If nothing else, it was a masterclass in how to present a case. Alex Salmond’s six-hour Holyrood epic was coherent, unemotional, authoritative and convincing. Few of us could get through such a public ordeal and not put a foot wrong. He is a 66-...

THE Scottish Government faces a penalty of up to £190m because of irregularities in spending hundreds of millions in Euro funds which have stretched back six years, the Herald on Sunday can reveal.

A new poll on Scottish independence has support evenly locked at 50/50 with the latest Survation poll being the first in 22 to not give Yes a majority.

THE architect of the original plan to build a crossing to Northern Ireland has condemned Boris Johnson’s planned roundabout under the sea and claims it puts paid to any chance of a serious link.

SCOTTISH ministers are contesting a judge's demand to reconsider a no-trawl scheme to protect Scotland's marine environment in a court battle that has already cost them £30,000.

THE issue of trans rights is increasingly in Scottish headlines. To understand the controversy, we spoke with Colin Macfarlane, Scottish director of Stonewall, the UK’s leading LGBT campaign group. Stonewall was established in 1989 by actor Sir ...

SHE was a travel blogger who had been all over the world and visited fascinating places, but when she set foot in Scotland eight years ago she fell in love with the country and never left.

FOR many it is a location that will be forever immortalised by the words of Ewan McGregor's character Renton in Trainspotting when he proclaims: "It's s**** being Scottish."

In bitter cold and across treacherous icy seas, brave 19th century explorers ventured to the tip of the earth in search of a fabled route that would open up trade.

THE CHANCELLOR must change course over planned cuts to the aid budget and set aside funds to help vaccinate the world’s poorest, according to the SNP.

Across Scotland, more than 1.6 million people have received their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Last week, the US president ordered the first use of military force since taking office with retaliatory air strikes against Iranian-backed militias. Foreign Editor David Pratt examines what it signals about Washington’s ‘new’ approach in the r...

It’s wonderful to see and feel the ripples of positivity coursing through the country with the Covid-19 death rate declining due to vaccinations progressing with pace.

Lying in an intensive care bed, surrounded by beeping machines and in a deep coma, Brian Keeley was oblivious to how delicately balanced his once active life had suddenly become.

More than 125,000 reports of flytipping were made to Scottish councils in the past two years.

The Scottish Government will ask the UK Government to extend the £20 Universal Credit uplift and the furlough scheme ahead of the UK's Buidget this week.

Scottish parents are set to receive £125 to help feed their children over the Easter school holidays. Here's what you need to know and how to apply.

Two teenagers have been arrested and charged in connection with an attempted murder after an incident  in Thornliebank.

WHY is it important for Scottish tourism and hospitality to reopen out of the pandemic at the same time as England and why must a date be set?

There have been 525 new cases of Covid-19 reported in Scotland in the past 24 hours.

Anas Sarwar has been named as the new Scottish Labour leader.

WORKERS at the Clyde nuclear base are set to strike after what a union said was "overwhelming" support for action in a pay and conditions dispute.

SOME conversations stand out. It may be a significant disclosure – or a remark which subsequently acquires importance. It may be a single, startling phrase, recollected in tranquillity.

Ian Blackford has claimed that Nicola Sturgeon did not breach the ministerial code as he refused to say if the First Minister should step down if he is proven wrong.

“Everyone expects me to say Glenfinnan but I love driving down Loch Eilside heading to Fort William with the sun rising above the Ben.”

IT’S time for me to stop being a news junkie before I go completely mad. I’m already more or less convinced we’re living through the end days.

WHAT have we learned from the roadmap out of lockdown announcements this week?

The BBC has issued a correction on social media after a headline on the Six O’Clock news claimed that Alex Salmond wanted Nicola Sturgeon to resign as First Minister.

Republican senator ended his Conservative Political Action Conference speech by quoting "the immortal words of William Wallace."

Heritage campaigners face a fresh battle for Culloden after it emerged decision to block an application to build on the historic battlefield has been appealed.

THERE are at least three major emotional storms that regularly beset the besieged pensioner. Or at least this one.

THE political smart-set have coined a phrase for these types of events which conveys both spectacle and a heightened sense of their own chic luminance. Thus, we are being invited to witness a psycho-drama and to bring our own popcorn. For, this is...

The latest weekly coronavirus figures have been released, highlighting hotspots of Covid-19 and the risk in each neighbourhood.

Brian Taylor, BBC Scotland’s long-serving political editor, has always had an ambition to write for The Herald. He first started reading the paper when he moved to Glasgow as a teenager and has been a reader and subscriber ever since. Now he’s...

By Sarah Nelson

By Brian McIver

Scottish hospitality businesses believe the route map out of lockdown revealed by the First Minister did not offer a clear plan and argued without travel restrictions being lifted it would be difficult to operate.

OPPOSITION parties in Scotland really do take the biscuit. They complain continually about the SNP’s record in Government and its handling of the global pandemic. So what an opportunity is afforded through our democracy to the opposition every week...

For a man whose career has been spent working with words – in Russian, Spanish and Italian as well as in English – it’s no surprise that terms such as ‘deracinated’ flow freely from David Leask’s lips. A university-trained linguist who...

FEARS are rising that Rishi Sunak is about to hit pension savers with a “stealth tax” in next week’s Budget as the Chancellor charts the long process of boosting Treasury coffers to fill the financial black hole left by the pandemic.

An ambitious strategy from the GCV Green Network Partnership aims to unite the progressive visions of several local authorities and environmental groups to create health-boosting active travel pathways, says Andrea Pearson

The Liberal Democrats have offered to work with Scottish Labour’s new leader to build a “federal UK”.

Trade unions have appealed for unity ahead of May’s Holyrood elections as Anas Sarwar takes over as leader of Scottish Labour.

As imagined by Brian Beacom

Forty firefighters are battling a blaze at a school in Invergordon, it is the second time this year that the school has been hit by a blaze.

In the increasingly acrimonious, or to speak plainly, vicious battle between Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, there may be little that is not hotly disputed. There is, however, one point that is now uncontestable: that this has become the greatest s...

A new walk-through coronavirus testing site has been opened in Granton, Edinburgh.

IT IS a city that boasts more public parks than than any other in the UK, with 90 evenly spread across both sides of the River Clyde.

AT the start of Unforgotten (STV, Monday) I realised I had clean forgotten how the last series ended. Well, it was three years ago. I’ve had a lot on, what with Brexit and the pandemic (have you noticed how Covid has replaced Brexit as the go-to...

By Ian McConnell