Jill Chisholm writes: Kirsty Milne, who has died of cancer at the age of 49, was a political columnist and then associate editor of this magazine through the eventful 1990s. Those of us who remember her do so with respect bordering on awe.
At the New Statesman, we try to approach the issues we address with intelligence, flair and rigour. However, we are well aware that in this ambition we sometimes fall short. Kirsty will live on in our minds as someone who never did.
Whatever she wrote was economically and vividly expressed. Often it was enlivened by caustic wit. It was always rooted in a comprehensive grasp of the facts. The careful judgements on which it depended were never swayed by personal prejudice, ideological bias or the conventional wisdom of the day.
Kirsty was lured away from us by the arrival of devolution in her beloved homeland. At the Scotsman, where she exercised the skills we had so admired in her as a columnist and leader writer, she became an acclaimed chronicler of Holyrood’s birth and infancy, before leaving journalism for academia.
We shall not easily forget her. In so far as we manage to emulate her, we shall be giving her the tribute she richly deserves.
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