Laura Webster
@LauraEWebsterr
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Editor at The National and Sunday National - *views my own* Got a pitch?✍ Send to laura.webster @thenational .scot
Glasgow, Scotland
Joined May 2017
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Nicola Sturgeon: You can meet people outdoors
Scottish weather: No
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I'm here outside the Tory hustings. This is Brian, he is 60 years old and this is his first EVER protest. He tells me he's sick of shouting at the TV and here's come to shout here instead.
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Never seen Stephen Flynn speak like this.
He is justifiably furious. What a mess Lindsay Hoyle has made, all for the sake of Keir Starmer avoiding a rebellion and two words: Collective punishment. Shameful.
🚨 BREAKING: Stephen Flynn angrily eviscerates Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, who is absent as MPs debate his move to accept Labour's Gaza motion.
“Where on earth is the Speaker of the Commons and how can we bring him to this House?”
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Women at Missguided earn 46.3% less than men (more than twice the national average gender pay gap)...please stop falling for their
#feminist
marketing and hip slogan tees
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Exclusive: Michelle Mone claimed Einstein lived in her Glasgow home even though he never lived in the city.
Michelle Mone's office threatened us with legal action as we worked on this story.
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BREAKING: The UK is blocking the gender recognition reform bill, which is within the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament, under never-used-before provisions of the Scotland Act.
If they can stop this, they can stop any of our legislation.
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There are 59 seats in Scotland. Six of them are held by Tories.
Four Scottish areas just got Levelling Up funding. Three of them were held by Tory MPs.
What an interesting coincidence, etc etc
Details below 👇
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Murdo Fraser and his colleagues are attacking Nicola Sturgeon for going to America in her capacity as First Minister. Meanwhile he is in Seville for the football ... while parliament is sitting.
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Disappointing. If reducing fares hasn't brought people back to rail travel, how will increasing them help?
BREAKING: ScotRail will bring back peak fares for train tickets.
It comes after a report found a pilot scheme scrapping them had 'limited' success and did not attract enough people to rail travel.
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Really excited to announce that as of today, I'm the new Editor of The National.
I've been at the paper since 2018 and it's been such a journey so far. Can't wait to see what comes next on the journey to Scottish independence.
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Maybe I'm just a keen republican, but there is something stomach churning about the King posing next to food bank workers as a distraction technique from his son's controversial book.
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🚨Absolutely mental story we're breaking on
@ScotNational
right now.
Exclusive: The official UK Covid Inquiry Twitter only follows one account - 'DownWithTheSNP'
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EXCLUSIVE: Scottish Greens are to turn down invitations to the coronation - and instead hold an event on alternatives to the monarchy.
Patrick Harvie said nobody in his party is "remotely interested" in going to the coronation.
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Massively useful tool from our team showing how much Brexit has cost every area in Scotland (so far...)
Glasgow, where I live, has lost £255 million in export value. Huge numbers here.
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🧵Humza Yousaf's father Muzaffar Yousaf sent the Sunday National some fascinating photographs from his own time in the SNP. He joined 50 years ago, believing Scots were "not getting their fair share" from the UK Government.
Below are some of the pictures 👇
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Fascinating watching Kate Forbes speak Gaelic for BBC Alba to a room full of non-Gaelic speakers who couldn't ask any follow up questions, never seen anything like it!
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Counter protesters were called "paedophiles" and "child molesters" today - in case anyone thinks that serious anti-LGBT sentiment is not being mobilised in Scotland right now.
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🚨 Breaking: The National has obtained footage of a Scottish Labour candidate telling voters that the party helped the Tory campaign in 2019.
Tauqeer Malik said Labour activists "did not bother at all" in order to help Tory candidate Douglas Lumsden in the Aberdeen South seat.
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At
@ScotNational
we've been calling out Boris Johnson's lies for years in a very visible way
@JolyonMaugham
Agreed x100000 London media was helpful to Johnson in failing to scrutinise him .... but don't forget your friends in Scotland 🏴
To all those journalists who are calling Johnson a liar now. Why didn't you call him a liar then? During the referendum? In the Prorogation? During Covid? That was your job - not kicking him now because he's finished. We've paid a terrible price because you didn't do it.
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🧵I've written about what it is like to be the only UK daily paper consistently speaking up for Palestine, and the frustration of seeing journalists stick their heads in the sands/deliberately mislead about Gaza for months.
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Well well well ... if it isn't the party who said even talking about independence during Covid was "disgusting" ...
After all the media attacks on the SNP's 'politicisation' of the pandemic I'm looking forward to seeing wide coverage of this blatant political move
BREAKING: Michael Gove's secret report on the 'state of the Union' has been revealed at the Covid Inquiry.
Shown to Tory ministers in July 2020, Gove's paper said Scottish independence was the greatest 'risk' facing the UK Government other than the pandemic itself.
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NEW: Douglas Ross criticised for defending Tory benefit cuts and the planned NI rise while posing for photos at a Glasgow soup kitchen.
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The Scottish Tories have changed their Twitter logo to pride colours.
Worth noting that Douglas Ross said in 2014 that he would have voted against same-sex marriage had he been an MSP at the time.
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A Tory MP (not clear who yet ...) shows some serious disrespect by sneering "thank God for that" at
@Ianblackford_MP
as he sits down following his speech.
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🧵A short thread on
@ScotNational
being effectively frozen out of Scottish Labour's election campaign (despite Anas Sarwar personally telling me he would sort it out two weeks ago...)
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A statement on The National's July 13 Euros 2024 final front page.
We got this one wrong and we apologise.
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🧵Every day since Humza Yousaf won the SNP leadership race, our mentions have been full of this kind of thing. Rhetoric that has been allowed to flourish in the UK. On social media so many people feel free to say these hateful Islamophobic insults - it's truly vile.
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At Holyrood working on some things today!
@OwenJones84
full sit-down interview with First Minister Humza Yousaf coming next week ... and some previews coming soon!
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Bit awks for
@AnasSarwar
- YouGov has him listed as a Tory politician. He's at number 91 in their ranking of Conservative figures' approval ratings.
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EXCL: The UK Government is being urged to explain the “striking coincidence” of a £20,000 donation from a trade body after changing their position on including glass in deposit return schemes. From
@agc_reports
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Tomorrow's front page of
@ScotNational
- a lavish coronation in the middle of a cost of living crisis. The Illegal Migration Bill. Economists telling us to accept being poorer.
Is this the road Scotland wants to go down?
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@AlStewartOBE
Hello, I am an editor at the publication you cite. Please read the Fact Check you yourself are using to evidence your statement. It says the claim is "false and deliberately misleading". Which indicates you simply did not read this at all before you posted it 🤦♀️
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Just checking in
@AnasSarwar
- you personally assured me in May that
@ScotNational
would not be excluded from your press events. What's going on? Why did we get invitations during the campaign, but not now? This isn't good enough.
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🧵A number of crazy things happened at coronation parties across Scotland at the weekend, but unless you read
@ScotNational
there's a good chance you've not heard about them. A thread ...
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Always found the idea of indyref "tearing families apart" pretty funny. How many divorces can be blamed entirely on indyref lmao?
In 2014 my parents had a Better Together poster in their room, I had a Yes sticker in mine, that's democracy 🤷♀️
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Boris Johnson says referenda not "particularly jolly events". He seemed pretty jolly pushing his Brexit agenda for the last four years. Wonder why Scottish indyref would be different? 🤔
#marr
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An amazing story which we need to talk about.
Stephen Kerr's WhatsApps slagging off his ally Murdo Fraser's leadership campaign were leaked. It turned out that he was posting statuses rather than private messages. Meaning all of his contacts saw this:
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Absolutely shocking treatment of our brilliant journalist
@xanderescribe
today from this Police Scotland officer. Our team will certainly not be letting this incident pass us by with no questions asked.
🗣️'Let's have a selfie, big man. Are you still not going to take a direction from a constable in uniform?'
NEW: A journalist at The National was threatened with arrest by a police officer while attempting to cover a major protest outside a Glasgow arms factory
Full video 👇
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Tomorrow's front page of
@ScotNational
With spiralling problems and so many struggling, how can the UK justify such a lavish display of wealth and inherited power?
Despite all the banners adorning London, no - the Union is not happy and glorious.
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🧵It's not a fringe conspiracy to say that Westminster deliberately hid Scotland's wealth from it. It's a fact. In today's 50th anniversary McCrone edition we tell you that full story.
First of all, you can read the report totally paywall free.
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SNP MP
@TommySheppard
tells
@ScotNational
he condemns arrests of protesters:
“I think it’s outrageous. It seems England is now a country where the freedom to protest peacefully has ended.
“People here should pledge our solidarity with those arrested in London today.”
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"Let the people decide!" Independence campaigners are targeting the Supreme Court indyref2 case hearing in London
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If you're interested in how Norway made so much while Scotland's oil wealth was squandered, I wrote about that very thing for Novara and you can read it here:
Norway's oil fund is larger than the combined wealth of the ten richest people in the world. Not only that every week it makes $1 billion & holds 1.4% of the entire world's shares.
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The people of Inverness clearly don't want Prince Andrew to have a title representing them in any way.
We're highlighting this at coronation time with a new petition which you can find out about and sign here
🗣 Locals have told The National why they back a petition to have Prince Andrew stripped of his 'Earl of Inverness' title
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You can read more of Muzaffar's story and what he makes of his son becoming First Minister here:
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Yes activists drowning out A Force For Good outside the Caird Hall. Singing of Flower of Scotland currently
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Tuesday marks the 50th anniversary of the McCrone Report; a crucial document underpinning how much of Scotland's wealth was hidden from it for political reasons. We're running a special edition to mark the date and publishing the report in full again.
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🚨We're looking into reports of people being turned away from voting in the Rutherglen by-election due to lack of ID. 🗳
If you have been affected, or know someone who is, my DMs are open.
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🧵What an interesting situation and not suspicious at all.
During the election The National managed after a very long process to get invitations to Scottish Labour press events. Progress, I thought. Turns out I was wrong 🤷♀️
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📸 This photo shows Muzaffar and his sister Zahida with other members of the SNP Pollokshields branch, campaigning for candidate Angus McIntosh - he was standing for election to the city council in 1979. The photo appeared in the Evening Times.
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Olaf Stando (
@olafdoesstuff
) is a new Scot, who moved to Scotland 17 years ago. He has been subject to appalling xenophobic abuse for standing as an SNP candidate in the elections while being an EU national. He spoke to me about his experience.
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🧵 Why have I commissioned Owen Jones to write for our pro-independence paper? There are a number of reasons. I'm going to address some of the concerns I've seen here 👇
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Anyone posting this shit in our replies is getting blocked. The National does not exist to provide a platform for your Islamophobia. Thanks!
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🚨It's been a crazy few weeks, but we can now talk about this publicly. Labour used legal threats to silence us on a story in the run-up to the election, and you can read all about why here
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🚨 Tomorrow's front page of
@ScotNational
T̶o̶r̶y̶ Labour values: Meet the new face of the Labour Party, Natalie Elphicke, approved by Keir Starmer! 👍
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🚨Live videos and reporting from the Scottish Tory conference where Number 10 just tried to block media access to Rishi Sunak then asked journalists to DELETE TWEETS ABOUT IT 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
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This morning I hear Sarwar is doing a press event in Glasgow. Weird, I didn't get anything through about that. Neither did any of our reporters.
Right as we have several questions regarding the two-child cap vote, austerity, the Winter Fuel Payment, tax rises....
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Made my Newsnight debut talking about the independence movement with Kirsty Wark tonight! You can catch on iPlayer if you're interested.
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Why isn't this being covered more widely? Most of Scotland's media has been keen to paint the coronation as a unifying and joyful event for all. Doesn't look like it from this perspective
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🚨BREAKING: Four anti-monarchy protesters have been handcuffed and removed from the Royal Mile by police.
Witnesses say their banners read "turn the palace into social housing" and "no Kings no Queens no cops"
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Just learned Michael Shanks is set to speak at Scotland In Union's Burns Night event later this month.
Labour's current constitutional strategy is to insist voters are tired of the indy debate. Weird their new MP would want to speak at a big Unionist event then 👀
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From the start of January I'll have a new role as The National's News and Features Editor 😊
Will be looking to commission more content from fab freelancers (on all kinds of topics from politics to culture to TV to film to fashion etc etc ... ) so send me your pitches please! 👋
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EXCL: Ofcom's failure to enforce its own rules has led to "radical right-wing schtick” being broadcast without challenge, says
@MrJohnNicolson
.
The former journalist fears Ofcom isn't "up to the task” of protecting media freedom and impartiality.
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📸 This picture shows
@NicolaSturgeon
and
@JohnSwinney
at a meeting with members as part of the work of Asian Scots for Independence, which Muzaffar was involved with. Sadly I don't have the date for this one, or the names of everyone in the photo. Any pointers are welcome!
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I would rather let the content speak for itself but I am so angry this week. I can't believe it takes 30,000+ Palestinians being killed, a humanitarian disaster of this scale, before western journalists dare to speak up. Where have you been?
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Grateful for your concerns Stephen but Team National are doing great work! I can think of a lot harder jobs. Maybe being a junior doctor shafted out of the money they deserve by your party?
On a separate note, how are the Tories doing in the polls? 🤔
The most difficult job in the world right now? Reporter for The National. They're needing to somehow spin good news for the SNP out of this endless spiral of disaster, embarrassment, and corruption.
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I asked protesters who are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza why they'd come to the rally outside the Scottish Labour conference. These were some of their responses.
Thanks to everyone, especially Mohammad, a refugee from Afghanistan, who gave an extremely powerful answer.
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Tomorrow's front page of
@ScotNational
- where are the principles of senior Labour politicians?
What's the point of a Westminster opposition failing to offer opposition? And of a "Scottish" Labour with policy dictacted to it by London?
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Tomorrow's front page: In Westminster, nothing ever changes.
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In his big speech at Glasgow Uni, Humza Yousaf has just said that oil revenues will be used to fund capital spending up to £20bn in the first decade of independence.
Quite a different vision from the Greens and explicitly pro oil and gas
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Finally, Muzaffar sent this photograph of his father Muhammad's home in Mian Channu, a town in the Khanewal district of Punjab province. He left in 1955 for Kuwait before settling in Scotland, where he worked at the Singer sewing machine factory in Clydebank.
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I would rather have handled this privately but I'm hoping that finally speaking about it might make some change. So please
@AnasSarwar
stick by your word and ensure The National has as much opportunity as all other media to attend events - even if it's uncomfortable for you.
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The National will be in court tomorrow bringing you LIVE updates as the UK Government faces a legal challenge to release secret Union polling it's hidden for FOUR years
There will be lots of in depth coverage, so here's what to expect 👇
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Kicking off a brand new polling series with The National today. Each one will be released at 5pm until Thursday.
Starting in style, as Find Out Now show the second-highest level of support for independence ever recorded.
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New from
@JudDuffy
: Ruth Davidson has attended just 21 of a possible 82 sittings in the House of Lords. Wonder how her plan to reform it is going.
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'The way trans people have been treated and spoken about in our media, our Parliament, our courts and on social media is beyond digusting' //
@_CaitLogan
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Definitely a few thousand protesters outside Scottish Labour conference. A huge flag has been set up outside the Hydro. I haven't seen any senior Labour figures join yet
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THREAD: That's Geoff Ellis, the TRNSMT festival director, claiming it's not possible to get more women on a line-up by just booking more women because there's "far, far less female artists". In the most respectful way possible, that is simply not true.
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What are Scottish Labour figures saying today as Keir Starmer faces backlash for praising Thatcher?
🔴Shadow Scottish secretary Ian Murray: Tweeting about football
🔴Shadow cabinet member Paul O'Kane is excited for a light switch on in Neilston 👍
🔴Anas Sarwar: Silent
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Why does it take the murder of international aid workers for the UK press to really challenge Israel's actions? We can all see what's happening. We all see the same images and videos. Why couldn't you react like this to the slaughter of Palestinian women and children?
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It did until about two minutes ago when we published this story but do not fear, we have the screenshots
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EXCL: The CEO of drug charity Transform Drug Policy Foundation is warning Douglas Ross his claims against decriminalisation are out of step with evidence from around the world.
He's accusing the Tory of "tough talking populism" on a life and death issue.
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If you're wondering how her team interacted with us thankfully we have quoted the exchanges extensively in the article!
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🚨The National will be produced by an all-women team for International Women's Day, for a historic special edition.
Lesley Riddoch did the Scotswoman in 95. But no paper has done this in my lifetime. Lesley will be writing for us (interviewing the lovely Sara Sheridan!)
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🧵If you want to know why there aren't more women in political journalism have a look at the replies here.
Thankfully I'm used to this and it doesn't bother me. But it's hard to explain how to handle it to young journalists and students who ask me about it.
Made my Newsnight debut talking about the independence movement with Kirsty Wark tonight! You can catch on iPlayer if you're interested.
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Over the last day hundreds of Unionist accounts have kindly taken the time to tell me their thoughts on the paper ... doesn't really suggest they're not bothered by the work we do!
It's an honour to be such a threat, thanks to all the Union flag profile pics for their time ❤️
🧵It's nearly been a year since I took on the role of editor at
@ScotNational
and so much has happened in that time.
As stressful as working in news can be, I love my role. I'm so proud to be at the helm of a newspaper which wants to do things differently
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There are just a handful of people at Glasgow's screening of the coronation.
One attendee said they were "disappointed" but maybe people wanted to watch it at home instead 👍
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🚨Announcing a little bit of a role change for me at The National ...
From this week I'm also the editor of the Sunday National - so running things across the whole seven days and both editions.
As ever, email me with story tips and pitches ✍️ Exciting times!
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Excited to announce I'm The National's new Digital Audience and Content Editor. Have lots of plans for the next few months so keep your eyes peeled for cool stuff from us online 👀 DMs are open if you wanna chat anything National/digital 😊
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🚨 Day three of our week-lont investigation into Labour's PFI scandal
How PFI locked Scotland's NHS into billions of pounds of debt for decades
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Follow up: The National's research reveals many other MSPs, from various parties, claimed for cheap phones at the start of the pandemic under the same expense categories as Nicola Sturgeon and Jeane Freeman. Hi
@murdo_fraser
!
NEW/EXCL: The SNP have vehemently denied allegations tonight that Nicola Sturgeon and Jeane Freeman purchased "burner phones" at the start of the pandemic.
They're saying the "false accusations" are "truly desperate".
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🚨 An important new week-long series from
@ScotNational
We're investigating how the taxpayer is STILL footing the bill for the last Labour government's PFI schemes, and how this new Labour administration could be about to repeat history ...
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We don't know if things could have been different. But maybe pressure from the media could have changed the UK Government's direction at least. I wish The National had not been alone these past few months. I really do.
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Hello .. rest of the Scottish media ... where are you rn? Anti-monarchy protesters are being arrested in Edinburgh, why are your top stories about the "lavish" ceremony for the King?
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A good day to remember that Scottish Tory leader
@Douglas4Moray
insisted Boris Johnson is a "truthful man" (in between flip flopping on whether he should be PM or not).
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🚨NEW: Police Scotland has been accused of a "disproportionate" response to a protest outside a Scottish arms factory which allegedly saw one woman knocked unconscious and hospitalised after being hit with a baton. Three others needed medical attention.
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@InsideWhistle99
We have some of the highest levels of online engagement in the Scottish media, reaching millions of people every month. Thousands of digital subscribers. We reach younger audiences than our counterparts. In the modern media world it's not all about physical sales, imo!
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