Further confirmation of being an acute case of a Holyrood nerd, I enjoyed this! 🤓

This is a serious problem. There is hardly any scrutiny on the fragility and conditionality of Reform’s support, but plenty elsewhere. I think their potential to go up is certainly there in our data. Also to go down. Too many people just taking the spin as fact.

Rape, domestic abuse, and stalking victims may no longer have to surrender their phones to Police. New tech by UK company Kulpa enables victims to send digital material – messages, photos, emails – to Police in England in a format that can be used in court. www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/954069a...

A new far-right terror attack in the UK has been confirmed in court. Alina Burns, then 18, tried to behead an Iranian refugee who was standing outside a barber's shop in Bristol with an axe The attack took place on 2 August 2025 but a judge did not rule on 'terrorism connection' until today

Exclusive: Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain has told First Minister John Swinney she is stepping down from the role www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

Katy Clark (Scottish Labour) has been an MP in the House of Commons, a life peer in the House of Lords (Baroness Clark of Kilwinning), an MSP in Holyrood, and now elected one of two Deputy Presiding Officers. Clare Adamson (SNP) was elected as the other Deputy Presiding Officer.

For swearing in of MSPs, first John Swinney - who adds an SNP proviso before his oath about SNP allegiance to people of Scotland who are sovereign. Second, Malcolm Offord. Third, Anas Sarwar. Ross Greer also adds proviso for Greens ultimately to people of Scotland, "not king or crown", before oath

The seating arrangements for the seventh session of the Scottish Parliament have been agreed. Parly officials stress the layout carries no status implications, particularly for the two parties tied on seats.

Are you interested in doing a Professional Doctorate? At Stirling, we have flexible doctoral research programmes designed for people who work and have other commitments, offering Professional Doctorates in: 🟩 Criminal Justice 🟩 Social Work 🟩 Substance Use 🟩 Housing 🔗 www.stir.ac.uk/courses/pg-t...

Wake up! The House of Commons Education Committee says fifty - yes fifty - Higher Education Institutions are at risk of insolvency within the next three years. Wake up! committees.parliament.uk/work/9012/hi...

First time visit and wander around Kinclaven Woods with the fam at the weekend, looking resplendent with it's rich carpet of violet and blue 😀🪻 #Scotland #Perthshire #Kinclaven

Back in the home of the top-tier good stuff. Be rude not to... ☺️

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Steel industry: £1.1bn in GDP and 20,000 employees University sector: £265bn in GDP and 400,000 employees What the fuck am I missing here.

I am not typically one prone to making predictions, but I can very much see Màiri McAllan being chosen for Deputy First Minister. There will already be changes in Cabinet briefs this time around...

Who do we think might be the youngest MSP? My best guesses are Iris Duane 🟢 or Zen Ghani 🎗? Both born after the Scottish Parliament was re-convened... #ChildrenoftheDevolution #sorry

Pals, here it is: the session 7 MSP starter pack (with one region to declare):

It IS a tie for the official opposition! And we found that out via YouTube, with no TV broadcaster covering it. Unprecedented might actually apply to this situation...

It is the early hours of Saturday morning, and after watching election coverage since 9:30am Friday, we've resorted to being put on hold watching a Council count cam on YouTube, which was live and now they've packed up, it's just a pre-recorded message about waiting for the result. This is surreal

When we said we wanted to stay up through the night for the election count, we should have specified which night... #ScotPol #ScotlandVotes

When we said we wanted to stay up through the night for the election count, we should have specified which night... #ScotPol #ScotlandVotes

The Highland Council YouTube livestream of the vote count in Inverness is here. It has all the pace of watching my fridge defrost... www.youtube.com/live/V8yJMft...

Having watched the Scottish Parliament election count coverage for a marathon 13 hours straight, the Highlands and Islands have taken sooooo long to declare the regional list result that my TV now looks like this! Remarkable – and not in a good way.

ARE WE POTENTIALLY HEADING FOR A TIE FOR THE OPPOSITION (2nd PLACE) AT HOLYROOD?? Will they have to take turns asking the first question at FMQs? Where will they sit in chamber? Where will their offices be? I'm tired after 12+ hours of election coverage that I can't figure out the final seats...

If I'm being frank, Scottish Labour don't have that many people left who are on the left of the party, but Katy Clark is. She has always treated me well when I've dealt with her over the years (long-time Justice Committee member, a lawyer who asks astute questions), so I'm glad to see her re-elected

No fewer than FIVE Mr Kerr's have just been elected as MSPs to Scottish Parliament: 🎗 Alex Kerr 🎗 Calum Kerr 🔵 Liam Kerr 🔵 Stephen Kerr 💠 Thomas Kerr There were only two Mr Kerr's at Holyrood in the last Parliamentary session. Now five, are we going to need a plural noun for them?

Scrap that – Paul Sweeney is re-elected on the Glasgow list.

Ash Regan's result on the Edinburgh and Lothians East regional list. Stand down those independence thermometers; maybe they can be stored underground in the basement? 🤭

So, the Scottish Parliament election coverage is getting moved (again) to a website to watch on laptops because of *checks notes* the important need to broadcast a football game between Arbroath v Dunfermline?!? #priorities #wrongdecision #ScotlandVotes

Lib Dem Adam Harley and team having chapped 40,000 doors in the Strathkelvin and Bearsden constituency is a lot of hard work. It has paid off.

Marie Stewart Macklin publicly saying thst she supports Reform UK on BBC Scotland. She has said previously and again today that Malcolm Offord is a good friend. She's also pro-Trump. Ugh. However, she did also donate financially to Russell Findlay's Scottish Tory party leadership bid in 2024.

If Ben Macpherson is not a Minister or in the next Cabinet, I'll be surprised. Another intelligent, civil, and capable MSP, and well liked across parties – which cannot be said with confidence of many. Kate Nevens and Scottish Greens can be pleased with that constituency result, even if not a win.

Because the guga hunt is such a major local issue in Edinburgh Central constituency... Also pictured: a Cabinet Secretary losing his seat by quite some way...

Daniel Johnson was always going to win Labour's hinterland of Edinburgh Southern, even with the significant boundary changes. They can self-soothe with that good result, in amongst other stinging disappointments. He's an intelligent and decent guy, and he may yet be a party leadership contender.

So Paul Sweeney's chances of getting re-elected to Holyrood are now slimmer, as he is third on Scottish Labour's Glasgow region list. Ivan McKee received nearly double the number of votes as Sweeney in Glasgow Easterhouse constituency.

Slightly enjoying everyone from pundits to politicians accidentally saying "tonight".

Totally agree. We need intelligent, empathetic, and strategically-minded people like Stephen Gethins in Holyrood. His acceptance speech about being inclusive and internationally outward-looking is a good start. Hope he goes straight into a Ministerial brief.

Here we go!! [I'm not even pretending to work today; took leave to be glued to watching the count 🗳...]

Excited to share the BBS results page for the 2026 Scottish Parliament election. True to form, there's going to be more data on here than you can shake a stick at, giving you the most in-depth rundown available anywhere! This will all update automatically throughout the day, so refresh often!

I've just done four hours of train journeys across England and Scotland to get back in time to vote; various other colleagues at the event who live in Scotland and Wales were doing the same. An important right. Polling places close at 10pm 🗳 #Elections #ScotlandVotes #Democracy #Vote

Definitely don't have an earworm now, no siree... #Leeds

Walking RSPB Lochwinnoch nature reserve yesterday, the bluebells, buttercups, blossom, and wild garlic were in full bloom 🌿 🏵 #dayoff @rspbscotland.bsky.social

To add to the baffling AI election discourse: Stephen Kerr seems to have embraced it with alacrity for his campaign on Instagram and Facebook. Not sure he has quite got the hang of it yet: one opens with "when corruption wears a flag"... and he is depicted as a superhero wearing not one but two 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇬🇧

We have an *extremely* important announcement to make. From Wednesday, we will be launching our puffin live cam, coming to you from the Farne Islands. So you can watch puffins all day long. In celebration, please enjoy this clip of puffins being really busy for 39 seconds straight.

This is grotesque on multiple levels.

I am sorry to hear that this awful incident happened to Mark Diffley. I really feel for the Jewish community at whom this antisemitic abuse was aimed at. No community should ever feel unsafe. www.scotsman.com/news/politic...

This is going to be ✨️wild✨️ and I cannot wait 🤩

🚨📊NEW report out today from @ipsosinscotland.bsky.social and @uofgpolicy.bsky.social - Does Independence Still Matter? Our modelling of drivers of voting intention for next week's Scottish Parliament elections says yes, by orders of magnitude more than traditional political issues. Read more here:

HOPE not hate stands in solidarity with the Jewish community after a terrorist incident in Golders Green, North London, where two Jewish men were stabbed today. The increase in Antisemitic attacks in the UK must be condemned in the strongest terms.

Qn for Parliamentary anoraks: are declarations in registers of interest for Holyrood more stringent/tighter than those for Westminster? Malcolm Offord's register of interests for both the Lords and Ministerial Interests were missing Category 3: Land & Property. So, why reveal number of houses now?