Fergus Mutch

IT will cost you €15 to stare through the plate glass at the enigmatic face of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre. It’s the same price to peruse the Goyas and Velazquezes at the Prado in Madrid. Things are a bit steeper stateside at $25 for a browse of the Kaninskys, Magrittes and Chagalls at the Guggenheim. Just €12 to wander and wonder at the renaissance masterpieces in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, and it’s a nice round €20 for the Dutch masters at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

ON the eve of lockdown in 2020 a beautiful wee book came out. Imagine A Country is a collection of “ideas, dreams and ambitions” for Scotland’s future from a cast of a hundred diverse voices, pieced together brilliantly by author Val McDermid and her geographer wife Jo Sharp.

IN February 2020 I quit my job as Head of Communications and Research for the SNP at Holyrood. I still loved it, I loved my colleagues, I loved the daily excitement of walking through the Garden Lobby to face whatever the day held.

CABINET reshuffles are the political equivalent of a band playing Proud Mary at a wedding ...

AN independence referendum is going to happen. Today’s headlines briefed directly from the Unionist camp concede that much ...

BORIS Johnson’s "Sermon on the Zoom Account" delivered the usual platitudes, rather than beatitudes.

AS icy blizzards hit Scotland this week, there’s nothing warms the cockles quite like the Tories all a-fluster about the end of the United Kingdom.

TWENTY polls on the trot showing majority support for independence and enviable constituency and list polling for the SNP a hundred days out from the Holyrood election.

THE Scottish Government’s daily Covid briefings have become something of a staple in the daily ritual of the pandemic.

Be in no doubt, May’s Holyrood vote is the independence election. It’s not just that, of course. It is also about trust in government...