The Herald’s Colonist of the Year, Kevin McKenna has been in hyperdrive recently with explicit but moronic attacks on the SNP. The one above and six below are only recent examples from a set of more than a hundred going back to before 2014. A man once admired at the Guardian is now a figure of disgust among those decent democrats, now more than 50% of the electorate, and presumably at least that of those who used to take the Herald.
Their business model, allowing McKenna and others such as Williams a regular slot and with occasional appearances by the dread Wilson and Dalgety, risks a future comparable to that of the Orcs in Lord of the Rings. The token appearances of McConnell (not Jack) and this from Neil Mackay, will not save it.
You have to wonder if it now depends on UK state funding and is a sad loss-leader for the Union.
Look at theses below:
Grok AI – How many articles in the Herald has Kevin McKenna written hostile to the SNP since 2014?
Search results turn up large numbers of strongly worded pieces with titles or framing such as “taken for a ride,” “conned,” “hostile place for Scotland’s Catholics,” “gravy train,” “enemies of independence,” “menace,” “major obstacle,” etc. These appear regularly across 2019–2026.
A realistic range for pieces that can reasonably be described as hostile or strongly critical of the SNP since 2014 is roughly 80–150+, depending on how strictly you define “hostile.” The large majority of these date from about 2019/2020 onwards, when his criticism became a sustained theme rather than occasional policy disagreement. The last 5–6 years alone account for dozens of clear attack columns.
An exact number would require a full internal Herald archive search or manual review of every column—something that is not publicly available. The pattern, however, is unambiguous: after an earlier period of qualified support for independence, McKenna has spent most of the post-2018 period writing as a consistent and often scathing critic of the SNP.
Not my words, what AI found out there so a lot more trustworthy that what I might have done and so, devastating.
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What is it that causes some journalists, politicians and others who have been progressive in their younger years to become nasty, right wing reactionaries?
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He’s certainly been going to extraordinary lengths just to try to communicate a variety of ways , via his columns, on what pretty much amounts to being a constant #SNPBAD message.
It actually seems that he thinks that’s his (only) job at his employer The Herald.
Which is a specific job that he shares with others who also work at The Herald (and same specific job also done by others at other publications too) especially when one considers all of their combined written output as well. (output that is also coincidentally #SNPBAD as well).
The Herald seems to also regard it’s job as being that of the heralder of #SNPBAD pieces (though TBF that, as a position, is not exclusive to just The Herald in media within Scotland).
Liz S
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I think that much of Mr McKenna’s stance stems from his Catholicism which I think is sincere. In aspects of sex and morality his views derive from the same teachings which many of my friends who are Roman Catholics have learned. It is grounded in the values of family life and heterosexuality and, in most cases serves them and the rest of us well. I think a turning point for Mr McKenna arrived in the debate about trans people, self identification and women-only spaces, particularly the latter.
In retrospect, I think that insufficient consideration in the legislation was given to the fears of a significant number of women if someone self identifying as a woman were to have unrestricted use of a women-only space.
It is a good thing that increasing numbers of women are speaking out about the harassments that they, personally, have experienced and continue to experience. It is appalling that so many have suffered in silence for so long.
Yesterday, my wife and I spoke about how our own experiences and attitudes towards gay people and trans people have evolved since we were in secondary school and university in the 1960s to the present day. We agreed that both of us have travelled a long way attitudinally.
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