The Voice UK (STV, 8pm) THE singing competition has changed presenters, coaching line-ups and even channels, but it’s kept those infamous spinning chairs — and with good reason. For many viewers, the most interesting stage of the contest is the early
US president Donald Trump has offered a partial denial in public over his racist remarks disparaging Haitians and African countries – but privately defended them, according to an insider. Trump said he was only expressing what many people think
ACCORDING to Michael Wolff in his book about the Trump White House, one of Trump’s aides declared that Trump “could be a halfwit if he applied himself.” The president’s explanation for his decision not to come on a visit to the UK demonstrates this
ANGUS Brendan MacNeil MP claims that customers should quit RBS over its latest branch closure plan (‘Take your money out of RBS,’ urges Scottish MP, The National, January 12). The widely held believe that banks lend only the money in their vaults is
A POLITICIAN has urged public bodies and companies to crack down on plastic straws and other single-use plastics to save the environment. Kate Forbes, MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, is seeking commitments from rail company ScotRail and ferry
TO celebrate the Year of Young People, every week in 2018 The National will be giving a platform to young Scots aged eight to 26 the chance to give readers insight into their lives, challenge negative stereotypes and share their hopes for the future
I’VE certainly met some media chancers in my time (takes one to know one). But it’s rare to see such an outright specimen as Toby Young. Provocative Tory journalist, recently sober-sided advocate of free schools, but now hung high on the hook of being
RETURNING for its 16 year from March 8 to 25, the Whyte & Mackay Glasgow International Comedy Festival (GICF) revealed its full programme during the week. With more than 100,000 tickets on sale to more than 500 shows, the 18-day festival includes
WORK is beginning this month on the initial phase of a project to establish the first creative hub in the Highlands, offering a new home for artists, makers and creative entrepreneurs from the area to develop their careers and help their businesses
Theresa May receives a phone call from Donald Trump about his planned visit...
MOST of the recent figures say that there are around 45 per cent of hardline independence supporters who would vote Yes no matter what the cost, and around 30 per cent of committed Unionists who would never vote for independence even if it was proved
THE informative letters of Mike Lean and Dave Llewellyn (January 12) highlight why the Scottish Government should not rely on the mainstream media, including the BBC, to objectively present NHS statistics, or any other “national numbers” such as the
THE January 26 deadline is approaching for entrants to create the prizes given to winners of the Scottish Awards for New Music. Created by New Music Scotland, a network of musicians, producers, funders and audience groups helping to facilitate
THE finance watchdog has named almost 100 firms offering trading in binary options in the UK as doing so illegally — in its first move against the sector since it assumed responsibility for policing the practice earlier this month. According to
THE BBC’s Scotland Editor Sarah Smith has been forced to apologise for a major blunder over Scotland’s A&E figures. On the UK-wide Six O’Clock news on Tuesday, Smith said that more than 100,000 patients in Scotland had spent more than four
A PROJECT that helps to foster an interest in engineering among children as young as three has received a major boost.The School of Engineering at Edinburgh University has become a core funder of a not-for-profit organisation called Primary Engineer,
AN important milestone has been reached in the project to create Glasgow University’s new £40 million Research Hub which is expected to create hundreds of jobs in the west side of the city. Award-winning architects HOK have submitted a planning
COUNCIL workers deserve a pay rise of up to 6.5 per cent this year, unions say. A joint pay claim calls on local authorities to give all staff a flat rate increase of £1500 or 6.5 per cent, whichever is greater.Unison, Unite and GMB unions say this would
THERE’S a website called You Had One Job which is a compilation of videos and photos of spectacular job fails. There’s a photo of a burger chain advertising its “new mighty anus burger”, presumably because the old mighty anus burger wasn’t a pass. There
THE number 99 – for many Scots an ice cream cone with a chocolate flake on top – has taken on a new meaning for a fish and chip shop in Galston, East Ayrshire as the business owners prepare to notch up a century in the same family. Adolfo (Big
EVEN by his standards, yesterday was a crazy wind-up day for President Donald Trump who managed to insult and annoy everyone from Battersea to Botswana by way of Haiti and was even called a racist by the United Nations. First the good news: Trump
THOSE who vandalised the headstone of the master of Greyfriars Bobby have not been allowed to spoil tomorrow’s ceremony to commemorate the 146th anniversary of the death of Scotland’s most famous dog. For in a defiant gesture, well-known funeral
A SCOTTISH start-up company has secured planning permission to build a commercial demonstrator plant at a two-acre site in Grangemouth that will produce more than half a million litres of fuel from whisky residue every year. As The National revealed
FORMER Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale was paid £70,000 for her appearance on ITV reality show I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! The fee was revealed yesterday when the Lothian list MSP updated her register of interests on the Scottish
TRIBUTES have been paid after the “tragic loss” of a teenager who died of pneumonia after suffering from flu.Bethany Walker was airlifted to Raigmore Hospital in Inverness from her home in Applecross in Wester Ross but she died last Friday.The 18-year-old
DELAYS to promised amendments to key Brexit legislation are “frustrating”, Ruth Davidson has admitted. The Scots Tory leader will meet Theresa May on Monday to discuss hold-ups in changes to the EU Withdrawal Bill. The UK Government has denied
A NATIONAL reader has told of her shock after Marks & Spencer responded to a complaint about Scottish whisky being branded British by telling her to respect the result of the 2014 referendum and accept that Scotland was now “a part of the country
PARLIAMENT returned this week and any hopes that a new year might bring about some sensibility and clarity to politics saw their hopes quickly dashed and flung in the bin.It was interesting on Monday morning to hear pundits discuss how the Prime Minister
A CAMPAIGN to prevent what protestors are calling the desecration of Killiecrankie battlefield has been launched with a video presentation of how the proposed route of the A9 will damage the historic site. Protest group KilliecrAnkie1689 yesterday
ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) technologies can present ethical challenges for businesses involved in developing them and new measures have been set out to minimise the risk of ethical lapses. In a briefing paper, the Institute of Business Ethics
THE Scottish Government is being urged to step in and prevent a charity “abandoning” scores of elderly people by closing its 12 nursing homes in Scotland.Unison says the closures, announced by not-for-profit organisation Bield in October, would be a “
SHARES in under-threat construction giant Carillion plummeted by one-third after reports emerged lenders refused to back a proposed rescue plan.The UK Government, stakeholders and pension authorities met yesterday in a bid to negotiate a package to prevent
THE average selling price of houses in Scotland increased by nearly eight per cent in the last three months of 2017 — differing from the UK trend of decreasing prices. The latest house price report from letting agency ESPC revealed the average
KOFI Annan once said that a society that cuts off from its youth severs its lifeline.This week saw the publication of the Annual Report on the progress of the Scottish Government’s Youth Employment strategy: ‘Developing the Young Workforce’.The strategy
