Kenneth Roy was born and brought up in Falkirk, Scotland. After ten years working as an anchorman in BBC TV News and Current Affairs he became a critic and columnist in the print media, notably Scotland on Sunday and the Observer. He founded the Institute of Contemporary Scotland in 2000; was editor and now columnist of online campaigning journal the Scottish Review; and is chair of the Young Scotland programme, which encourages debate and exchange of ideas among young adults in Scotland. The first volume of his history of modern Scotland, The Invisible Spirit, came out in 2013