Scotland

A 16-year-old boy has been charged in connection with the death of Alesha McPhail. The six-year-old’s body was found on the Isle of Bute on Monday close to the town of Rothesay where she was staying with her grandparents.

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…

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.

The Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon has warned that the latest military action risked “dangerous escalation”, insisting UK foreign policy should be set by parliament. SNP defence spokesman Stewart McDonald discusses.

In Scotland – where yellow weather warnings remain in place – the government has opened up an emergency funding scheme to help local authorities cope. Ciaran Jenkins reports.

Scotland’s First Minister has announced she is to set up a publicly-owned energy company able to sell gas and electricity at low prices. Nicola Sturgeon made the announcement as she wrapped up the SNP annual conference.

The Scottish National Party leader Nicola Sturgeon has accused Theresa May of arrogance, as she spoke to a final rally of supporters in Leith, declaring that the election is an opportunity to stop the Tories in their tracks. Four million Scottish voters will be heading to the polls tomorrow.

Election issues are debated by one of Scotland’s most eminent cultural figures, the crime writer and independence campaigner Val McDermid, and the new Lord Provost of Aberdeen, Barney Crockett, who’s also the former Labour leader of Aberdeen City Council and opposes independence.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon says Theresa May called the election “to crush the opposition”, but has now shown herself to be the “weakest and most evasive leader in living memory”.

We are focusing on the final hours of a Scottish campaign that is far more about Brexit, and potentially affecting the balance at Westminster, than about independence, although that remains in many voters’ minds. I’ve been taking the temperature in the granite city of Aberdeen.

The latest poll of voting intentions in Scotland puts Labour and the Conservatives running neck-and-neck behind the SNP. Both have 25%, the SNP 43% and the Lib Dems just 5 per cent.

The Scottish National Party seem to have put the brakes on their drive for another referendum on independence, shunting it down their agenda until “the end of the Brexit process”. Launching the party’s manifesto today, Nicola Sturgeon said any attempts by the Conservatives to block Scotland having a choice would be “democratically unsustainable”.

Stephen Gethins, SNP Brexit spokesman, and Ian Murray,  Labour’s only MP in Scotland.

The UK and Scottish Governments are at loggerheads tonight over a second independence referendum. This afternoon the Scottish Parliament demanded a vote within two years.