A daily newspaper’s former executive editor who still wrote for the newspaper until earlier this year has died aged 75.

Tributes have been paid to Bill Jamieson, who held the role at The Scotsman between 2000 and 2012.

Bill, pictured, continued to write a column for the Edinburgh-based daily until August of this year.

His career accolades include Business Journalist of the Year and overall Journalist of the Year at the 2009 Scottish Press Awards.

His son Alastair, himself a former Scotsman journalist who now works at The Independent, told the paper: “He was a life-long and respected journalist. Covid cruelly stole our final days with him.

“We were only allowed to visit him, for the first time in two weeks, on Friday and he died, alone, in the early hours of Saturday. Like so many, he did not die from coronavirus, but it caused a lot of pain.”

Born in Ayrshire, Bill began his career as a sub-editor on the Merthyr Express, in South Wales and then worked as a business sub-editor on the Western Mail before moving to London in the early 1970s as a business reporter with Thomson Regional Newspapers.

He also worked on the 1986 launch of Britain’s first all-colour newspaper Today and spent seven years as economics editor of the Sunday Telegraph, where he broke the story of the collapse of Barings Bank in 1995.

Ian Stewart, who was editor of The Scotsman until 2017, said: “Bill Jamieson was the most respected and read business commentator in Scotland for many years, and rightly so.

“He knew everyone, and they trusted him because he was a man of integrity, honesty and wisdom. He was a great reader of situations.

“I will never forget him in editorial conferences, accurately predicting the financial crisis about a year before it happened.”

“He was also a great colleague, a reliable sounding board for editorial judgement, and was unfailingly helpful and considerate. He was also a man with a huge sense of fun with a frequent laugh that cheered up the newsroom. He will indeed be sadly missed.”

Former Scotsman editor John McLellan added: “So desperately sad to hear about the passing of Bill Jamieson, a true great of The Scotsman and Scottish journalism with whom it was a joy to work every single day of my time there.”