IT MUST be summer. Robin Harper has swapped his trademark Dr Who rainbow scarf for an equally colourful tie. The leader of the Scottish Greens picked up the woolly scarf in a shop in Stockbridge in the 1970s and has

TONY Blair buried the more than decade-old hatchet with Gordon Brown yesterday by finally giving the Chancellor endorsement as his successor.

AS IN every election campaign, this year's Holyrood contest will bring to an end some political careers and act as the springboard for others.

LABOUR has no "divine right" to govern Scotland, Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, declared yesterday as Tony Blair and Jack McConnell launched a final assault on the Nationalists with apocalyptic warnings over the dangers of independence.

ALEX Salmond has retained his lead over Jack McConnell in the battle for Holyrood - but it is down to a wafer-thin margin.

A TINY piece of land on the most northerly point of mainland Britain is to be auctioned off.

UNION officials are demanding a meeting with health bosses after a convicted rapist was given a job at a hospital.

A TEENAGER was jailed for more than two years in Edinburgh yesterday for ferrying £35,000 worth of heroin and cocaine to Aberdeen.

A 13-YEAR-OLD boy has been charged with attempting to murder another teenager at a children's home.

CELTIC footballer Derek Riordan appeared in court charged with assaulting two bar staff at an Edinburgh pub hours after an Old Firm game.

THE wreck of the Bourbon Dolphin is unlikely to be raised, according to the vessel's

POLICE wildlife crime officers were yesterday investigating the discovery of the body of a protected buzzard, killed by a shotgun, on a farm near Montrose.

A 19TH-CENTURY report, often called Scotland's Domesday Book, has gone online for the first time.

UNION chiefs said an estimated 30,000 workers in Scotland joined a second UK-wide civil service strike yesterday - warning of more stoppages unless the dispute is resolved.

AN ACRIMONIOUS split has developed in the company set up following Scotland's largest community buy-out, with two leading directors resigning in protest.

A DRIVER who killed his friend in a high-speed car crash after consuming a huge amount of alcohol was jailed for five years and seven months yesterday.

A THREE-year-old girl died yesterday after accidentally hanging herself at a swing in a children's playpark.

A WHEELCHAIR-bound woman last night spoke of the moment she was sexually assaulted in her own home by a man posing as a doctor.

AS POLITICAL mantras go, it has stuck well. "Education, education, education" is simple, memorable - and recyclable. Ten years after Tony Blair came into power with the triple-whammy ringing in our ears, Jack McConnell has brought it out again.