Xander Elliards
Xander Elliards is the political editor at The National, covering Scottish politics with a tight focus on how power, law and public bodies intersect. His work stands out for its sustained attention to prosecutors, watchdogs and formal processes rather than just party messaging. He combines detailed reporting with regular podcast analysis, giving sustained coverage to stories that test Scotland’s political and institutional accountability.
Scrutiny of prosecutors, watchdogs and the Sturgeon decision
A core strand of Elliards’s coverage is the long-running investigation into SNP finances and the decision not to charge Nicola Sturgeon. He reports closely on how Police Scotland and the Crown Office handle advice and guidance requests, explaining that police sought prosecutorial advice on whether further investigation was needed rather than a prosecution report for embezzlement or fraud.
He sets out the Crown Office view that the choice not to charge Sturgeon was “not marginal or finely balanced” and notes that an independent KC reviewed and backed that conclusion.
His reporting follows institutional actors rather than personalities. He highlights the role of information watchdogs in saying that the decision not to charge the former first minister “merits scrutiny”, and he tracks efforts to obtain more detail on the reasoning behind the prosecutorial outcome.
He returns to this terrain in pieces on Scottish Conservatives pushing law officers to explain why Sturgeon was not charged, drawing attention to what parliamentary questions can and cannot compel from the Crown Office.
Across these stories he explains the limits of formal routes for challenge, from the constraints on parliamentary direction of individual prosecutorial decisions to the narrow scope of victims’ review rights. The emphasis is on procedure, evidential thresholds and oversight mechanisms, which marks his work out from routine political reaction coverage.
Party tactics, Reform UK and political conflict around misinformation
Elliards also covers party manoeuvres and conflicts, with Reform UK a recurring subject. He reports on Reform’s conference in Scotland and the fallout that followed within twenty-four hours, detailing candidate suspensions and the stress it places on the party’s credibility and organisation. His coverage looks at Reform as both a political actor and a newsroom story, noting how rapid developments reshape the work of political desks.
He returns to Reform UK in coverage of immigration-related misinformation at local government level. One article cited by commentators describes how the City of Edinburgh Council felt compelled to publish a detailed rebuttal after the party circulated a divisive and false claim about immigrants, and Elliards’s reporting in that case shows him tracking how official bodies respond to organised disinformation.
His attention to the verification failures behind that claim again links politics to institutional robustness.
Beyond Reform, he writes on party strategy in Scottish Labour and on how other parties respond to the changing landscape. In pieces on whether a new party might emerge or existing parties will “sit on their thumbs”, he ties national debates back to concrete episodes of misinformation, official rebuttal and the credibility costs of copying unverified material from other media.
Government reform, transport policy and interview-led coverage
Interview work is another distinctive part of Elliards’s output. In an exclusive interview with Transport Secretary Stephen Flynn, he explores the future of integrated ticketing on Scottish public transport. He draws out Flynn’s push for a “single ticket – tap on, tap off” system and reports the minister’s desire to see integrated ticketing delivered as quickly as possible, framing transport reform as a central plank of government activity rather than a niche technical issue.
On The National’s podcast and in print, he covers wider government restructuring.
Episodes see him and colleagues unpack John Swinney’s proposals to reduce the number of health boards and create a single ferries agency, treating these administrative changes as major shifts in how the state delivers services. His framing keeps the focus on institutional design and consequences for governance rather than on internal party drama.
Across this policy coverage, he prefers detailed reporting on what ministers intend to change and how those changes would work in practice. Transport, health governance and public service reform are handled as practical questions with political stakes, which aligns with his broader habit of grounding political stories in systems and structures.
Podcast analysis and manifesto-focused explainers
Elliards is a regular voice on The National Podcast, where he moves from straight reporting into on-mic analysis. Episodes pair him with editors and fellow reporters to dissect current rows, budget decisions and institutional reforms, giving listeners a structured walk-through of complex stories.
He uses the format to revisit themes from his writing, such as the balance between media focus on expenses stories and the substance of diplomatic or trade trips.
He also works in explainer formats around elections. In a manifesto special, he sits down with a colleague to compare and contrast the policies put forward by six major parties in a Scottish election campaign.
That discussion breaks manifestos down into specific pledges, weighing how they would play out against existing structures and ongoing reforms rather than treating the documents as campaign theatre alone.
Taken together, his podcast and explainer work show a reporter who stays on the story after the initial headline. He continues to analyse how decisions, manifestos and institutional choices land with voters and within Scotland’s governance framework, keeping legal, procedural and structural detail at the centre of his beat.
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