Matt Kerr

2 weeks ago | morningstaronline.co.uk | Matt Kerr

SCOTTISH Labour leader Anas Sarwar tried to sell the British Labour government’s virtues to the Scottish TUC today — just before the announced closure of Grangemouth exposed its failure to defend industry or jobs. Mr Sarwar included a promised £200 million to secure the refinery and petrochemical plant’s future among the achievements of Keir Starmer’s government, though the money was intended to attract larger sums in private investment and has not been deployed.

3 weeks ago | morningstaronline.co.uk | Matt Kerr

I WOBBLED at the top of a 5m ladder with a tin of white paint dangling alongside me, paint brush in hand and an elderly woman pulling faces through the window. “How did I get here?”Jimmy held on to the foot of the ladder. I had known him for all of a week since we moved into the “upper cottage” of the four-in-a-block next door. Within hours of arriving, we’d noticed Lily waving from her kitchen window opposite ours, pulling faces and laughing.

4 weeks ago | morningstaronline.co.uk | Matt Kerr

THE architect of £140 million of cuts at Edinburgh University has warned it would be a “tragedy” if the sector’s funding crisis led to closures. Speaking to BBC Scotland, the institution’s £418,000-a-year vice-principal, Sir Peter Mathieson, who plans slash jobs to make cuts equivalent to 10 per cent of its turnover, has called for a rethink of university funding in Scotland.

1 month ago | morningstaronline.co.uk | Matt Kerr

THE term “woman” in the Equality Act refers to biological sex and those with a gender recognition certificate can be refused entry to same-sex spaces if proportionate, according to Britain’s highest court. The landmark 88-page Supreme Court judgment was prompted by the then SNP-Green Scottish government’s 2022 Gender Recognition Act, passed with the stated intention of relaxing the process to obtain a gender recognition certificate (GRC), the key to changing legally assigned gender.

1 month ago | morningstaronline.co.uk | Matt Kerr

A SCOTTISH National Party minister has claimed her 23 per cent salary hike is “not a pay rise” while some of the lowest paid public-sector workers in Scotland prepare to strike to reverse pay cuts. Social care minister Maree Todd, who – along with junior ministerial colleagues — will rake in an extra £19,126 to total £100,575 next year, as cabinet secretaries see their salaries soar to £116,125.