Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.

The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New Zealand, as well as their previously operated version in Ireland. Sky News is also offered in an international version without the British adverts under the name Sky News International available in Europe and Asia.

Based at a news centre in London, Sky News started broadcasting on 5 February 1989 as part of the then four-channel Sky Television service. Sky News provides an hourly news radio service to multiple radio networks in the UK and Ireland. The channel currently has seven UK bases each with their own correspondents, and the channel can also call upon a wide range of resources and global bureaux provided by its parent company News Corporation such as reporters from Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network (its sister news and business channels).

Thomas Adam Babbington Boulton (born 15 February 1959 in Reading, Berkshire) is political editor of the British television channel Sky News, a post he has held since being asked to establish the politics team for the launch of the channel in 1989.

Boulton's father was a doctor but rather than follow him into the medical profession young Adam had an ambition to go into broadcasting. He attended Tower House Preparatory School in south-west London and Westminster School where he took A-levels in English, mathematics, physics and chemistry He then studied at the University of Oxford and Johns Hopkins University where he gained degrees in English and International Relations.

Before joining Sky News, Boulton worked as a journalist in the parliamentary "lobby". He was then political editor for TV-am, where his colleague was Kay Burley who later joined Sky News. It was during the 1987 general election that he was punched by Denis Healey after Anne Diamond asked Healey about his wife using private healthcare; the incident was witnessed by gossip columnist Nigel Dempster.

Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond ( /ˈsæmənd/; born 31 December 1954) is a Scottish politician and current First Minister of Scotland. He became Scotland's fourth First Minister in May 2007. He is the Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), having served as Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Gordon. From 1987 to 2010 he served as Member of Parliament for Banff and Buchan in the UK House of Commons. Salmond previously held the position of leader of the SNP from September 1990 until he stepped down in September 2000.

Originally from Linlithgow, West Lothian, Salmond is a graduate of the University of St Andrews, where he achieved a Joint Honours MA in Economics and History. After earning his degree he began his career in the Government Economic Service (GES), and later joined the Royal Bank of Scotland as an energy economist where he wrote and broadcast extensively for both domestic and international media outlets.

Following the establishment of the devolved Scottish Parliament in 1999, he was elected MSP for Banff and Buchan, thus simultaneously representing the area as both Member of Parliament (MP) and MSP. Salmond resigned as SNP leader in 2000 and did not seek re-election to the Scottish Parliament. He did however retain his Westminster seat in the 2001 general election. Salmond was once again elected SNP leader in 2004 and the following year held his Banff and Buchan seat in the 2005 general election. In 2006 he announced his intention to contest the Gordon constituency in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, an election in which Salmond defeated the incumbent MSP and in which nationally, the SNP emerged as the largest single party. Salmond was voted First Minister by the Scottish Parliament on 16 May 2007.

Maxwell Frank Clifford (born 6 April 1943) is an English publicist, considered the highest-profile and best-known publicist in the United Kingdom. Although his client range is varied, he is a controversial figure for often representing unpopular clients (such as those accused or convicted of crimes) and acting as an agent to people selling "kiss-and-tell" stories to tabloid newspapers.

A traditional Labour supporter, Clifford openly vowed to bring down the government of John Major because he personally felt that the National Health Service was mismanaged, having dealt with the NHS in attempting to obtain treatment for his daughter, who has juvenile idiopathic arthritis. While he is primarily known for helping to bring damaging allegations to light, he insists that today most of his work is concerned with concealment of stories.

Maxwell Frank Clifford was born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey in 1943. His parents were Frank Clifford, an electrician, and Lilian (née Boffee). Born into a poor family, Clifford was the youngest of four children (eldest sister, two brothers) by nearly 10 years to his next sibling. The family survived their father's regular bouts of unemployment, gambling and alcoholism through handouts from their grandmother and latterly from his sister's employment as PA to the London Vice President of Morgan Guarantee Trust Bank.

George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a British politician, author, journalist, and broadcaster, and the Respect Member of Parliament (MP) for Bradford West. He was previously an MP for the Labour Party, for Glasgow Hillhead and then its successor constituency Glasgow Kelvin from 1987 until 2005. He was expelled from the Labour Party in October 2003 because of his strident public opposition to the Iraq War. He subsequently became a founding member of the left-wing Respect Party, and was elected as the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005. In 2010, Galloway unsuccessfully contested the seat of Poplar and Limehouse, and in 2011 he unsuccessfully contested the Glasgow list for the Scottish Parliament, before being elected as an MP in the Bradford West by-election, 2012.

Galloway is well known for his campaigns in support of the Palestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In the late-1980s Hansard records him delivering a ferocious assault on the Ba'ath regime, and Galloway opposed Saddam's regime until the United States-led Gulf War in 1991. Galloway is known for a visit to Iraq where he met Saddam Hussein, and delivered a speech, which ended in English with the statement "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability." He has always stated that he was addressing the Iraqi people in the speech. Galloway testified to the United States Senate in 2005 over alleged illicit payments from the United Nations' Oil for Food Programme.