Tributes paid to ‘trailblazer' academic Sir Geoff Palmer after death aged 85
The professor was long associated with Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, serving as chancellor and professor emeritus for many years.
He was also a prominent public figure in other fields, recently reviewing the legacy of slavery and colonialism in the Scottish capital.
The university hailed him as a 'trailblazer and inspiration within higher education and in wider society', while Labour MSP Foysol Choudhury described him as a 'courageous voice for justice and equality'.
Sir Geoff died on Wednesday. He is survived by his wife Margaret, their three children, and grandchildren.
Born in Jamaica in 1940, he moved to London aged 14 as part of the Windrush generation.
He came to Edinburgh in the 1960s, where he completed a Phd in grain science and technology. His developments in the field went on to be adopted by some of the largest breweries in the UK.
In 1989 he became Scotland's first black professor as he began a teaching role at Heriot-Watt which continued until 2005.
Sir Geoff returned to the institution as a professor emeritus and later as chancellor in 2021.
He was knighted in 2014 for services to human rights, science and charity, and last year he was appointed to the Order of the Thistle, Scotland's greatest order of chivalry.
As well as being a scientist, Sir Geoff was an outspoken advocate of human rights and racial equality.
He wrote several articles and books exploring these topics and pushed for education around Scotland's past roles in colonialism and slavery.
In response to the Black Lives Matter movement, City of Edinburgh Council commissioned an independent review group to examine its historic links with slavery in the public realm.
Sir Geoff led the group and his report made 10 recommendations, including ordering a 'significant' new public artwork and 're-presenting' buildings and places which have historic links to slavery.
In 2022 he successfully campaigned for a plaque at the Court of Session commemorating the 1778 judgment of Knight v Wedderburn, which established that Scots law would not support slavery.
He told the PA news agency at the time the plaque meant a 'tremendous amount' to him.
Despite his years-long efforts to address racism, Sir Geoff did not advocate for the removal of statues and building names associated with historic slave owners and those connected to the trade, such as Viscount Dundas.
He said: 'If you remove the evidence, you remove the deed.'
Richard A Williams, principal of Heriot-Watt, led tributes to Sir Geoff. He said: 'Today marks a sad day for this university and for everyone who knew Sir Geoff.
'He was an inspiration not just to me but to colleagues past and present, and countless students around the world. His infectious enthusiasm and passion for education was impossible to ignore and this university was all the richer for having such a strong association with him over the years.
'He will be dearly missed, and our thoughts are with his loved ones at this difficult time.'
MSP Mr Choudhury said he was 'deeply saddened' at the news.
He wrote on social media: 'He was not only a distinguished scientist and academic, but also a courageous voice for justice and equality.
'My sincere condolences to his family and all who knew and admired him. May his soul rest in peace.'
Scottish First Minister John Swinney said: 'Sir Geoff Palmer was a pioneer and an outstanding intellectual.
'He had a hugely positive impact on Scotland and will be sorely missed. My sympathy to his family.'
Scotland Office minister and Midlothian MP Kirsty McNeill described Sir Geoff as 'an innovator, campaigner and educator', adding: 'We were lucky to have someone of his extraordinary warmth and breadth of interest in Midlothian.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
Game shooting on Scottish estates ‘saves NHS millions'
Game shooting on Scotland's estates is 'saving the NHS millions of pounds', a Scottish Government-sanctioned report claims. The British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) has found that Scotland's shooting sector delivers more than £246 million in benefits to the Scottish economy. That includes a saving of £4.6 million in public health for the NHS and local authorities in improved mental and physical wellbeing and air quality, the organisation believes. Peter Clark, BASC Scotland director, said shooting-related land management delivers 'measurable environmental returns' by helping ensure 'healthy rural communities'. Mr Clark added: 'The report reinforces the shooting community 's essential role in habitat conservation, environmental protection and the responsible care and management of Scotland's natural environment, directly complementing the Scottish Government's climate and nature restoration priorities.' The report considers the environmental and public goods generated through land management for shooting at Scotland's popular hunting estates. Its findings show woodland and peatland management generates £120.5 million in carbon sequestration; £92.4 million in recreational access to the countryside; and £29.3 million through game meat and crop protection. Jim Fairlie, Scotland's minister for agriculture and connectivity, attended the launch of the report. He said: 'This is an important piece of work that shows that shooting contributes more than £246 million in natural capital benefits to the people of Scotland every year.' The MSP also told attendees: 'When it comes to natural capital, and investment in restoring and protecting Scotland's natural environment, it is essential that we are able to tackle the nature and climate emergencies at pace and the scale required. If we don't do that, then we're going to fall behind.' Mr Fairlie also highlighted the importance of responsible private investment. He said: 'That investment must support nature, climate action and our communities. That's why we've developed the Scottish Natural Capital Market Framework; it sets out clear principles for responsible investment. 'It ensures investment is high integrity, guards against greenwashing and recognises the intrinsic value of our natural assets.' However, the Nationalist administration has come under fire from its former coalition partners the Scottish Greens. Ross Greer, the Scottish Greens finance spokesman, said: 'The barbaric murder of helpless animals by the ultra-rich isn't something the Scottish Government should be celebrating. It's cruel, outdated and should be banned. 'Shooting estates take up an unbelievable amount of Scotland's rural land. They are mostly owned by a motley collection of aristocrats, billionaires, tax avoiders and Tory MSPs. 'Regardless of the slick propaganda their lobbyists produce, the real evidence shows that these estates are devastating for the environment and for Scotland's iconic native species, like mountain hares and birds of prey.' Mr Greer went on to say that rural estates 'take advantage' of tax breaks designed for small businesses, taking money from the public purse. He added: 'The public are being forced to subsidise the ultra-wealthy's desire to kill animals for fun, all while SNP ministers sadly cheer them on. 'Small-scale farmers and crofters play an invaluable role in our country's food production and in their local communities, we must ensure that they are properly supported to create sustainable businesses and jobs, but taxpayer funding is instead going to these super-rich playgrounds. 'Vital Scotland's land delivers' Scottish Labour said the work highlighted in the BASC report was to be 'welcomed'. Rhoda Grant, the party's rural affairs spokesman, said: 'It is vital that Scotland's land is used in a way that delivers for our country. 'Game sports have long played a role in rural Scotland, and the work being done to improve biodiversity and help meet our climate goals is to be welcomed. 'It is important that all shooting is appropriately licensed and managed in a sustainable way that delivers real benefits to rural communities and the country as a whole.'
Times
2 hours ago
- Times
Swinney has blown our chances of a payoff for all those turbines
Lesley Riddoch is fed up. Granted, this is not an unusual condition for the independence-supporting columnist and promoter of all things Nordic. But it is not hard to understand why she's upset that there was scarcely a murmur of discontent from the Scottish government last week after Ed Miliband scrapped zonal energy pricing. 'Where's the outcry from the SNP or Greens?' she asked, plaintively. What was so wrong about Scots getting cheaper bills? How could John Swinney have missed this opportunity to demand that Scots get direct benefit from Scotland's wind? Surely this was a slam dunk for a nationalist party which always claims that Scots were robbed of the last energy bonanza in the North Sea. Zonal pricing is the idea, promoted by Greg Jackson of Octopus Energy and backed by Jonathan Brearley of the regulator Ofgem, that electricity prices in Scotland should reflect its contribution to addressing climate change. All those wind farms in the North Sea and the towering turbines now gracing Scotland's hills are supposed to deliver cheap-as-chips energy. But Scottish bills have continued to rise, plunging around a million Scots into fuel poverty. • Rejection of postcode electricity pricing pleases energy bosses Yet Scotland could enjoy 'the cheapest energy costs in Europe', according to Jackson, if the UK government introduced zonal pricing. The cost of electricity, he says, should reflect the cost of producing and transporting it. In the past, location didn't matter much because power for the electricity grid was generated by coal, gas and nuclear plants which were dispersed across the country. But with renewable energy generated in the North Sea, location very much does matter. It is expensive to transport the electricity produced by Scottish wind farms to the south of England, where most of it is used. Huge infrastructure projects are necessary to drag the reluctant electrons five hundred miles through cables and interconnections. A lot of energy is lost on the way through heat and leakage. Allowing energy costs to fall in areas where it is generated should be more energy-efficient. More importantly, it might encourage energy-intensive industries to come to Scotland. Those footloose data centres and artificial intelligence companies, with their insatiable demand for energy, could locate in Scotland to take advantage of lower energy costs. Given the chronic overconcentration of economic activity in the south of England, this is not such a daft idea. At any rate, you'd think that this is something that would appeal to Swinney, the first minister, who keeps saying he wants economic growth brought back to Scotland. Scotland was one of the centres of the Industrial Revolution largely because of an abundance of coal and other raw materials. That's why the Clyde could build a fifth of world shipping before the First World War and mills such as Ravenscraig could later turn out miles of sheet metal for the motor industry. The days of coal are over, of course, and Westminster has passed a death sentence on the Scottish oil and gas industry. So surely Scotland would have a case for demanding that the new industries of the digital age should be located where energy is abundant. Of course, zonal pricing might have had awkward trade-offs. If Scots paid less for their energy, English consumers would presumably have to pay more. Yet it would not be a massive imposition for the 65 million consumers who don't live in Scotland to finance a couple of hundred quid off the bills of the five million who do. The main reason Swinney has been reluctant to campaign for zonal pricing is that the big energy companies, most notably SSE and Scottish Power, are firmly against it. These largely foreign-owned behemoths have a material interest in the status quo. They are compensated generously by a panoply of schemes such as contracts for difference, which effectively guarantee that the profits from renewable energy are never less than the profits they make from gas. At least a quarter of domestic energy bills go toward subsidies for renewables. They claim that they would not be able to finance new wind farms if differential pricing undermined profitability. However, the energy companies also benefit directly from the mismatch between where energy is generated and where it is used. Last year they earned nearly £2.7 billion in constraint payments, largely for turning their windmills off when they generated too much energy for the grid to accommodate. A quarter of Scotland's potential was switched off last year. Well, there seems an obvious solution to that. Even more obvious is surely the propaganda benefit to a nationalist government of a situation where Scottish wind energy was actually being wasted. Moreover, communities are already being compensated for proximity to wind farms, albeit in a very limited way. RES, a renewables development company, has been setting up local energy discount schemes (LEDs) across the country since 2012. Properties near Glenchamber Wind Farm in Dumfries and Galloway can apply for a £200 discount on electricity bills. So zonal pricing is actually happening — just not at scale. And even as Miliband killed the idea of zonal pricing, he promised zonal compensation for communities facing wind farm development. There will have to be, he said, 'direct community benefits'. Perhaps it is not feasible to disaggregate the National Grid to create zonal pricing. There is a democratic argument that energy costs should be the same across the UK. But given that so much of the cost of renewables is covered by subsidies, surely this could be re-engineered to allow Scottish homes and businesses to benefit from all that wind. UK energy policy is anyway riddled with anomalies, waste and unfairness. Miliband is using punitive taxation to accelerate the collapse of Scotland's oil and gas industry. The promise of a bonanza of green jobs has been as false as Labour's promise to cut energy bills by £300. If zonal pricing isn't feasible, then what would be a sensible way of compensating Scots for the disruption to their environment and their selfless contribution to saving the planet? And why isn't the Scottish government arguing for it? For once, there is good reason here to play the Scottish card. Instead of meekly acquiescing in the diktat of the renewable energy cartel, the Scottish government should be holding Miliband's feet to the fire and making sure the dash for renewables doesn't leave Scotland on the sidelines. As Riddoch says: 'Why the heck not?'
Telegraph
4 hours ago
- Telegraph
An institutional intifada is coming to crush a Reform government
In England's fractured five-party system – featuring Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, Reform and the Green/Islamist/far-Left movement – a hung Parliament is certain sooner or later, in any event. Especially once Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are factored in, with their nationalists and unionists. This explains why Labour is likely to form a new government after the next election – even if it exhausts its stupendous parliamentary majority, the second largest since World War Two, in much the same way that it is exhausting the nation's finances. For in a hung Parliament, one must have allies. And Labour has more potential partners than anyone else: the Liberal Democrats, the Scottish Nationalists, Plaid Cymru, Northern Ireland nationalists, Greens and Islamists. None of these may want to join a coalition government with Labour if one is offered. But they will surely be even more unwilling to form one with parties of the Right. Meanwhile, the Conservatives and Reform would have only – a few Ulster unionists apart – each other as potential partners, if one assumes that the Liberal Democrats won't work with either. Which would be bigger? Perhaps by the next election the party of which I'm a member, the Conservatives, will once again be the main party of the Right – especially in the event of a crash in the markets that leaves other parties, with their promises of higher spending and lower taxes, over-promised and under-prepared. But as I write, it looks unlikely. It is no longer absurd to imagine Reform as the larger of the two Right-wing parties in parliament. What would happen next? Perhaps Nigel Farage would offer the disorientated Tories a coalition, and so swallow up whatever was left of them. For what it's worth, I would prefer a confidence and supply arrangement – partly because I'm a convinced Conservative, even in these unpromising circumstances, and partly because I'm not convinced by Reform. But regardless of our party political preferences, we should want a future Reform administration to succeed: all of us, because it is in our interest for government to work, and Conservatives in particular, because – as conservatives with a small C as well as a large one – a legitimate Right-wing party should be preferable to a legitimate Left-wing one. But if parties with experience, like the Conservatives and Labour, find it hard to govern, one without it, like Reform, would find it next to impossible. Here are three illustrations. On day one, the new Reform administration instructs the Royal Navy to return small boats containing illegal migrants to France as they cross the Channel. Naval officers refuse, asserting that the French will refuse to accept the returns, that there is a risk that migrants will scupper their boats, and that in these circumstances refusing to take them to Britain would breach international law. On day five, Reform's new Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a businessman with no political experience, is accused of bullying civil servants. Downing Street's Propriety and Ethics unit steps in. Staffed by civil servants and based in the Cabinet Office, the unit has a formidable reputation. It helped to investigate Nadhim Zahawi, Priti Patel, Dominic Raab and Chris Pincher under the last government. All were forced out, rightly or wrongly. On day 10, the new Reform home secretary, like Suella Braverman, demands that the Progress flag, which represents the LGBTQ+ cause, no longer be flown above the Home Office. He has no more luck than Braverman, who said later: 'I couldn't even get the flag of a horrible political campaign I disagreed with taken down from the roof of the government department I was supposed to be in charge of.' There is a fashion on the Right for blaming a 'blob' of unaccountable quangocrats, activist judges, politicised civil servants and outdated international agreements for intensifying Britain's problems. Some Labour MPs, since their party took office, have overlapping complaints. Both underplay the main source of the problem: a House of Commons that is no longer providing enough effective, coherent legislation and efficient, commanding ministers. But regardless of one's view of the matter, there can be no doubt that a Reform government would be seen, in some corners of Westminster and Whitehall, as illegitimate. And would be met from day one by an institutional intifada. My impression is that those at the top of Reform think of themselves as Big Men with Strong Views. They certainly have the latter – hence the falling out of Farage and Rupert Lowe. And maybe, in government, they would prove themselves the former. Perhaps a Reform government would beat establishment resistance to a pulp (metaphorically, not literally). But as matters stand, it looks like Reform that's cruising for a bruising – if it ever makes government at all. Getting the system to work takes time even if it likes the look of you. Tony Blair complained of 'scars on my back' after trying to reform the public sector. The Civil Service came to terms with Margaret Thatcher only in her second term. Before she won her first election, John Hoskyns, a businessman, devised a plan for government to tackle the problems of the day: inflation, trade union militancy, decline. It was called Stepping Stones. If Farage is to follow in her footsteps, he needs a modern equivalent: a strategic plan for getting his most radical measures – leaving the ECHR, abandoning the net zero targets, scrapping the Equality Act – through Parliament (where they would meet particular resistance in the Lords) in order to ensure that they gain the democratic legitimacy to which the courts would bow. During the 1980s, the key question was what a new Right-wing government should do. Today, it's how to do it. Are the Big Men thinking big enough?
