Rebecca McQuillan

Edinburgh

Senior Features Writer at The Herald (Scotland)

Journalist, mainly doing politics (The Herald, Holyrood, BBC Scotland). Herald columns: https://t.co/qQAT233Ewc

Articles

There are two big challenges for SNP as it kicks off campaign to win next election

1 week ago | heraldscotland.com | Rebecca McQuillan

Many voters are dissatisfied with the main political parties (Image: Derek McArthur) John Swinney says he is fixing the NHS, but is anyone listening? This is an age of endless challenge. Governments must try and tackle climate change, poverty, stagnant living standards, gaping inequality, corporate impunity, trade conflict and expensive new security threats. Voters are caught in a repeat cycle of frustration and disappointment with their incumbent governments.
You could raise Scottish Child Payment if you wanted to, Mr Swinney

2 weeks ago | heraldscotland.com | Rebecca McQuillan

The Scottish Child Payment has been hailed as a game-changer, so why won't John Swinney raise it further? (Image: Colin Mearns) What was really underlying John Swinney’s comments to The Herald that the Scottish Child Payment shouldn’t be raised further? The First Minister’s argument was that hiking it again would disincentivise people to work. Hmmn. The trouble is, this jars with pretty much everything he and his ministers have said about it before.
This posturing politician has done trans people no favours | The Hera…

3 weeks ago | archive.is | Rebecca McQuillan

Feelings about the judgment understandably run high, but there is a chasm of difference between expressing regret about it and stating without a shred of evidence that the judges themselves are motivated by hatred. This from an MSP and deputy convener of the equalities, human rights and civil justice committee who has an explicit duty to uphold the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary.
This posturing politician has done trans people no favours

3 weeks ago | heraldscotland.com | Rebecca McQuillan

How can intolerant, abusive rhetoric help trans people? (Image: PA) Oh enough already. We’re all used to posturing politicians sowing discord, but they’re not usually on the left. Enter Maggie Chapman, who preaches tolerance while proving herself over and over to be one of the most divisive voices in the Holyrood chamber.
How dour Scots could learn a lesson from Finland

4 weeks ago | heraldscotland.com | Rebecca McQuillan

Finland was named the happiest country in the world (Image: Sergei Grits/AP) Apologies to the good people of Finland, but as a young adult, I knew only one thing about them – that they drank, a lot.
The Scottish election: a choice we don't have to want to make

1 month ago | heraldscotland.com | Rebecca McQuillan

Magnolia. When I was growing up, there was a lot of it about (the paint, that is – I never set eyes on the flower). Folk stuck with magnolia for their interior decor year after year, decade after blessed decade. Why? Because it was inoffensive and familiar. Magnolia did not enhance your life much, but it was OK. It went with your rattan chairs and your tan sofa. I can see it now, glowing beigely in the light of a 60-watt bulb. Something else might well be better, but what? The SNP is our magnolia.
Dear net zero bashers: how will you explain yourself to the grandkids?

1 month ago | heraldscotland.com | Rebecca McQuillan

âIf nations do not implement current commitments then show a massive increase in ambition âŚthe Paris Agreement target of holding global warming to 1.5C will be dead within a few years and 2C will take its place in the intensive care unit.â So said Inger Andersen, the UNâs environment chief, prior to the COP29 climate conference last year. That was before Donald Trump was elected American president. Things have deteriorated by an order of magnitude since.
Politicians must introduce wealth taxes or powder-keg UK will explode

1 month ago | heraldscotland.com | Rebecca McQuillan

“God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous inordinate wealth while others live in abject deadening poverty,” said Martin Luther King in November 1956. If Dr King could observe the United States in 2025, he would be in mourning for a lost dream: a billionaire president baying for the destruction of health, clean air and water regulations to better serve giant corporate interests, while the world’s richest man is put in charge of the job.
Make America great again? Actually, Trump is making it weaker

1 month ago | heraldscotland.com | Rebecca McQuillan

What will America look like in four years’ time? Will American voters feel that Donald Trump has made America great again? These are big questions that affect us all. How far the world’s greatest superpower progresses into isolation and authoritarianism has huge implications for global stability. Whether by 2028 American voters will be satisfied with Trump, or whether a backlash will occur, is already the subject of intense speculation.
Labour, breathe out – we’re seeing the limits of Farage’s power

2 months ago | heraldscotland.com | Rebecca McQuillan

It turns out politics is quite hard when you want people to take you seriously. Nigel Farage is a veteran politician but not in the usual sense. His various vehicles – Ukip, the Brexit Party and now Reform UK – only had a few MEPs and councillors until last July when Reform acquired five MPs. Farage “parties” have never run anything.