The balloon takes an unexplained nose dive At Edinburgh Freelance NUJ meeting this week, we heard from Duncan Campbell, branch member and veteran reporter on the British security services. The…
I decided to do a short update of my PISA 25 article after being attacked on social media by Sam Taylor of These Islands, an aggressive, dark-money-funded pro-Unionist think tank,…
The mainstream media does not do nuance. So the results of international education tests called PISA have been reported as victory to England, because 15-year-olds there did significantly better in…
A Letter from Scotland is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Springbank makers J&A Mitchell supported independence in…
Chair Linden Bicket with Kirsty Gunn, Alan Riach and James Robertson at the Edinburgh Book Fest last week At a packed Edinburgh International Book Festival event featuring three of Scotland’s…
Ed and Charlie, the impresarios behind Underbelly, whose bloated purple balloon cow floats above Edinburgh in August If there is one thing calculated to annoy bright young things who have…
Image of salt protestors led by another famou Kamala, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay. (Image created with the help of AI) We are hearing a lot about the USA’s 250th birthday – what…
The chorus of Gaelic singers for Through the Shortbread Tin – which is selling out fast On Friday, I saw Through the Shortbread Tin at the Edinburgh Fringe, an enjoyable…
Here is a guest post from an old friend, Magnus Wolfe Murray. I have known Magnus from youth. In his early twenties, Magnus went pretty much overnight from exuberant skateboarder…
Viking – the UK’s most productive onshore wind farm – on Shetland, photo by Rob Bruce When I visited Shetland recently on holiday, I read and enjoyed Marianne Brown’s book…
Donald John Morrison I took a trip to Benbecula to visit Donald Morrison, a chief witness in the case of Willie McRae, a prominent Scottish lawyer who was found dying…
Guest post: William Kemp Bruce Win or lose, the fact that Norway is playing England in the quarter-finals of the World Cup is a major triumph for a country of…
Oyster catchers at St Ninian’s beach, photo by Rob Bruce On Shetland last week, I found myself in an outhouse watching a man brandish a gleaming knife over a corpse….
I’ve been working my way through the coverage of the 10th anniversary of the Brexit vote this week, most of which focuses on the damage to the British economy. In…
First, a couple of events: Jackie and Vicky Allan are at Fittie Community Hall in Aberdeen on Sunday, July 12, at 2 pm, as part of the Festival of the…
Curator Dr Fraser Hunter with an altar to the god Mithras excavated in Inveresk If you strolled up to Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin and encountered an information board that asked…
First, an appeal – I am fundraising here to help our friend, Tanzanian environmental activist Mathias Lyamunda, to speak up for his country at the international Zero Waste Forum 2026…
Peter Murrell will soon be sentenced to a jail term – probably of a few years. Whatever the sentence. the red top tabloids will say that it is not enough….
Of course, it is not ‘north’ for us here in Scotland I have been enjoying catching up with Andy Burnham’s book Head North this week, which he wrote with Liverpool…
Squnty Bridge, River Clyde, Glasgow, image SwaloPhoto via Flickr ACC Andy Burnham’s route to power is built on Manchester’s success. It is seen as the UK’s best example of urban…