The ''Scottish Standard'' was a weekly

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

newspaper A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as poli ...

, supportive of

Scottish independence Scottish independence (; ) is the idea of Scotland regaining its independence and once again becoming a sovereign state, independent from the United Kingdom. The term Scottish independence refers to the political movement that is campaignin ...

. It was launched on 9 March 2005 with a 48-page issue in full-colour that was on sale for 70p. Seven issues were published in all. The intention of the paper was to provide a middle-market tabloid for the section of the Scottish public that support independence.

Alex Salmond Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond ( ; 31 December 1954 – 12 October 2024) was a Scottish politician who served as First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014. A prominent figure in the Scottish nationalist movement, he was Leader of the Sc ...

, leader of the

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic party. The party holds 61 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, and holds 9 out of the 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, ...

, wrote a column for the paper, as did other Scottish political figures supportive of independence, including Colin Fox of the

Scottish Socialist Party The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) is a Left-wing politics, left-wing political party campaigning for the establishment of an Scottish independence, independent Socialism, socialist Scottish Scottish republicanism, republic. The party was fou ...

. It was published in Paisley. It was edited by Alex MacLeod and financed by the

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

-based Flagship Media Group. The paper had a modest circulation of between 6,000 and 12,000 copies, which was too low to sustain the

journalists A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

, sales and administration staff who at launch totalled approximately 38. The failure of the title may have been due to its lack of any real promotion; the only notable attempt was a ten-second advert on

Scottish Television Scottish Television (now legally known as STV Central Limited) is the ITV (TV network), ITV network franchisee for Central Belt, Central Scotland. The channel — the largest of the three ITV franchises in Scotland — has been in operation si ...

and

Grampian Television Grampian Television was the original name of the Channel 3 service for the north of Scotland founded in 1961 and which, decades later, was merged with the Central Belt channel STV. The northern region's coverage area includes the Northern Isle ...

the night before the paper launched. Equally, if not more so, it suffered from distribution problems, with RS McColl being one of the few larger chains to carry it.

References

Scottish Standard Scottish Standard Defunct newspapers published in the United Kingdom {{Scotland-newspaper-stub

See also

References