Ruaraidh Gilmour

Edinburgh

Reporter at Holyrood

Journalist @HolyroodDaily [email protected]

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Articles

Getting to Know You: Graeme Downie

1 week ago | holyrood.com | Ruaraidh Gilmour

What’s your earliest memory? The earliest that I can recall in any detail was in Berlin, where I grew up, and to be honest all those three years there were memorable. I was eight when the Berlin Wall came down. We had the day off school and my dad got me up at three in the morning to watch it on German television. It was before the days of CNN and he told me, ‘you need to watch this, it’s history’.
Scottish Government sets new carbon budgets

1 week ago | holyrood.com | Ruaraidh Gilmour

The Scottish Government has announced its new five-year carbon budgets. The new climate targets follow the announcement by former net zero minister Mairi McAllan in April last year that the government was scrapping its 2030 target to reduce emissions by 75 per cent. The new carbon budgets will limit the amount of greenhouse gases Scotland will emit in the years leading up to 2045, when it has a legal requirement to negate greenhouse emissions entirely.
Jim Fairlie: Within six months of a Labour government we’ve seen tractor rallies all over the UK

1 week ago | holyrood.com | Ruaraidh Gilmour

When former farmer Jim Fairlie was appointed Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity by Humza Yousaf in February last year, it was amid accusations of a central belt bias from the SNP government and that rural Scotland had become an afterthought. There were also clear divisions in the party. Some MSPs were publicly calling on Yousaf to end the Bute House Agreement with the Scottish Greens, and more were urging it in private.
John Swinney: Independent Scotland ‘within reach’

1 week ago | holyrood.com | Ruaraidh Gilmour

John Swinney is expected to say an independent Scotland is “within reach” during his address to the Scotland 2050 conference in Edinburgh later today. The first minister will tell the summit that successive UK governments have treated Scotland as “an afterthought” and is “prey to a broken system and a failing economic model”.
Sir Geoff Palmer dies aged 85

2 weeks ago | holyrood.com | Ruaraidh Gilmour

Scotland’s first black professor Sir Geoff Palmer has died, aged 85. He held the role of chancellor and professor emeritus at Heriot-Watt University until his death. Palmer moved to the UK from Jamaica as a teenager and became regarded for his role in academia and human rights advocacy. Professor Richard A Williams, the principal and vice-chancellor of Heriot-Watt University, described the late professor as “an inspiration” to “students around the world”.
As the Scottish Government seeks to address youth violence has a generation already fallen through the cracks?

2 weeks ago | holyrood.com | Ruaraidh Gilmour

The death of Kayden Moy, the 16-year-old who died after being stabbed at Irvine beach last month, is the latest reminder that Scotland is dealing with an epidemic of youth violence. Kayden is the third teenager who has died from knife violence in Scotland in the last 12 months. In March,15-year-old schoolboy Amen Teklay died in a stabbing and 16-year-old Kory McCrimmon was killed after being stabbed in a park in Glasgow in June last year.
Spending review: What’s in it for Scotland?

2 weeks ago | holyrood.com | Ruaraidh Gilmour

Rachel Reeves announced the UK Government’s spending review today. The chancellor made a raft of promises worth £52bn for Scotland by the end of 2029. Along with funding for Northern Ireland and Wales, it is being referred to as the “largest settlements in real terms since devolution was introduced”, by Reeves.
Kate Forbes: 'There is no shortage of issues causing concern for Scottish businesses right now'

3 weeks ago | holyrood.com | Ruaraidh Gilmour

Scotland’s economy has shown tentative signs of recovery, with forecasts from the Scottish Fiscal Commission predicting GDP growth of 1.5 per cent in 2025 and 1.6 per cent in 2026. Kate Forbes, who held the finance and economy brief between February 2020 and March 2023, before a period away from the government frontbenches while Humza Yousaf served as first minister, is now back as deputy first minister and is charged with growing Scotland’s economy.
Scotland is striving for growth amidst new economic headwinds

3 weeks ago | holyrood.com | Ruaraidh Gilmour

Scotland’s economy has faced stark challenges in recent years. Exiting the European single market, the pandemic, and the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have placed a strain on Scottish businesses and, as a result, economic growth has been slow. Although annual GDP in 2021 increased by 8.9 per cent, it followed a 12 per cent contraction in 2020 due to the effects of the pandemic.
Jackie Baillie: The Scottish Government’s position on public funding for defence is incoherent

3 weeks ago | holyrood.com | Ruaraidh Gilmour

The Scottish Government’s position on funding for defence industry programmes through its enterprise agencies is “frankly incoherent”, Jackie Baillie has said. Her comments come after Scottish Enterprise reportedly refused £2.5m- worth of funding to Rolls-Royce Submarines for a specialist welding skills centre, putting jobs at risk. In response, the UK Government announced at the weekend it would make up the funding shortfall if the Scottish Government continued to refuse to back the scheme.