Lesley Riddoch

Chilling threat to efforts to bring Russia in from the cold

Shale Gas. Two small words that could transform the world.

According to Tony Hayward, BP’s Chief Executive at the World Economic Forum in Davos, a “gamechanging technology” has arrived which “transforms the US energy outlook for the next 100 years."

American companies have discovered how to exploit new reserves of gas and coal by breaking up rock formations with a mixture of water, sand and chemicals in a process called hydraulic fracturing.

The ultimate outcasts are coming in from the cold

He’s a blood sucking parasite whose power over ordinary mortals is eternal. He has yet to be exposed for murderous acts committed years ago. And yet in the hit BBC series Being Human the vampire is the vulnerable, courageous and moral hero in a petty, vindictive world of human spite.

Best Foreign Language Film award winner, Let the Right One portrays the struggle of a lonely, bullied, isolated boy befriended by the little girl next door, who happens to be a vampire. Where the Wild Things Are tells the story of a lonely boy who runs away to find acceptance on an island full of other “wild things” -- and the strength to re-enter “conventional” society.

Inequality harms us all

The richest 10% of the British population are more than 100 times as wealthy as the poorest 10% of society. Whichever way you look at it, the National Equality Panel report makes shocking reading. But some will try to spot a crumb of comfort in the relative narrowing of the gender income gap.

To read the rest of Lesley's 'Comment is free' article - click here.

Balmoralgate is just a wee squall in a southern teacup

Roseanna and the Queen. There’s a strange connection between these two slightly lofty, distant, elegant women, gleefully set at loggerheads last week by a leaked Home Office email and a panting male press core. Although the Environment Minister is young enough to be her daughter, Australian enough (by upbringing) to have the manners of Phil the Greek, and “common” enough to have worked as a lawyer all her non-parliamentary life, Roseanna Cunningham, like the Queen, is a powerful female presence. Neither woman is exactly clubbable, but both command attention.

The prospect of one attempting to sabotage the safety of the other appears to have titillated the excitable gentlemen of the Scottish press in the manner of an upmarket mud-wrestling competition. Or perhaps, subliminally, as a rerun of the last cross-border battle when an independent-minded Scotswoman was vanquished by a vigorous English Elizabeth. Add to this heady mix, Ms Cunningham’s well known opposition to monarchy and a feminist republican plot of Fawkesian dimensions appears to be unfolding.

Until you read the details.

Home Swede home? It's not an ideal family scene, Mr Cameron

If anyone believes the sex war is over, look at the weekend’s headlines – for once double standards are not the sole preserve of men.

Iris Robinson is not a sinner according to a Times columnist, who argues any middle-aged woman who can shock the grim grey-suited orthodoxy of Northern Ireland by seeking sexual satisfaction deserves canonisation.

On the other hand, here in golf-crazy Sweden, Tiger Woods proposed £1.8million donation to the Haiti relief appeal hasn’t dented fury over his serial infidelity to Swedish wife Elin, with the normally pacifist Aftonbladet commending her vengeful golf strokes. “While Hillary and Posh Spice chose to keep silent, diet and become feminist doormats, Elin stood with both feet firmly planted on the ground and realized the shame was Tiger’s, not hers. Thank God for girls like Elin. Next time, I hope she uses a bigger club.”

Glow reached for the stars but digital dimness holds it back

The Glow network, a government-backed intranet to supply digital content to schools – doesn't really work. I can already hear the chorus – so what? I could say it's a waste of £37.5 million. I could say it makes Scotland look stupid on the international stage, because Glow has been hailed by educational technologist and Star Wars director George Lucas as a world pioneer.

But the failure of Glow to deliver cracking, colourful, imaginative teaching material and a common e-platform for student, teacher and parent exchange, is more serious than that.

To read more.

How our packaged Hogmanay has lost its old Scottish soul

Well at least Scotland has already had one resounding success in 2010. Hogmanay celebrations, which nowadays means sales to the ticketed spectacular in Edinburgh, went well, which means a lot of tourists paid and only four unruly locals were arrested. There was a stunning fireworks display – which punctuated the all-important moment with a visual cue allowing every Edinburgher to feel included.

Fireworks, however, happen during the festival every night and a quick stay in any northern European city – even penniless Reyjavik – reveals most do fireworks bigger, better and more spontaneously than we do.

To read more - click here.

Dutch have a simple answer to energy crisis – working together

While tens of thousands of politicians and activists gathered hopefully in Copenhagen last Friday, a minor success was scored by eight men in wellingtons, standing on a barge beside the Afsluitdijk – the dyke that stops the North Sea from flooding the Netherlands. The focus of attention was a small, two-bladed tidal Tocardo turbine which has been spinning in one of the sluice channels between the freshwater IJsselmeer and the saltwater North Sea for the past 18 months.

A sensor in the turbine was dislodged during repairs to the sluice gates, and watching the massive effort needed to reconnect that single wire, the extra costs associated with marine energy became crystal clear.

Time to stop seeing both sides of the argument

If a country had a star sign, Britain would be an infuriating Libran. Pathologically unable to hear just one side of the argument, the tolerant (or contrarian) Brit starts to sympathise with the minority view even when the case for the prosecution seems complete.

Take Copenhagen. Just as the developed world is ready to tackle global warming, climate change deniers are attracting considerable public support. Just as bankers are hit with Alistair Darling’s tax on cash bonuses, opinion columns suggest the men and women of the City are merely scapegoats for our shared, national obsession with cash. And despite the presence of a bell tower in the latest set of MPs expenses, papers are starting to spotlight the plight of non- free-loading MPs, some of whom will stand down next year, demoralised and depressed at their collective and undeserved fall from grace.

Scottish Children and Eurpoe

Scottish children record the lowest feelings of wellbeing in Europe.

Never mind literacy, class size or the Curriculum for Excellence – we have bigger problems. Some of our children are doing fine – others are obese and disengaged. Some – in hopeless, drug-filled estates – are semi-feral. Others in leafy suburbs are over-parented. There is one common denominator though – guilty working mothers who dare not demand the massive change that would remedy educational problems and improve adult and child wellbeing -- kindergarten care on the Scandinavian model from the age of 1.

I can hear the objections already. Too expensive. Alright for them. A luxurious irrelevance when essential school services are being cut. Destruction of the “mother-at-home” parenting that has worked well for generations.

Let me ask one thing straight away.