Andrew Tickell

1 week ago | thenational.scot | Andrew Tickell

WHEN controversy ends, the news caravan always tends to move on. When the Scottish Government first introduced the Victims, Witnesses and Criminal Justice Reform Bill, it bristled with provocative measures. Now the bill has reached the final stage of its Holyrood scrutiny, and some of the spikier reforms have been broken off in the process – media interest in this significant piece of legislation has dwindled.

2 weeks ago | thenational.scot | Andrew Tickell

I’VE been trying to think of the right metaphor. In fingerprinting, they describe the distinctive combination of loops and whorls which make up each of our unique pugmarks as latent or patent. Dip your paws in mud, ink or blood, and the grooves that put you at the scene of the crime will stand out clear as day, patently incriminating you. Nobody could miss them. But press your palm into a plain piece of paper, and you still leave a record of your digits behind you, invisible to the naked eye.

1 month ago | thenational.scot | Andrew Tickell

Kemi Badenoch is just the most recent politician to have disappeared into the public relations abyss being leader of the opposition can represent MICHAEL Cockerell tells the – possibly apocryphal – story of a Yugoslavian woman’s response to the news that Winston Churchill had lost the 1945 General Election. Churchill was confident he could parlay his reputation as a war-time leader into being returned as a peace-time prime minister after the conclusion of the Second World War.

1 month ago | thenational.scot | Andrew Tickell

‘WE’RE the Labour Party. The clue is in the title.'  From time to time, elected representatives of the People’s Party will dip into their party playbook searching for a witty slogan to justify their latest round of benefit cuts. They almost always end up here – singing the same auld sang about work being the difference between the deserving and the undeserving poor.

1 month ago | thenational.scot | Andrew Tickell

THE atmosphere in the room was palpable. The video feed had just cut out. A woman, her face blurred, had just finished speaking about the loss of her child. A hard topic on any day – but this loss wasn’t down to accident, illness, or misadventure, but the actions of another human being. Sat around the table were a range of people – politicians, police officers, publishers, prosecutors, officials, academics and journalists. I was there to provide legal context. After she finished, the quiet was heavy.