13 h. ago John Swinney slams Nigel Farage’s remarks on Glasgow schoolchildren as 'racist'

John Swinney condemned Nigel Farage after the Reform UK leader claimed one in three Glasgow schoolchildren do not speak English as a first language, calling the remarks “simply racist”.

Politics

63 h. ago One in three schoolchildren in Britain's asylum capital of Glasgow don't speak English as their first language, figures show amid fears city can't cope with more arrivals

Scottish Government figures show 28.8 per cent of students in Glasgow speak English as an additional language (EAL).

Events

3 d. ago Netflix film watched 103 million times returns with huge sequel

The film outing proved to be Netflix's biggest non-English language movie and was watched by millions

Politics

9 d. ago Reform’s ‘Trumpian’ legal threats hint at more aggressive approach to media

Ultimatums sent to publications appear to intensify as Nigel Farage’s party rises in polls“It was Trumpian,” said Mark Mansfield, editor and CEO of Nation.Cymru, a small English-language Welsh news service. “It has perhaps given us a flavour of how a Reform UK government would behave towards the media.”Mansfield is referring to what he described as an attempt by a figure at Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party to “bully” his publication, but he believes a wider lesson might be learned. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago I was so scared of driving I'd have panic attacks at the wheel. Here's how I beat the phobia

I didn't need a psychology degree to figure out that the roots of my fear lay in the trauma of seeing my eight-year-old sister knocked down and killed by a car when I was nine, writes HELEN CARROLL.

Events

2 w. ago My kids start sentences in one language and end in another. I hope school doesn’t shrink their joyous, noisy worlds | Shadi Khan Saif

Maybe there’s room for something gentler: letting children know they don’t need to change any part of themselves to belongMost mornings in our house feel like a friendly little language carnival spinning through the kitchen. Before the kids even put on their shoes for school, they’ve already cycled through three languages – joking in Hindi, arguing in Pashto and sprinkling English on top like chocolate chips tossed over their cereal.We don’t plan it or rehearse it: it just happens. Pashto is the language of feelings and family business like complaints, alliances, who stole whose pencil, who touched the remote. Hindi came to us through the back door: Bollywood songs and movies playing in the background, cousins in Karachi and the kind of street-style banter the kids pick up from YouTube faster than I can keep track of. And English, of course, is the language that binds the whole day together with school notices, breakfast negotiations, reminders about homework. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Scottish Labour source calls for Keir Starmer and "puppet master" Morgan McSweeney to leave No. 10

Senior party figures fear defeat in the Holyrood election unless there is a change of leadership.

Politics

2 w. ago Icelandic is in danger of dying out because of AI and English

Katrín Jakobsdóttir and her co-author want the 350,000 people who speak the language to fight for its futureIceland’s former prime minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, has said that the Icelandic language could be wiped out in as little as a generation due to the sweeping rise of AI and encroaching English language dominance.Katrín, who stood down as prime minister last year to run for president after seven years in office, said Iceland was undergoing “radical” change when it came to language use. More people are reading and speaking English, and fewer are reading in Icelandic, a trend she says is being exacerbated by the way language models are trained. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago Brits are shunning Dubai to move to beautiful island just three hours away from UK

Brits are flocking to a sun-kissed Mediterranean destination where one of the official languages is English, enticed by the incredible weather and favourable tax policies

Politics

4 w. ago Top Tory Susan Hall faces backlash after suggesting some hate crime victims need to 'toughen up'

Stop mollycoddling people and teach them life skills to cope with abuse, suggests Conservative leader at City Hall

Events

4 w. ago Voices: ‘I can’t follow a conversation’: Readers lament Americanisms creeping into British English

Our community are divided over whether the spread of Americanisms among British children marks the decline of traditional English or simply reflects the language’s natural evolution through global media influence

Politics

4 w. ago I miss the days before people like me were looked on with suspicion in the streets of Amsterdam | Jamal Mahjoub

Geert Wilders is out of power but his rhetoric is entrenched. Even Dutch liberals show little interest in the contribution of migrantsThe neighbourhood where I live in west Amsterdam is one of the most vibrantly diverse in the city, inhabited by people from every corner of the globe. Some are new arrivals, others are descended from parents and grandparents who came here 30 or more years ago. In the shopping mall I hear Arabic and Turkish along with Dutch, English and a smattering of other languages that I cannot readily identify. The market square is crowded with stalls selling all manner of vegetables, fish and spices, along with hijabs and abayas. The vendors call out in a mixture of Dutch and Arabic. My butcher addresses me as Abi – Turkish for “older brother” – even though he knows I am not from Turkey.There is a sense that we are all in this together, and it is up to us to make the most of it. I see patrols of concerned neighbours who take it upon themselves to gather up rubbis...

Politics