The National

Profile: Shona Craven

The National: Photograph of the Author

Columnist & Community Editor

Shona edits the National Conversation section of the paper and also writes a weekly Prime Minister's Questions sketch and a Friday column, which usually takes a sideways look at the week's developments in Scottish, UK and international politics.

Latest articles from Shona Craven

Brooke Shields stars in A Castle for Christmas on Netflix, which is set in a fictional Scotland

A Castle for Christmas is patronising and ridiculous ... I loved it

LET’S get a few things out of the way first. The main characters are obnoxious, the class politics are extremely dubious and the portrayal of rural village life incredibly patronising. The geography is nonsensical, the history fantastical and the fashion impractical. But is A Castle for Christmas still worth loading up on Netflix? For the slow-motion montages alone, I have to say yes. If you haven’t watched Cary Elwes try to catch fake snowflakes on his tongue, you haven’t lived.

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COP26 delegates got free passes that allowed them to travel across transport systems

Green pledges ring hollow when Scotland's transport is not smart

PICTURE the scene: spring 2007, the bus centre at Los Angeles International Airport.

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An alien crash-landing in London might find the House of Commons less than magical

Shona Craven: What if Westminster got the John Lewis advert treatment?

A SPACESHIP crash-lands on the lawn at Westminster’s Old Palace Yard. Spooky piano music plays. This extraordinary event has been spotted by a boy on a passing bus. He quickly disembarks and manages to slip past a security guard who’s been dazzled by the extra-terrestrial lights.

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Smart meters were supposed to put us in control, but they aren’t very smart after all

Shona Craven: With energy prices rising, don’t trust estimated bills

AMID all the gloomy headlines about the spiralling costs of living, I wasn’t surprised to receive an email informing me that my Direct Debit for gas and electricity was being increased. What took me aback, though, was the jump. A doubling, in fact. Could this be right?

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Exposure to Tourettes’s videos has been linked to girls developing tics during the pandemic

Diagnosing serious disorders with TikTok is a dangerous trend

HOW clean is your kitchen right now? How organised are your cupboards? Is reading this column right now the best use of your time, or is it possible you’re procrastinating?

Sajid Javid’s focus on face-to-face appointments ignores the crisis of staff shortages

Shona Craven: The Tories' war on GPs is no way to boost the workforce

NO wonder Sajid Javid didn’t want to face England’s GPs yesterday – even via pre-recorded video message. Such is the strength of anger at his plans to improve patient access, he may have been concerned the booing from the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) conference in Liverpool would have been audible as he visited a surgery in London.

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Bizarrely, it falls to Facebook’s Nick Clegg (pictured with CEO Mark Zuckerberg) to defend it

The harms Facebook causes have been laid bare ... now what?

WHAT do eating disorders, Trumpist conspiracy theories and ethnic violence in Ethiopia all have in common? The answer, according to whistleblower Frances Haugen, is that Facebook is fuelling them. And she’s not asking us to take her word for it – she took a mountain of evidence with her when she quit the tech giant in May.

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Those who survived R Kelly’s abuse gave harrowing testimony in court

Shona Craven: R Kelly’s crimes lay bare the horror of coercive control

THE testimony, when pieced together, sounded like the plot of a horror film. Woman after woman spoke of being sexually degraded, brutally assaulted, threatened and blackmailed into complying with a regime of control so oppressive that they had to ask permission just to eat or go to the toilet.

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Former prime minister Gordon Brown

Old pals’ act is alive and well in Gordon Brown's new role

I SEE the old pals’ act is alive and well in international politics with Gordon Brown’s long-time friend offering him the post of WHO ambassador for global health financing. Maybe if the WHO had bothered to look at Brown’s track record, it would have realised what a danger he will be in such a post.

France was the midwife of American independence – now Emmanuel Macron can do the same for Scotland

There is something profound at stake for France in AUKUS deal

MUCH of the coverage of the French reaction to AUKUS focuses on the loss of the commercial contract.

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