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Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca Mcquillan

Herald Scotland

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Rebecca McQuillan: This posturing politician has done trans people no favours Oh enough already. We’re all used to posturing politicians sowing discord, but they’re not usually on the left. Enter Maggie Chapman, who preaches tolerance while proving herself over and over to be one of the most divisive voices in the Holyrood chamber.

Oh enough already. We’re all used to posturing politicians sowing discord, but they’re not usually on the left. Enter Maggie Chapman, who preaches...

yesterday 8

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: How dour Scots could learn a lesson from Finland Apologies to the good people of Finland, but as a young adult, I knew only one thing about them – that they drank, a lot. No amateurs in that department ourselves, and frequently called the sick man of Europe because of our heavy drinking culture, we Scots could indulge in some rare schadenfreude when we thought of the poor Finns, up there in the dark on the edge of the Arctic circle – they were in a worse state than us, bless them.

Rebecca McQuillan: How dour Scots could learn a lesson from Finland Apologies to the good people of Finland, but as a young adult, I knew only one thing about them – that they drank, a lot. No amateurs in that department ourselves, and frequently called the sick man of Europe because of our heavy drinking culture, we Scots could indulge in some rare schadenfreude when we thought of the poor Finns, up there in the dark on the edge of the Arctic circle – they were in a worse state than us, bless them.

Apologies to the good people of Finland, but as a young adult, I knew only one thing about them – that they drank, a lot. No amateurs in that...

18.04.2025 10

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Magnolia SNP is not what disgruntled Scottish voters want

Magnolia. When I was growing up, there was a lot of it about (the paint, that is – I never set eyes on the flower). Folk stuck with magnolia for...

11.04.2025 9

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Dear net zero bashers: how will you explain yourself to the grandkids?

Dear net zero bashers: how will you explain yourself to the grandkids?

“If nations do not implement current commitments then show a massive increase in ambition …the Paris Agreement target of holding global warming to...

09.04.2025 3

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Dear Rachel, a world of yachts and slums is always a powder keg waiting to go off Labour MPs are understandably dismayed; some are angry. What is to become of the government’s child poverty targets? they must wonder. Will the hated two-child limit, which actively pushes families into poverty, ever be scrapped by this administration?

“God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth while others live in abject deadening poverty,” said Martin...

27.03.2025 20

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Make America great again? Actually, Trump is making it weaker

What will America look like in four years’ time? Will American voters feel that Donald Trump has made America great again? These are big questions...

20.03.2025 4

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Farage’s fatal flaw: Now we see the limits of Reform’s reach It turns out politics is quite hard when you want people to take you seriously. Nigel Farage is a veteran politician but not in the usual sense. His various vehicles – Ukip, the Brexit Party and now Reform UK – only had a few MEPs and councillors until last July when Reform acquired five MPs.

It turns out politics is quite hard when you want people to take you seriously. Nigel Farage is a veteran politician but not in the usual sense. His...

14.03.2025 10

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: What is behind the global misogynist backlash against women? Hysterical inadequates like Andrew Tate feature prominently in an online world where young men are taught that women should obey them and that it’s OK to hit females, while the Taliban have extinguished women's rights in Afghanistan.

How can you live without hope? In Afghanistan, for women and girls, the question is not theoretical. As International Women’s Day approaches, the...

06.03.2025 4

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Starmer is right, UK has to prioritise arms over aid for world's poorest countries If the weirdness of Donald Trump’s first month hasn’t been enough to convince you the world has turned on its head, watching a Labour Prime Minister slash the overseas aid budget should do it. Uncharted water, terra incognita, dystopian nightmare – pick your metaphor, we’re in it. Labour promised they would reinstate spending on the overseas aid budget to 0.7 per cent of UK GDP after Boris Johnson cut it to 0.5 per cent. Instead they’re cutting it to 0.3 per cent, to fund increasing the defence budget. Has Keir Starmer gone mad? How can this be the action of a Labour Prime Minister? In a sense it isn’t. This is no longer Starmer the Labour leader, but Starmer the British Prime Minister, a man now facing one overriding priority – maintaining the security of the nation in a new world order where the invisible defensive shield of Nato has been abruptly switched off by an America First president. The biting easterly wind we are now exposed to is felt by everyone, across Europe and across political divides. A totalitarian aggressor is already at war with Europe. There’s been not a peep of disagreement from any party about the need to increase defence spending, which is set to rise further to three per cent of GDP in the 2030s. It makes you queasy to concede it, but in these alarming new circumstances, the Government does have to prioritise tanks over aid. Whether they have to hollow out the overseas aid budget to quite such an extent, however, is another question. Funding the defence boost out of existing spending is not a surprise – Starmer needed the cash fast and couldn’t borrow the required billions within his own fiscal rules – but the surprise is why target just this one budget? Why not spread the burden more fairly? With defence spending set to rise much further after 2027, it’s hard to see how other departments can avoid being trimmed further down the line. Why not just spread the reductions now, instead of singling out overseas aid for a military buzz cut? Aid isn’t a large budget but a little cash goes a long way. Many lives are saved through programmes like vaccination and malaria prevention. Some Labour MPs will be wondering why the road-building budget, say, couldn’t have been tapped for a bit of cash. There is also the strategic argument for aid. Starmer knows perfectly well that it promotes security. His own Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, recently said that American aid cuts under Donald Trump were a “big strategic mistake” as they allowed China to extend its influence. More instability means more migration. Former Labour foreign secretary and president of the International Rescue Committee aid agency David Miliband has pointed out there are 300m people in humanitarian need around the world and more than 50 civil wars going on, just as the UK, US, France and others are withdrawing aid. “That [aid cut] is going to contribute to international instability, not reduce it,” he says. So why do it like this? Targeting aid, unfortunately, was the easiest choice politically. It protects public spending here in the UK, but also helps neutralise populist attacks by Reform UK, who would bay for Labour’s blood if the potholes budget were slashed and foreign aid left in place. A regretful Lammy offers a different rationale: “that … we have had to balance the compassion of our internationalism with the necessity of our national security”. And while its undoubtedly a retrograde step for international development and will affect Britain’s standing in some countries, there is truth in this. The Government hopes to increase the proportion of aid money being spent on actual aid by reducing the huge amount currently paying for asylum seeker hotels and remains committed to raising aid spending to 0.7 per cent of GDP once again though God knows when that will happen. At least this cut is not ideological, unlike with Boris Johnson. We can trust aid will be increased again if those pesky fiscal conditions every do allow. There were no easy choices here for Starmer, but what were the alternatives? John Swinney seems to believe that at this critical moment, the UK should give up its nuclear deterrent to free up cash for conventional weapons – in order to protect itself against a nuclear-armed tyrant. Scottish voters will draw their own conclusions about the First Minister’s grasp on reality. Others have tried not to be so nakedly political. The Liberal Democrats suggest a tax on super rich tech corporations; the Greens suggest a wealth tax. And then there is the question of whether Reeves should ease her own fiscal rules, perhaps the one about borrowing only to invest. All these measures might be necessary in the end if the UK’s military capability, in partnership with other European nations, is to meet requirements. Europe must fight its own battles from now on, quite literally. If Keir Starmer has promised higher defence spending just to try and curry favour with Donald Trump, he will likely fail. Trump first complained European countries didn’t reach the Nato minimum of two per cent of GDP in defence spending; by 2018, he was demanding they spend four per cent; now it’s five per cent (higher than the US itself at 3.4 per cent). Like Colonel Cathcart in Catch 22, forever raising the number of missions Yossarian must fly before his tour of duty can end, Trump doesn’t seem interested in coming to an agreement – probably because, as new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz puts it, America “does not care much about the fate of Europe”. This week, America even sided with Russia, North Korea and Belarus against Europe in a UN resolution on Ukraine. That’s downright scary. America for the first time in decades is being perceived in European capitals as an unreliable ally. Britain has no choice but to adapt. But cutting aid must be a temporary measure. Even in an era of protectionism and self-interest, Britain cannot just give up on its wider international role as a force for progress.

If the weirdness of Donald Trump’s first month hasn’t been enough to convince you the world has turned on its head, watching a Labour Prime...

28.02.2025 3

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Can we really afford to keep hiking public sector pay? A new report suggests there’s no evidence significantly higher rates of public sector pay in Scotland have helped retain workers like teachers and nurses and that, if anything, retention has worsened since public sector pay in Scotland rose relative to England.

Can the Scottish Government justify pay hikes that are well above inflation for public sector workers? Are higher levels of public sector pay in...

21.02.2025 6

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Sorry Nigel, 20mph zones save children's lives. Let's have more of them - not fewer

Surely there are more important things to get uptight about than 20mph speed limits. You can’t eliminate all risk from our roads, but when a...

14.02.2025 9

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Swinney springs a trap for Sarwar - who walks right into it

In an age of iconoclasm and insurgency, the ultimate political insider is holding sway in Scotland. John Swinney as First Minister has shown a...

07.02.2025 4

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: What will it take to make children truly safe?

It is one of the most horrific cases ever to be aired in a Scottish court. The child sexual abuse carried out by five men and two women sentenced at...

31.01.2025 4

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

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...

24.01.2025 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”.

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.

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: It's time to give our children a Gen X 1970s childhood Rebecca McQuillan: Children can live happier lives – and we can help them 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/ Read more Rebecca McQuillan: Additional support needs and schools: it’s time to be radical https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/24788565.additional-support-needs-schools-time-radical/ A semi-feral childhood. If you were born in the 70s or before, you probably had one. We played in woods and fields, in burns and of course on roads that only occasionally saw a car (what better football pitch or tennis court was there?). We were out of contact with grown-ups for hours at a time.

A semi-feral childhood. If you were born in the 70s or before, you probably had one. We played in woods and fields, in burns and of course on roads...

27.12.2024 10

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 the...

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 10

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 3

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 2

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Are Labour's US volunteers really the villains or is Trump at it? Foreigners volunteering on US election campaigns are commonplace. It's not just Labour - there are Lib Dems campaigning for Harris too right now, including the leader of the Scottish party Alex Cole Hamilton.

Kamala Harris’s Democratic running mate Tim Walz made an impassioned appeal to Americans this week: “Don’t be the frog in the boiling water and...

23.10.2024 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 10

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: Tackling Nimbys? Brave, Prime Minister, but necessary It’s quite unusual for a Prime Minister to tell voters in such uncompromising terms they’re going to have to put up with things they don’t like. You might even call it brave.

Want change? Well, it’s starting to feel like we’ve got it. Keir Starmer is taking on, not just right-wing thugs, not just criminal smuggling...

25.09.2024 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: Even if Harris wins US election, the worst of Trump is yet to come In the course of nearly two hours of rambling misinformation and outright lies by Trump, two moments stood out for sheer objectionable dishonesty. The first – and I apologise for the offensive nature of this quote – was when the former president claimed that Democrats in some states support abortions “after birth” and the “execution” of babies. Yes, you read that correctly.

It’s been a good week for US Democrats, superficially. Kamala Harris won the first TV debate and has a chance of winning the US election. So why...

11.09.2024 1

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 fiscal...

29.08.2024 2

Herald Scotland

Rebecca Mcquillan

Rebecca McQuillan: Don't blame drivers for driving - fix our trains instead Ah, the romanticism of the railways. Late trains. Reduced timetables. Standing in the aisle for want of a seat. I wonder why more people don’t travel by train?

Ah, the romanticism of the railways. Late trains. Reduced timetables. Standing in the aisle for want of a seat. I wonder why more people don’t...

21.08.2024 1

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 be...

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