The Herald

Solving the Age-Old Pensions Problem Commission has Provided Excellent Basis for Debate

BENJAMIN Franklin once remarked: "Nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes". However, as yesterday's report on the future of Britain's pensions system amply demonstrates, even on these two issues, there is a great deal of uncertainty. Whetherwe like it or not, as we move further into the 21st century, we will need to harness more resources to pay for Britain's pensioners because there are going to be more of them. We should be grateful to Adair Turner and his commission for t...

Briefing: Christmas Stamps

ROYAL Mail issued its first Christmas stamps on this day in 1966. Q: Featuring what?

Pensions Debate Deserves to Be Cast Wider

THE AGEING of the workforce is a certainty. That more of us are living longer should be considered a badge of progress rather than an economic burden. So the debate following the Turner Commission report deserves to be cast much wider than when the state pension can be claimed. At present, few of us continue in work close to the age of 65. Occupational pensions, health and job satisfaction have a bigger bearing for many on when to retire. Incentives to carry on working into our 60s will be ne...

Let 'Failed' Asylum-Seekers Settle and Work

TOM HARRIS reveals his ignorance of both asylum policy and Scottish opinion (Letters, November 29). His xenophobic views, which he claims for the "overwhelming majority of Scots", may well be in tune with his bosses in London but are so far removed from the reality of public opinion in Scotland that one would assume he spends more time reading the Daily Mail than listening to his Glasgow constituents. Has he completely missed the massive public outcry against deportations, the debate in the S...

Britain Copes with Free Movement From Ireland

THE GENIAL Tom Harris, MP, rushes so quickly to scaremongering about an independent Scottish asylum system that he misses the elephant in the British Isles asylum systems. Does MrHarris not realise that Westminster already has an agreement of free movement with another country that even predates the Schengen agreement, namely free movement of people between the UK and the Republic of Ireland, where separate asylum laws exist? Surely if Westminster can cope with free movement with the Irish Re...

Doubts About Press As Guardian of Freedom

WE HAVE a serious problem if, as MajorMichael Hamilton maintains, "It is the press, not parliament, that is the ultimate guardian of our freedom" (Letters, November 29). During the run-up to the Iraq war, most of the press turned themselves into jingoistic fanzines forTeam Tony. The same gang today are largely supportive of government-sponsored attacks on our civil liberties, justified by a terrorist threat enhanced by that same, damned war. Does MajorHamilton really want to trust the same cr...

Blair's Choice of Nuclear Power

OUR prime minister has an uncanny knack in being "right" about so many things: the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and on the need to invade and bomb Islamic countries in the Middle East to bring freedom and democracy to their people, leaving the world to contemplate the resultant anarchy. He has then moved to arm the police, and tried to allow the police to imprison people for up to 90 days without charge or trial. Furthermore, he intends to pursue a policy in which educati...

Election of List Msps

SANDRA White has her facts wrong (Letters, November 30). I have never called for a cut in the number of MSPs. I have called for an amendment to the Scotland Act to prevent Holyrood candidates standing in a constituency and on a party list at the same time.

Little Loch

Jocelyn Brando Actress and Older Sister of Marlon

JOCELYN Brando, whose acting career briefly rivalled that of her younger brother on Broadway and in Hollywood, has died at her home in California, aged 86. She was five years older than Marlon and encouraged him to become an actor. In 1948, while Marlon was appearing on Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire, she was co-starring with Henry Fonda in Mister Roberts.

Tony Meehan

TONY Meehan, the original drummer of the Shadows, who helped to give the group its distinctive sound, has died at the age of 62. Meehan, pictured left behind Sir Cliff Richard in 1963, who played on all the group's early hits, died at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, after an accident at his home.

From the Herald Archives

25 YEARS AGO BRITAIN is at the bottom of the pay league of all industrial nations, according to a report on hourly paid workers by an American bank. Labour MPs, who see the Citibank report as repudiation of government claims that workers are paid too much, are to mount a Commons attack on the prime minister and chancellor. The report says that last year Britain was last in the table of industrialised countries, paying an average of GBP2.47 an hour in manufacturing industry. 50 YEARS AGO AFFOR...

Well-Worn Stereotypes Prove the Tv Cook Needs Humane Killing Review

River Cottage Road Trip Channel 4, 8.00pm

Billboard

Bach to the future AS any listener to the British Broadcasting Corporation's Third Programme must now surely be aware, Auntie is having a A Bach Christmas, with everything Johann Sebastian wrote having an airing between Friday, December 16, and Christmas Day.

We Must Not Be a Party to the Torture

WHEN President George Bush, senior, was too busy with the Gulf war to attend the funeral of a foreign head of state, he dispatched three former US presidents - Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon - to represent him. When a photograph of the three men, standing on the stairway up to the aircraft, appeared in the American media, the wickedly funny Senator Robert Dole memorably described the scene as "Hear no evil", "See no evil", and "Evil". Keep that image in mind, please, as we refle...

Your Next Challenge, Jack, Is to Win Over Westminster

THE new era began for Jack McConnell with D-Day's 60th anniversary - a hard landing, even by his standards. It was a low point, but also a new start. Now 18 months behind him, and in light of this week's reflections on St Andrew's Day, it is acknowledged as a mistake, but it was also a valuable lesson and a substantial shift in devolution's evolution. The calculation that the first minister should leave foreign policy, defence and Second World War graves to the Whitehall authorities whose tur...

The Diary

Freudian theory SIR Clement Freud yesterday received an honorary law degree from St Andrews University, having formerly been its rector. During his rectorial election campaign, Sir Clement responded to a heckler who accused him of being "far too old". Then a sprightly 78, Sir Clement hit backwith a statement evidently drawn from his many years of political pledge-making. If elected, Sir Clement languidly said, he would promise not to remain 78 for a moment longer than was strictly necessary.

Theatre the Rubenstein Kiss, Hampstead, London the Rubenstein Kiss, Hampstead, London 4/5

BASED on the life and trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg who made landmark history as the last American citizens to be executed for spying, James Phillips's fictionalised drama is a powerful account of inheritance and the legacy of idealism. The Rosenbergs went to their death ultimately forwhat they believed was even more important than their own lives: the idea of a betterworld. Phillips, a 25-year-old British playwright - this is his first play though he's worked variously at the Almeida, ...

Theatre Sunday in the Park with George, Chocolate Factory, London Sunday in the Park with George, Chocolate Factory, London 4/5

PRODUCERS David Babani and Danielle Tarento are flying high. Last week their two-year-old Chocolate Factory venue picked up the Evening Standard Newcomer of the Year award, as well as previously being nominated for Blanche Marvin's Peter BrookOpen Space Fringe award. Now, this revival of Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Parkwith George looks set to be a furthermould-breaker.

This Is No Ordinary Hand. ; This Is the Most Amazing Football Pitch You've Ever Seen Clark Steven Is Deaf and Blind but Thanks to a Revolutionary System, He Is a Celtic Season Ticket Holder and Doesn't Miss a Single Piece of the Action. Clark Steven Is Deaf and Blind but Thanks to a Revolutionary System, He Is a Celtic Season Ticket Holder and Doesn't Miss a Single Piece of the Action. Eleanor Cowie Explains All

FROM his seat in the middle of the lower tier of the Jock Stein stand at Celtic Park, Clark Steven takes in every home game. Seat LL29 has seen him through many a match and the whole gamut of emotions. Elation, dejection, frustration, anger: Clark has felt them all. He is a devoted fan and one who brings a whole new meaning to the word loyal.