Ciaran Jenkins , Scotland Correspondent

It’s meant to be a celebration of literature and artistic freedom, but at least a dozen authors who were supposed to feature at this month’s Edinburgh International Book Festival have had difficulties securing visas from the Home Office, including writers from Africa and the Middle East. Festival organisers said they’d been forced to go through a “Kafkaesque”…

From the statue of Cecil Rhodes in Oxford to the confederate statues in the U.S., there’s a growing debate about the removal of monuments dedicated to controversial men. But in Edinburgh, rather than removal, the council has agreed to add more details to one of its most prominent statues – Henry Dundas – and his…

Theresa May meets Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, in Edinburgh. 

Well, how’s it going down with mortage holders? Traditionally any hike is bad news for those with variable rate deals. Our Scotland Correspondent, Cairon Jenkins has been to meet some house buyers in Glasgow

More than 4,000 people work in Scotland’s carnival yards; families whose heritage goes back centuries. Many of them live in Glasgow, but say they are being pushed out by the city’s fast moving regeneration – including in Govan, where a £17 million development is being built. We’ve been to meet the people who’ve been providing…

From the fringes to the official US ballot paper. This year, there are white supremacists, conspiracy theorists and extremists among those attempting to run for office – as Republicans. Perhaps the most shocking among them is Arthur Jones, the former leader of the American Nazi Party, who is gunning for a seat in the suburbs…

He’s fighting a trade war on several fronts and one of them is European. Donald Trump has said he sees the EU as “a foe” and he once dubbed the head of its Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, “a brutal killer”. Today the two men met at the White House. The main topic on the table was…

Scotland’s first Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said she’ll make a decision on a second independence referendum only when there’s clarity over Britain’s exit from the EU. Speaking on the first day of the SNP’s spring conference in Aberdeen, she wouldn’t put a figure on the start-up costs of independence.

Its rugged landscapes have provided the backdrop to many a Hollywood blockbuster, but as the worldwide fame of the Hebridean island of Skye continues to rise, it risks joining the likes of Venice, Barcelona and Amsterdam as a tourist hotspot in danger of being overrun. Now new figures show the scale of private houses and…

An independent Scotland could end up keeping the pound for several years while preparing to move over to its own currency, according to a report commissioned by the SNP. The Sustainable Growth Commission, set up to investigate the country’s future economic prospects, aims to show how Scotland could go it alone, but opponents say there’s…

It’s been estimated that a thousand highly-skilled migrants, among them doctors, teachers and entrepreneurs, have been told to leave the country under measures intended in part to expel terrorists and war criminals. In some cases migrants have found themselves with 14 days to leave the UK after making amendments to their tax returns. The campaign…

It’s a move that promises to “take a stand” against gambling addiction – but at the same time could cost twenty thousand jobs. The government today said it would cut the maximum stake someone can gamble on a fixed-odds betting machine from 100 pounds to just two pounds. Campaigners welcomed the announcement, but Britain’s bookmakers warned it…

As if the divisions within the cabinet over Brexit weren’t trouble enough for the Prime Minister, a vote in the Scottish parliament today has paved the way for a potential constitutional crisis. The Scottish National Party joined forces with Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens to vote down Theresa May’s EU withdrawal bill. At…

There’ll be no more cheap booze in Scotland from today: it’s just become the first country in the world to impose a minimum price for alcohol. Health campaigners have described it as the biggest public health breakthrough since the smoking ban.

Keeping a good supply of people willing to work while ending free movement from Europe has been one of the main goals of ministers drawing up the Brexit agreement. The Migration Advisory Committee has taken evidence from businesses, industry bodies and Government departments as part of a major inquiry into how this will be done.…