…the blog and website of Andy Wightman
Dear Oscar Nominee, Congratulations on your nomination for an Academy Awards 2022. According to media reports, I understand that as a nominee you have received a gift pack that contains, among other things, a purported gift of a plot of
Continue readingThere is a lot of complete nonsense being spun in the media today about the alleged refusal of Scotland to contribute to the financial support of the Royal family. Front page splashes on the Times and the Telegraph has
Continue readingYesterday the Daily Telegraph published an article (pdf here online here) based on an interview with David Johnstone, the Chair of Scottish Land and Estates (SLE). Mr Johnstone has been a frequent contributor to the media arguing the case on
Continue readingLast week BBC Scotland’s new Scotland 2014 current affairs programme took a look at land reform. The last time that BBC Scotland ran a studio discussion on the topic in its current affairs TV output was (if I recall correctly)
Continue readingThe image above (click for larger version) shows the missing slide from the presentation on the Economic Contribution of Estates referred to in the Means and Medians blog from last week. (1) It is important because it shows the significant
Continue readingTwo weeks ago, on 23 April 2014, Scottish Land and Estates (the body that represents some of Scotland’s landowners) held its Spring conference at which it published a report on the economic contribution of estates in Scotland. (1) A week
Continue reading“Price of farmland hits record high” scream the headlines today across all the media. The BBC, Scotsman, Herald, and local media from the Deeside Piper to the Kilmarnock Standard. All these stories have two things in common. First, they are
Continue readingThis guest blog is reproduced with the kind permission of the Daily Record. This land is our land.. so let people have their say Torcuil Crichton 27 May 2013 ON a rare, dry Friday on the Atlantic coast of Lewis
Continue readingI wonder how much money Hamish MacDonell was paid to write this blatant piece of PR spin on behalf of the landed elite in the Mail on Sunday on 24 February 2013? It displays such depths of ignorance and ill-informed
Continue readingToday’s contrasting images come on the day that over 30 Palestinians died in Gaza. They included the Dallo family in Jabalia refugee camp – that’s right a refugee camp – who lost 11 members when their house was attacked by Israeli rockets
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