Chancellor’s hidden rise on whisky infuriates the industry
It is amazing how sometimes politicians can say one thing and mean something completely different. Take this, from the Chancellor’s Budget statement to the House of Commons yesterday: “Let me start...
View ArticleOpinion: Not a bad Budget – but the economy remains lamentable
By John Knox To my utter astonishment, the Budget was not as bad as I expected. George Osborne says he is taking five times as much from the rich as the 50p tax rate would have yielded. This is indeed...
View ArticleOpinion: Is this a charitable Budget?
By Ruchir Shah This is a very tax neutral Budget. What it gives with one hand it takes with the other. But it is certainly not tax redistributive, as increases for lower- and middle-income groups...
View ArticleFriday song: Gideon Ding Dong
Amid all the budgetary bluster, here is the latest song from the Sensational Alex Salmond Band, concerning the Rt Hon George Gideon Oliver Osborne: Gideon Ding Dong. Despite all the fiscal changes and...
View ArticleWeir’s Week: the Miracle of Muamba and a Stella bit of kit
By Stewart Weir Saturday This Saturday will forever be remembered for what became the Miracle of Muamba. I was watching the Spurs–Bolton cup tie but thought Fabrice Muamba had suffered an injury and...
View ArticleWhy we should all wake up to the reality about money and politics
Political parties and money are like bears and woods or Popes and the Catholic faith: there really should be no surprise when they are linked together. So what was really surprising about this week’s...
View ArticleVideo: interview with Donald Macrae of Bank of Scotland / Lloyds
It is almost five years since the credit crunch began to hit the world’s economies. As it developed, the crunch quickly proved that no country was immune, with banks having to be bailed out by their...
View ArticleUseful Scots word: couthie
By Betty Kirkpatrick A friend was recently showing some foreign visitors round parts of northern Scotland and encountered the usual problem of finding somewhere to stay and eat out of season. She...
View ArticleSailing, football and the arts – all in the service of city promotion
By John Knox Spare a thought for the 18-strong crew of Edinburgh City Council’s ocean-going yacht now thrashing their way across the Pacific and soon to make land at San Francisco. You didn’t know...
View ArticleHow tied are the Scottish Government’s hands on NHS pensions?
The Scottish Government has made it clear that it doesn’t like Westminster’s plans for public sector pensions. As recently as last Thursday, health secretary Nicola Sturgeon said that it was “galling”...
View ArticleThe curious appeal of Don Draper
It’s probably no longer worth fighting the argument that telly is the new film. Actors must believe it, or Dustin Hoffmann wouldn’t have chosen his first TV show since the 1960s. That’s even if three...
View ArticleScottish islands: Prisons, mermaids and mysterious deaths
Next week sees the end of a year-long celebration of Scotland’s watery history, as the Year of Scotland’s Islands comes to a close. Throughout the year, events have been held on 42 of our inhabited...
View ArticleWeir’s Week: the other in-charge Salmond, and a death in Kirkcaldy
By Stewart Weir Saturday Something quite ironic that today, of all days, I was thumbing through a book about sport in the 1980s and came across Jocky Wilson’s world title triumph in 1982. A few hours...
View ArticleFriday song: Cum On Feel The Pies
The latest song from the Sensational Alex Salmond Band is a reworking of a 1970s favourite, from the days before Greggs went global: Cum On Feel The Pies. Hot-pastry tax or no, the band's Best Of 2011...
View ArticleWelcome to the new-look Caledonian Mercury
Welcome to the new-look Caledonian Mercury. In the two years since the site launched we have learned a lot of lessons – some of them revolving around online journalism not making anybody rich any time...
View ArticleEighty minutes which could transform rugby in Scotland
It will be, without doubt, the biggest and most important non-international rugby match in Scottish history. It will pit Edinburgh’s young team of unheralded Scots (with a couple of modest ringers)...
View ArticleThe curse of beauty and the beastliness of history
What on earth made Samantha Brick hammer out such an ill-advised article? For those of you lucky enough to have missed it, Brick writes about her beauty and the detrimental effect that it has had on...
View ArticleDiary: Fancy a punt on pandas mating?
Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it – but will Edinburgh’s pandas do it? Now, possibly for the first time ever, a mainstream UK bookmaker is offering odds on whether two large...
View ArticleOn the naming of hens…
The occasional diary of a chicken-keeper Before we acquired our first chickens, we had fond ideas of what we would call them. Old-fashioned family names seemed a nice idea, so Janet and Agnes (my two...
View ArticlePetty party politics drowning out referendum consultation
On the Scottish Labour website there is a page directing members to the Scottish Government’s referendum consultation. Nothing wrong with that, you might think. But what this particular page does is...
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