Cat Headley

Solicitor, former Labour Scottish Parliamentary candidate, occasional political commentator with STV and BBC Scotland. Vice-chair of These Islands.

[Scottish Fabians @ScottishFabians]

Congratulations to @SoniaAdesara and @AnnelieseDodds ! Annaliese and Sonia will be fantastic Co-Chairs of the @thefabians

[Brian Roy @BrianFrancisRoy]

‘The values my mum and dad taught me were straightforward: dream big, work hard, play by the rules, and never pass by on the other side when someone needs your help.

Those are Scottish values.

And they are Labour values.’

[LBC News Scotland @LBCNewsScot]

A pedestrian who died following a crash in Grangemouth has been named by police as 24 year old Sean McGinley.

[Dr. M.F. Khan @Dr_TheHistories]

About 5000 years ago, a family sat beside a stone hearth in Orkney and arranged their belongings on a stone dresser. The dresser is still there. The hearth is still there. The stones they shaped with their hands are still fitted together, dry-laid without mortar, without cracking, after fifty centuries of Orkney winters. Skara Brae is the oldest surviving domestic settlement in northern Europe, and almost nothing about it has decayed. It is not ruins. It is a home.

The village was buried in a sandstorm around 2500 BCE and stayed buried until a violent storm in 1850 stripped the dunes back and revealed it to an astonished farmer. What the excavations uncovered over the following decades was almost impossible to credit: eight interconnected stone houses, linked by covered passages, each with its own hearth, storage alcoves, box beds defined by stone slabs, and a shelved dresser facing the entrance. Whoever lived here arranged their space with taste and care. They had privacy. They had community. They had, in the stone dresser placed where a modern family might put a television, something they wanted to see the moment they walked in the door.

No one knows exactly who built Skara Brae, what language they spoke, or where they went. We know they built their homes together, shared resources through the connecting passages, and lived here continuously for about 600 years. Older than the Egyptian pyramids. Older than Stonehenge. Built by people whose names we will never know on an island at the edge of the world. The oldest thing about Scotland is not a castle or a clan. It is a hearth, and it is waiting in Orkney.

#drthehistories

[Max Anderson @MaxAnderson]

> be me

> take wife to see machu picchu

> stray cat follows us home, wife wants to keep it

> last week of our trip spent changing hotel rooms every day because cat has fleas

> cat throws up and shits all over me on train back to Cusco. Throw my clothes away b/c cat excrement everywhere

> bribe airline employee to let us take cat on plane back to US. Cat throws up & diarrheas everywhere on plane as well

> get cat home to our apartment in Miami. Cat gets fatter and fatter over coming weeks

> assume it’s just b/c has access to good food for first time

> wake up to strange noises coming from our closet. Cat has multiplied into a 8 cats

> kittens are cute but mama cat is ruthless and keeps stashing kittens in random places in the apartment

> google it, turns out kittens need to eat every 2 hours or they die. Mama cat is trying to off half her litter

> not on my watch

> next few weeks wake up every 2 hours 24/7 to:

>> search apartment to find the kittens stashed under couches / inside shoes / most absurd places

>> weigh each kitten to figure out which ones haven’t eaten

>> hold mama cat down and force her to let the runt kittens eat

>> try to go back to sleep for an hour, then repeat

> all 7 kittens survive but my wife and I go borderline insane from sleep deprivation

> try to get them adopted. No one wants the kittens

> successfully peddle a few off on friends & family. Have to take multiple flights to different cities just to deliver kittens

> 2 yrs later we finally get all the cats out of our lives

2 years of my life I will never get back

I’m also now allergic to cats

NEVER, EVER let a woman in your life pet a stray cat

[Cat Headley @Cat_Headley]

Chef’s kiss, no notes, 5 stars etc etc.

[Guido Fawkes @GuidoFawkes]

EXC: Tim Montgomerie Suspended From Reform https://t.co/AWqvQ9yEwc

[Cat Headley @Cat_Headley]

Currently trapped in the middle of this with 1000s of other motorists. Rural roads getting blocked with unsuitable vehicles seeking diversions and other accidents. Absolute chaos.

[Traffic Scotland @trafficscotland]

@NWTrunkRoads UPDATE❗️⌚️15:35
🛣️#A9 North Of Dunkeld

CLOSED in both directions for collision investigation⛔️

Diversion routes are heavily congested as a result. Details can be found below👇

42 minute delay N/B through diversion❗️
27 minute delay S/B through diversion ❗️

@NWTrunkRoads

[Cat Headley @Cat_Headley]

@trafficscotland @NWTrunkRoads If you are stuck between Pitlochry and Dunkeld (Ballintuig) what is the recommended diversion? Back to Pitlochry?

[Cat Headley @Cat_Headley]

@euanmccolm Finding two other MSPs and 3 out of 37 MPs to give support did not feel like an especially high bar to set for someone who aspired to be leader.

[ALASTAIR CAMPBELL @campbellclaret]

They cannot help themselves. On the one hand they don’t trust the police because they’re ‘the establishment’. On the other when it suits them they invent advice and say it has to be followed because the cops are the cops. If we don’t want Trumpism in the UK make sure these charlatans never get near real power’

[Douglas Alexander @D_G_Alexander]

In the too often post truth, post trust information ecosystem of 2026 it’s worth remembering that our nation birthed the Scottish enlightenment. Our own history teaches us that facts matter.

Here’s a valuable explainer on yesterday’s GERS figures rooted in a respect for facts.

[Ryan Shorthouse @RyanShorthouse]

Why on earth should @andyburnham call an early election?

He’s got a massive majority. He has three years until the next one has to happen.

He’s got three years to make a substantial and positive difference on matters voters care about. Get stuck in and get on with it.

You’d only call an early election if you don’t believe what you’re doing would really change the country and, as a consequence, voter confidence in you.

People who think he should call an early election see politics through the prism of positioning not policy, buoyed on by journalists and pollsters who benefit from it.

[Cat Headley @Cat_Headley]

@JournoStephen This feels very 2011.

[Daniel Johnson MSP @DJforEdS]

This is not what happened at the meeting. You can listen to me or someone who is hiding behind a cloak of anonymity.

"This assertion is not only untrue, it is an irresponsible attempt to exploit a very sensitive employment situation in light of reduced short money following the Scottish elections. It also shows a complete lack of understanding of employment law.

“Labour MSPs are collective employers of these vital and important staff members.

“Whoever is briefing this is not only not telling the truth, they are not upholding their responsibilities as an employer.”

https://t.co/kvwYddG7vu

[cinesthetic. @TheCinesthetic]

THE WIRE (2002) was nearly cancelled after almost every season.

Its ratings were modest, but HBO kept bringing it back as critics continued calling it one of the greatest television shows ever made.

[Kevin Schofield @KevinASchofield]

A real own goal by Kemi Badenoch

[Cat Headley @Cat_Headley]

@CatrionaStewart @alasdair_clark He did,however, provide amusement when we put bluebottles in his tank which we would jump around to catch.

[BBC Sport @BBCSport]

Archie Goodburn has made an emotional plea to the prime minister.

The Scottish 50m breaststroke record holder was diagnosed with brain cancer two years ago.