…the blog and website of Andy Wightman
Image: The British Army on exercises, King’s Park, Stirling. Pastel by William Kennedy 1889 On 15 August a ceremony will be held in Stirling to mark the transfer of ownership of the King’s Park from the Crown to Scottish Ministers.
Continue readingThe Scottish Liberal Democrats hold their Autumn conference on Saturday 14 September as part of the UK federal conference. An interesting motion on land reform has been tabled by Hugh Andrew – Motion SC2 on page 10 of the Conference
Continue readingPhoto: Roxburghe Estate Photo reference Library Scotland’s landed class made the front page of the Scotsman yesterday under a headline “Lairds in warning over new buy-out powers”. The story is based around submissions of evidence to the Scottish Government’s Land Reform
Continue readingThe tortuous negotiations over the next Common Agricultural Policy reached a conclusion of sorts today although some of the details remain unclear. This morning BBC Radio Scotland invited me to speak about the implications of “capping the CAP” – an
Continue readingImage: Commander Chris Hadfield With kind permission of the West Highland Free Press, this Guest Blog reproduces Brian Wilson’s column in today’s paper. The back of the envelope duly arrived in Sleat last weekend Brian Wilson, 14 June 2013 The back
Continue readingLibrarians are important people. They provide order to what would otherwise be chaos in the world’s store of knowledge. The most common way this is done is by the Dewey Decimal Classification system which ensures that you can find information on any
Continue readingPhoto: Roxburghe Estate Photo reference Library Yesterday in Parliament there was a debate on land reform (Official Report here and watch here) initiated by the Labour Party. Congratulations to them for doing so. Eighty years ago, in 1923, when Labour
Continue readingYesterday in the UK Parliament, the Prime Minister confirmed that he would co-operate with the Scottish Affairs Select Committee to establish “who owns and controls the great landed estates in Scotland, in order that they can minimise both tax avoidance and
Continue readingProfessor Jim Hunter, Highland historian and former chair of Highlands and Islands Enterprise, was a member of the Scottish Government’s Land Reform Review Group until early April 2013 when he left the group for personal reasons. On Monday 3
Continue readingMichael Evan Victor Baillie, 3rd baron Burton of Burton-on Trent and of Rengemore has died. The owner of over 50,000 acres of land in Inverness-shire and beyond, his exploits and antics could fill a book. One famous episode concerned the
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