That didn’t take long Well here’s a thing: Aberdeen and Grampian Chambers of Commerce (AGCC) is praising the climate change sceptic Donald Trump, would-be wrecker of the Paris Agreement, after he said the UK should open up the North Sea to more oil and gas drilling, and “get rid of windmills”.

Well here’s a thing: Aberdeen and Grampian Chambers of Commerce (AGCC) is praising the climate change sceptic Donald Trump, would-be wrecker of the...

17.01.2025 6

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

SNP's Child Payment has kept 60,000 kids out of poverty but we must go further Rebecca McQuillan: The SNP needs Labour to tackle child poverty Read more Rebecca McQuillan: Tory boss Findlay faces a torrid year https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/24824376.beset-challenges-every-side-scots-tories-faces-torrid-year/ Read more Rebecca McQuillan: Musk bankrolling Farage is the last thing our democracy needs https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/24805296.musk-bankrolling-farage-last-thing-democracy-needs/ It’s been a torrid start to the year. The incoming US president is expressing Putinesque territorial ambitions and the megalomaniac weirdo Elon Musk has endangered MP Jess Philips with his disgusting slurs about her.

SNP's Child Payment has kept 60,000 kids out of poverty but we must go further Rebecca McQuillan: The SNP needs Labour to tackle child poverty Read more Rebecca McQuillan: Tory boss Findlay faces a torrid year https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/24824376.beset-challenges-every-side-scots-tories-faces-torrid-year/ Read more Rebecca McQuillan: Musk bankrolling Farage is the last thing our democracy needs https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/24805296.musk-bankrolling-farage-last-thing-democracy-needs/ It’s been a torrid start to the year. The incoming US president is expressing Putinesque territorial ambitions and the megalomaniac weirdo Elon Musk has endangered MP Jess Philips with his disgusting slurs about her.

It’s been a torrid start to the year. The incoming US president is expressing Putinesque territorial ambitions and the megalomaniac weirdo Elon Musk...

10.01.2025 5

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Beset by challenges from every side, Scots Tory boss Findlay faces a torrid year The Scottish Conservatives, on paper, are an irrelevance. No one’s forgotten what a louche, dysfunctional mess the Tory Government had become just because things are still tough under Labour. While Findlay’s group of MSPs are the largest opposition party in Holyrood, a hangover from 2021, they look like they’ll struggle to remain so.

Could 2025 be a turning point for the Scottish Conservatives? Russell Findlay thinks he may be “blessed with [an] opportunity” because he has...

03.01.2025 20

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Musk bankrolling Farage is the last thing our democracy needs Do you recoil at the thought of the world’s richest man and US resident Elon Musk potentially donating nearly £80m to Reform UK to try and win the next election for Nigel Farage?

Do you recoil at the thought of the world’s richest man and US resident Elon Musk potentially donating nearly £80m to Reform UK to try and win...

20.12.2024 40

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Additional Support Needs and schools: it’s time to be radical

They love an acronym in the Scottish Government. GIRFEC: have you come across that one? It means Getting It Right For Every Child. It’s the...

13.12.2024 4

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Former First Minister was belted at school aged six for not eating his carrots At a time when politicians on the populist right promote more authoritarian practices, some even speaking favourably of a return to corporal punishment, it's worth looking at the damage belting children did to Scots.

Jack McConnell was six years old when he was belted for the first time. His “crime”? Not eating his carrots. The former First Minister recounted...

05.12.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Are you going to let SNP portray you as panto villains, Labour?

It’s panto season at Holyrood and camping it up this week we have Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes. “Disastrous for the economy and public...

28.11.2024 3

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Independence splits over Holyrood budget are an embarrassment Every public service is in a smouldering crisis. Everyone knows the push for independence is going nowhere in the foreseeable future. But instead of working together constructively to make stuff better for people, we have MSPs making the peripheral and currently irrelevant question of independence their red line in budget negotiations.

Is everything broken? It sometimes feels like it. Take one example. Edinburgh City Council is considering reductions to the education budget, with...

20.11.2024 2

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Is the climate doomed? Scottish experts have their say

Whisper it, but things may not be quite as bad as you think. If you’ve spent the last week feeling as if you can’t face the news, so alarming are...

13.11.2024 2

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: The world is a more dangerous place now. Britain needs Europe

Nausea. Is it the weariness or the shock? Perhaps both. Donald Trump will be the 47th US President and we all have to live with it. Hold your loved...

07.11.2024 5

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Uh-oh, is the SNP government coming unstuck again? Labour are stumbling at Westminster, and that's a headache for Anas Sarwar's Scottish contingent, but can the SNP hold their newfound unity together?

The new Labour government, so slick in opposition, started tripping itself up almost immediately on taking office. The decision to axe winter fuel...

31.10.2024 1

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Wealth needs sharing more fairly: over to you, Labour

The Budget had better be good. An elaborate rescue package is required, not just for the country but for Keir Starmer. Eye-catching measures...

17.10.2024 6

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Parents against smart phones: is this the start of something big?

Are smartphones detrimental to kids? When this question comes up, I always remember the same image. My daughter was a toddler and we were...

09.10.2024 1

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Scotland could be a heat pump hot spot like Norway. Here’s how...

Scotland is warming to the heat pump. Sales are improving, with 5,700 units put in this year so far, up a third on the same period last year....

03.10.2024 2

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: You’d have done better, would you, Alex? Sorry, I don’t buy it

Hell hath no fury like a man scorned. Like a disgruntled thesp overlooked for a lifetime achievement award, Alex Salmond has been strongly hinting...

19.09.2024 20

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Will there ever be a time when women feel safe?

Sometimes as a woman you watch the news and you just feel sick. It happened this week. First there was a horrendous story from France about a...

05.09.2024 9

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: What are you playing at, Anas Sarwar? On first glance it’s the usual knockabout stuff, with the Scottish Labour leader bashing the SNP for Scotland’s “economic decline and financial mismanagement” but quickly it starts to raise questions about hypocrisy from the Scottish Labour leader.

Labour are still in opposition in Scotland. In case we forget, Anas Sarwar has been all over the papers talking about his “dossier” on SNP...

29.08.2024 2

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Does Labour have the guts to be honest about immigration?

When you’re a frequent visitor to the south of England from Scotland, you notice certain things. There’s a lot more traffic. You can grow tomatoes...

15.08.2024 10

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: We need a rethink: exams don't catch brilliance of a dyslexic mind

Dyslexia a learning disability? No: it’s an asset. These might sound like consoling words for children who find school difficult, but that would...

01.08.2024 1

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Beware: If you drive anywhere in Scotland, you are sharing the road with eejits

So I’m driving along the motorway doing the speed limit in the outside lane, when what do you think happens? I find myself in what feels like a...

24.07.2024 2

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Deep state black ops to false flag plots, the madness at the heart of Trump shooting

Have you been on X (still better known as Twitter) since Sunday? I wouldn’t. It’s where reason and hope have gone to die. Here’s a brief taste...

18.07.2024 1

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan