Kevin McKenna

ON John Swinney’s great day of Nationalist reunification a tear in the fabric remained stubbornly visible. He’d just declared his intention to become Scotland’s seventh First Minister by talking about healing and cohesion and moving forward together and seeking ‘change’. The performative applause led by more than half the Scottish cabinet (minus Shona Robison) made this feel less a campaign launch than a coronation valedictory.

I had no problem with the Greens’ ginger bottle return scheme and their fancy boilers and turning off the North Sea gas. Let’s face it: we all knew none of it would work and I was planning to ditch them before the next Scottish election anyway. But when Harvie popped in the other week with a proposed white paper on energy efficiency I knew that the party was over.

IN a year of errors and misjudgements by the Humza Yousaf administration I suppose another little one won’t make much difference. Mr Yousaf’s latest ill-advised step occurred towards the end of his resignation speech.

The new George Wyllie museum, the Wyllieum, honours and bears witness to the life and work of one of Scotland’s most remarkable sculptors.

When Boris Johnson became leader of this party in 2019, the red flags were all there: professional and personal treachery; borderline racism; laziness; and greed. In several ways, though, Rishi Sunak is even worse than Mr Johnson ever was.

IN POLLOK, the locals are circling the wagons round their imperilled MSP, who also happens to be First Minister of Scotland. As it seems that Humza Yousaf may have fallen among thieves at Holyrood, here on Glasgow’s sprawling south-side enclave he’s among friends.

Kevin McKenna offers his take on what could be the beginning of the end for Humza Yousaf

 Kevin McKenna talks to Fr Chiedozie Ezeribe, a Nigerian priest based at St Dominic's Church in Bishopbriggs, about his life her in Scotland and his work in Nigeria.

Climate protesters gather for the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice march in Glasgow in November 2021

WHEN Humza Yousaf took to the stage of Dundee’s Caird Hall on Tuesday to address STUC delegates, few among the audience were expecting the rafters to be in any immediate danger. Mr Yousaf’s speeches tend to be light on substance with an emphasis on old Nationalist barnacles that the passage of time and the changing of guards have failed to shift. At last month’s party conference he had pledged to rid Scotland of all Tories at the forthcoming Westminster election. How he planned to do this was left unsaid. Not that the party activists, straining to hide the spaces in a half-empty hall – like a short tee-shirt on a bouncer’s stomach – were caring.