en-uk Tue, 30 Oct 2007 15:37:29 GMT Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd. custserv@timesonline.co.uk http://www.timesonline.co.uk Sat, 11 Jul 2009 01:33:39 GMT Newspapers 144 21 http://www.timesonline.co.uk http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,116979,00.gif Comment: Magnus Linklater Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-07-09T10:57:57Z The threatened closure of the Diageo bottling plant is a body blow for Kilmarnock, and a serious setback for an area struggling with unemployment. Magnus Linklater Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-07-07T08:48:15Z I attended the immolation of a quango the other day. It was a sad affair. A small body, its members mostly unpaid, had been advising the Scottish Government on which historic monuments should be saved, refurbished and rescued from the ravages of time. It gave sound, expert, independent advice. And so, of course, it had to go. David Cameron would doubtless have approved. He favours the Bonfire of the Quangos. Comment: Magnus Linklater Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-07-08T11:17:21Z The title is different, but the language is remarkably similar to the great, if now infamous, education reforms of the 1960s in England, which swept aside traditional methods of teaching and introduced the concept of “child-centred” education. The Newsom Report of 1963, entitled Half our Future, said that half the school population risked being marginalised by a lack of success at school, and new ways of engaging them had to be developed. Magnus Linklater Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-06-30T08:54:42Z There was a stunning moment, late on Monday night, inside the illuminated spaceship that was Wimbledon with its new roof closed, when it seemed that Andy Murray had lost the game. A barrelling cross-court shot had gone long, and the cameras turned to the crowd for their reaction. If they had been auditioning for a tragic death scene on EastEnders they could not have done better. Jaws sagged open, hands clutched gaping mouths, eyes widened in horror. Holyrood sketch: Magnus Linklater Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-07-01T09:55:33Z What a lamentable affair. A day that should have been rich in ceremony, and joyful in celebration turned into a limp and vacuous occasion, with more than a third of the MSPs whose role we were meant to be applauding, simply absent. The tenth anniversary of the Scottish Parliament, snubbed by its own members, turned into an ill-mannered comment on the democracy they represent.