• Leaders
|
• Comment
|
• Features
|
• Interviews
|
• Profiles

Comment & Features, Profiles

Assisted suicide: I claim the right to live as I am - imperfect

Guillain-Barre syndrome and anti-assisted suicide campaigner Nikki Kenward shares her views with The Journal

• Dignity is not the same as choice
• Suicide Act to be modified
• Euthanasia debate reignited by "right to die" girl

Dead Politicians' Society »

For those outside the School of Social and Political Science at Edinburgh University, Elizabeth Bomberg is a largely unfamiliar figure. However, as an out-of-the-ordinary teacher, she represents something that all students hope for and all teachers as...

Wed 30 Nov 2011 by John Foley | Read more »

Hisham al-Zouki: Syria's cinematic renaissance »

I first met Hisham al-Zouki at a café in a Damascene mall; as we sat down to discuss the script for a short film he was working on. Sadly, because of military movements in the area we were filming in, the project was never concluded. For the ac...

Wed 05 Oct 2011 by Marthe Lamp Sandvik | Read more »

After Burns, cooler heads prevail at NUS Scotland »

Robin Parker is working late. When the new National Union of Students Scotland president greets me at the door of his office, the union’s plush headquarters in Edinburgh’s New Town is so quiet it looks like he might be the last man standing...

Wed 14 Sep 2011 by Marcus Kernohan | Read more »

A Liberal Vision for Scotland »

Meeting with Tavish Scott, he comes across as less polished than other politicians I have interviewed, but like other party leaders, appears quietly confident. Conducting our interview over a ‘jammy scone’ in a quiet café, he display...

Wed 04 May 2011 by Robbie Marwick | Read more »

Salmond: Labour in Scotland have had a generation of believing in nothing »

At a circular table in a glass-walled kitchenette inside the Scottish National Party’s Edinburgh headquarters, First Minister Alex Salmond is bullish about his party’s prospects at the impending general election. We find the formidable part...

Wed 20 Apr 2011 by Marcus Kernohan | Read more »

Gray: Clegg broke a promise worth £800m - the SNP broke one worth £2 billion »

There are over 80,000 students living and studying in Edinburgh, and over 250,000 in the whole of Scotland. Theirs is a demographic likely to prove crucial in deciding the outcome of 5 May's general election - that much is, by now, received wisdom, but...

Sat 16 Apr 2011 by Jonathan Baldie | Read more »

Jon Snow: The hack who came in from the cold »

Sitting opposite Jon Snow, his charisma is immediately obvious. The ITN journalist's laidback attitude is infectious, and as he slyly smiles we ease into comfortable conversation. The man's definitely a pro. Like his interrogator, he studied law, but ...

Wed 24 Nov 2010 by Robbie Marwick | Read more »

Scottish Government v. Human Rights »

Last Tuesday, the UK Supreme Court ruled in Cadder v HMA that the Scottish system of using evidence gathered during the initial police questioning of criminal suspects held in detention without access to a lawyer was in contravention of Article 6 of th...

Wed 10 Nov 2010 by Robbie Marwick | Read more »

Friends don't let friends build trams »

"I still don’t think that the fact that this is a capital city, and a world-class one at that, resonates enough at national level," wrote Sir Terry Farrell in a statement printed in the Scotsman last week. The comment constituted part of an effor...

Wed 07 Oct 2009 by Eloise Nutbrown, Iman Qureshi | Read more »

Derek Acorah: When two worlds collide »

“I would say that the scepticism business, really, it’s a minority,” Derek Acorah tells me after all of about three minutes. Currently on tour and playing to packed houses, spiritual medium and star of television’s Most Haunted ...

Mon 27 Apr 2009 by Evan Beswick | Read more »

Interview: Jim Murphy »

Reality television, as George Galloway will tell you, is a fabulous way for a politician to raise his public profile. Still, one imagines Jim Murphy could have thought of better ways to make his mark on the national consciousness than being outed as a...

Sun 22 Mar 2009 by Simon Mundy | Read more »

Interview: John Kay »

There are some bruised egos among the ranks of Britain's economic commentators, as the global financial crisis lurches from one tumultuous stage to the next. “What I think is of little importance,” groaned Anatole Kaletsky in The Times a fe...

Mon 09 Mar 2009 by Simon Mundy | Read more »

The rectorial round table »

It always makes an interviewer’s life easier when his subject fits neatly into the popular caricature; when three do so at once, you feel positively spoiled. Together for the first time, the three candidates for the Edinburgh University rectorshi...

Wed 11 Feb 2009 by Simon Mundy | Read more »

RBS's Fred Goodwin: the world's worst banker? »

The summer of 2004 was a good one for Fred Goodwin. Four years into his time at the helm of Royal Bank of Scotland, it's fair to say he'd made his mark: top of the Scottish Power 100, incumbent European Banker of the Year, and to cap it all, a knightho...

Mon 26 Jan 2009 by Simon Mundy | Read more »

Still independent »

“Now, I now I’m not going to be able to eat all of this, so I’m going to give you a piece of it, right?” insists Margo Macdonald, passing a fat slice of red meat across the table. I’ve been easily persuaded by the MSP to ...

Fri 16 Jan 2009 by Evan Beswick | Read more »

Interview: Alastair Campbell »

“I hear that’s a good read.” Leafing through Alastair Campbell’s debut novel in a Glasgow cafe, it’s only when he taps me on the shoulder that I realise the man at the adjacent table is the author himself. But then, Tony ...

Sat 06 Dec 2008 by Simon Mundy | Read more »

The Gitmo redemption »

To tread among the “worst” of us can bring out the worst in us. Or so learnt James Yusuf Yee when he saw a cell door at Guantanamo Bay detention centre suddenly creak open some 20 yards away during one of his daily rounds at a prison block...

Tue 25 Nov 2008 by Nazry Bahrawi | Read more »

Interview: Roots Manuva »

If a decade as the only hope for UK hip-hop has got to Roots Manuva, he's certainly not letting on. “I'm just like a kid in a sweet shop,” he grins, reclining backstage at the Liquid Room with an adoring redhead and a mountain of Guinness. ...

Mon 13 Oct 2008 by Simon Mundy | Read more »

Dawkins' Delusion »

The ordinary man on the street might be forgiven for thinking that he is somewhat of a rarity in modern society. He doesn't hold extreme views on religion or politics; the foreign worlds of Al-Qaeda, Creationism and militant atheism are presented...

Thu 02 Oct 2008 by Chris Williams | Read more »

A hard rain's a-gonna fall »

"Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son," asks Bob Dylan in 'A hard rain's gonna fall'. Well, Mark Edwards, photographer, has been away snapping the effects of climate change and of. His conclusion: "we are a crazy crew." Edward...

Thu 14 Feb 2008 by Evan Beswick | Read more »