18th September 2019 Comment How Scotland should be governed
Five years ago today, Scotland went to the polls to decide whether it should become an independent country or remain part of the UK. The ballot was meant to settle the issue for a generation. In practice, however, it appears to be as unresolved as it has ever been. The result of the 2014 referendum […]
5th August 2019 Comment Elections, parties & leaders How Scotland should be governed
In recent weeks and months more than one poll has asked people in Scotland either how they would vote in anther independence referendum should Boris Johnson become Prime Minister or how they would vote in the event that the UK left the EU without a deal. The responses to these hypothetical questions suggested that either […]
1st July 2019 Comment How Scotland should be governed
Twenty years ago today, the Scottish Parliament acquired the legislative powers that it had been granted under the 1998 Scotland Act. The new body, housed temporarily in the Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland at the top of the Mound in Edinburgh, was formally opened by the Queen, and the occasion marked by a […]
6th May 2019 Comment Elections, parties & leaders The Scottish independence referendum
Twenty years ago today, Scots went to the polls to elect their new devolved Scottish Parliament. Although in specifying that the new parliament should be elected by a system of proportional representation Labour had accepted that it might not be able to win an overall majority and might need to share power with the Liberal […]
3rd May 2019 Comment Elections, parties & leaders
Last year Scots Tories had to abandon their annual conference thanks to the ‘Beast from the East’. This year it is political winds from the south that are blowing cold for the party as it gathers this weekend in Aberdeen. In similar vein to the pattern in England and Wales, much of the advance achieved […]
27th April 2019 Comment Elections, parties & leaders How Scotland should be governed
There is, perhaps, likely to be an unspoken hope stalking the corridors of the Edinburgh International Conference Centre where the SNP gather for their spring conference this weekend. It is that, rather than being resolved via a second referendum, the Brexit impasse should eventually precipitate a general election. For, so far as voting intentions for […]
8th March 2019 Comment Elections, parties & leaders
Not so long ago, what happened in Scotland appeared immaterial to the outcome of a UK general election. The country was full of safe Labour seats that seemed unlikely to change hands, while the Conservatives appeared unable to do much more than secure the odd crumb. The prospects for a change in the tenancy of […]
22nd February 2019 Comment Elections, parties & leaders
In truth, until the events of this week at Westminster, the opening salvo of this spring’s Scottish party conferences – the Liberal Democrat gathering this weekend in Hamilton – looked as though it would be a rather uninteresting affair. However, the formation of the new Independent Group of MPs has given the occasion some unexpected […]
22nd January 2019 Comment How Scotland should be governed
The outcome of the EU referendum appeared to represent a political opportunity for the nationalist movement. The majority vote to remain in the EU (by 62% to 38%) was sharply at odds with the outcome across the UK as a whole, and there seemed to be no better illustration of the nationalist argument that, for […]
5th December 2018 Comment Perceptions of government & the Union
Next week’s Scottish Budget (on December 12) will be the third since the Scottish Parliament acquired full responsibility for setting the tax rates and bands in Scotland on earned income, a development that represents one of the most important changes to the devolution settlement since the advent of devolution. While initially the Scottish Government adopted […]
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