Queen Elizabeth II will remain head of state of an independent Scotland.

Excellent articlespoiled by this little faux-pas, or was it intentional?

Elizabeth, Queen of Scots.

At last a proper report on the state of politics in Scotland today.

The SNP have shown how Scotland could be run without interference from London. I'm sure a lot of Labour/LibDem MSPs wish they didn't have to tow the Westminster party line.

In the future when Independence is here, these Labour/LibDem MSPs will have a big part to play in the running of Scotland.

Alex Salmond has done a better job than even most nationalists expected. Onwards and upwards.

Good article Iain. It is undoubtedly true that many people who had been considering switching their vote to the SNP changed their minds at the last minute following the sustained anti-SNP onslaught in much of the media. This was typified by the Sun front page on polling day which showed a noose and claimed that by voting SNP you would be putting Scotland's head in it.

The media will not get away with that trick again. The were at that point an unknown quantity in government and therefore people's fears were played upon. Will people seriously have fears the next time about the SNP being in Government? Not on this showing.

Opinion polls even place the SNP ahead for Westminster elections even though they traditionally do worse in those elections. Happy days for the SNP and for Scotland. We now have a party in government whose first priority is Scotland.

A fair summary Iain, but just think where we'll be (the SNP) this time next year.
No maggie brown who lost a vote of confidence by labour MPs after coming third in the English and Welsh local elections.
No wendy who is in jail and the SNP with a majority Government thanks to the by-election wins and defections from other parties.

I look forward to next weeks article already Iain, Merry Christmas to you and yours

if elizabeth acknowledged she was the first queen of britain and the second of england, even now 50 years after this should have been done, then i think it would help continue the monarchy despite the constant opposition to chuck and caramel, who are next in the queue, and will take over as no royal protocol for them to be missed out. talk of passing to the sons is just that, and will not happen.
to the referendum question, do you want charles von battenburg schleswig holstein-saxony-hess

e-bayern munchen in charge with the new other half, i think scotland, even the rangers fans, would vote no in a big way. people revere the queen, as a person, except for a bit of 1997, and i think it is only with her passing that this support of everyone's 2nd favourite granny as their own becomes an issue on royal succession.
i am a republican and even i can see the queen has been good for both scotland and england compared to having another pollie as obersturmfuhrer/pres

ident.
incidentally, what sort of guy was andrew parker-balls in letting his missus be ****** by another officer for 30 years without ditching her. stiff upper lip and all that, but the financial benefits must have been enormous as we never heard a peep out of him.
i thought wimpy was a hamburger until i heard about him.
worth an opinion poll, but who would have the bowles to do it?

"The thinking among the Scottish political classes was that, whatever the polls said, the voters would turn back to Labour on the election eve."

Hmmm a better summary would be
"The consensus among the Scottish political classes was that, whatever the polls said, the
voters must be turned back to Labour on the election eve."

Their behaviour was, with a very few exceptions, a disgrace in a modern democracy.
The scaremongering and lies was breathtaking to observe and still continue. The attempts to damage the Government in the past few days over the Trump project have been just as dishonest, the proponents' Unionist bias appallingly obvious.
Many Scots feel they can't trust their media, indeed at times it almost feels like enemy propaganda.
Maybe Scotland won't be free until the last Unionist supporting journalist is forced to eat the BBC charter before being throttled with the last copy of Daily Record.
Happy Christmas.

andrew parker-balls is the only man to lay down his wife for his country.

Alex Salmond received a backing from Margo MacDonald in the Sunday Post so he must be doing well.

Finally we have a government who will act in Scotlands national interest.This could never happen with London labour in Scotland as their masters reside in the south with an Anglo-centric agenda.
The SNP have been a breath of fresh air in Scottish politics, long may it continue.

Well said Biffa! The occasional SNP-friendly piece by dyed-in-the-wool Unionist journos (as in sheep)does not exonerate them from a multitude of past sins.

biffa, your comments are accurate and have a lot of validity, as does scottish politics. the fact is that whilst 80% of the core snp vote was hard, the balance like other parties was soft, and the lies and deceit and negativity was a sensible approach from alexander.
i actually think labour ran a wonderful campaign, it was clever and negative to the hilt, and the fact they only just lost after the shambles they presided over previously showed how good it was. i also think labour would have won overall had all the votes been counted.
in a brillaint campaign by douglas alexander, except he got too cute and messed up the ballot paper. labour in london know this, and that is why they want more of the same. if you can convince the masses to vote for you when they like someone else more then you are doing well.
i think we can agree the uneducated giro vote that spoiled their ballots was more likely to vote labour than say the tories. (though they should have been used to filling in forms...)
questioning the financial abilities of the snp, throwing in threats of independence jibes and saying every family would be thousands worse off naturally made it hard for wavering voters, particularly the sheep in the west who were successfuly brought back to the fold.
had the campaign continued another week with no sensible media contradiction of the lies even the hard core vote would have felt pressure to return to the party the media obviously craved.
i agree that it would be hard to fight a similar campaign on these lines now, and that policies will have to be produced. a new dimension in scottish politics. a big
problem when the snp are acting as an effective schoolteacher to the unruly pupils in the parliament in edinburgh.
to convert the currently held mentality that ok, we will leave the snp in charge in edinburgh but in london we need to have a british party is a hard one to address. 3years of running the show would help, hence the panic to undermine a work in progress that compares favourably with previuously, as long as salmond is not seen as arrogant and self serving. if serving scotland by being forceful that is acceptable. aspects of the media will suggest that they are one and the same.although corruption and illegalities may help make it slightly easier.
i feel people will not feel "guilty" voting snp in future now they have established some decent economic credentials. the risk factor has been reduced, the snp have been humanised and shown not to be ogres. even the tories agree the front bench is infinitely superior in acumen to the coalition that presided before.
politics now requires people to look at more than a council tax freeze and cheaper prescriptions. positive that these are to most people.
let us see what murray elder and the electoral commission cronyists do on wendy alexander, she is no fool either; that will influence my opinion on whether it is merely the media that are rotten to the core, or scottish political life in general.
2008 will be interesting.

Mrs I P Knightly wrote:
Alex Salmond received a backing from Margo MacDonald in the Sunday Post so he must be doing well.

Really? To think that before 3rd May she publicly proclaimed that she thought Jack MacDonald would be a better First Minster than Alex Salmond.

SNP policy remains a second post-independence referendum on the House of Windsor.An awful lot of the Party's activists will push for its abolition. I certainly will.

It is patently obvious, as has been pointed out, that a Scottish Government acting in the interests of the people of Scotland cannot fail. The SNP is proving to be immensely popular since they answer to no one but the people of Scotland and so far they are doing a great job.

aye Duns but remember Margo is a balloon the most humoured person in Scottish politics but depsite that she is the grimest and most sour faced of all :-)

think of the "humour her line" who else is known by their first name - Margo she almost smiles when in reality any loose cannon with an unusual first name is known the same way -- think Wendy :-)

Great article. At last, an untainted report on the SNP's progress.

Patriot, cool your boots. The clenched fist will get us nowhere.

I am an SNP Councillor in Dumfries and Galloway. This has been one of the most unexpectedly frenatic and enjoyable years of my life. Who, a few years ago would ever have thought that an SNP Government would ever usurp control from Labour! Now , I am so glad of the holidays, because I am exhausted!
I have never felt such a political vibrancy in Scotland, even if it is somewhat guarded. This is an excellent summary of the political landscale in Scotland and accurately reflects the mood of Scots and the Scottish press. Well done!

Those of us that said you were wrong at the time will get no credit. Unfortunately we are still subjected to your unionist invective, though at least you have had the decency to tone it down since you were publicly proved so completely wrong.

It does make one wonder what exactly you are paid for though.

The monkey to Gordon Brown's organ?

does anyone agree with me that we can expect defections in holyrood from the opposition parties to the snp?

The SNP won - and the sky didn't fall down! Would you believe it?

The startling contrast between the eight Labour years of stultifying banality and the nine months of SNP energy, innovation and intellect couldn't be more obvious.

So I'm glad Mr Macwhirter has finally noticed.

Biffa wrote:
"The thinking among the Scottish political classes was that, whatever the polls said, the voters would turn back to Labour on the election eve."

Hmmm a better summary would be
"The consensus among the Scottish political classes was that, whatever the polls said, the
voters must be turned back to Labour on the election eve."

Their behaviour was, with a very few exceptions, a disgrace in a modern democracy.
The scaremongering and lies was breathtaking to observe and still continue. The attempts to damage the Government in the past few days over the Trump project have been just as dishonest, the proponents' Unionist bias appallingly obvious.
Many Scots feel they can't trust their media, indeed at times it almost feels like enemy propaganda.
Maybe Scotland won't be free until the last Unionist supporting journalist is forced to eat the BBC charter before being throttled with the last copy of Daily Record.
Happy Christmas.

In other words put the labour bitchh, witch, harpy, Kirst Wark up against a firing squad.

redcliffe62
Your post verges on the unintelligible. Have you any knowledge of punctuation or grammar. Perhaps your too lazy to write in a coherent manner.

Iain, hmmmm.......you could have said more about all Labour have done in Scotland to drag themselves deeper into the mucky swamps with the illegal funding. You could have mentioned the Stephen antics and the hypocrisy of accusing the SNP of being up to their armpits in sleaze while ignoring utterly the misconduct of Alexander and her dodgy donations and lawbreaking.

I understand that some of you in the media are still in shock since May but sooner or later you must accept what is happening and be at peace with it. It had to come. We are already in a place where we need you and others to scream for Scotland over what they are trying to do over Lockerbie and the Megrahi appeal. I think you will do it, I think Ian Bell will too. Labour want to bury that Iain and you can't let them. The simple truth is if Labour want to bury the truth about Lockerbie then the people of Scotland should finish them completely, and bury them once and for all. You don't have to pick a side you just have to report the news and tell the truth about it.

sanny, fair criticism is ok. maybe i should do a spell/grammar check before sending it. normally prefer to let loose and just shoot from the hip. going back a 2nd time and you tend to clean it up and you lose the sentiments and ht emomentum that you are trying to convey.
or maybe like most of us i am a bit too lazy sometimes.

The SNP are now talking about the "social union" with England remaining, even when Scotland wins political independence. This is a recognition, I believe, that the UK still has a future

You got a bit careless there at the end,Iain. The continuity of social relations with England has been talked about for ages.

You elided England and the UK. I take that to be your familiar dirge about UK federalism pace the libdems. But the SNP (and plenty others) have consistently said that's a no-no; and it doesn't follow at all from the stated premise about social union.

Its also a bit careless that you welcomed the SNP to the modern world at the end, when you praised them hyperbolically at the outset for being the most avant-garde in Europe.

I fairly balanced article but as we see very often the next article in the herald can be less than balanced.

I think at this time of year it is a good to reflect on the last 12 months. It is important for us nationalists not to gloat on what can be universally agreed upon as a good 9 months of governance. It serves us ill to rub salt into labour wounds.

I would hope that labour supporters and the Scottish media would use this time to reflect upon the last year too.

Even the most dyed in the wool labour supporter must acknowledge that the labour-leaning media has served us all and democracy poorly in the last 12 months. The media lied to the Scottish public and utterly twisted their reporting of the news - so much so that it can be viewed as mild anti SNP propoganda. This is not how media behaves in a mature democracy - no if's but's or maybe's.

As nationalists we seek only a level playing field, any person who believes that the Scottish media has acted properly in the last 12 months with regards to their treatment of the SNP has lost sight of the principles that underpin our fair and democratic society.

Not surpsingly many labour supporters have become disenfranchised with the conduct of their party of late. It is quite bizarre that there is ,broadly, consensus across all parts of the Scottish political spectrum in how we tackle Scotlands ills. I believe ,seeing this from afar in Australia, that it shows that we Scots are a highly practicle people. However at the same time our potential to bicker and argue seems almost inexhaustable - this disharmony is fueled by the systemic anti SNP propoganda in the media.

This presents the question - in who's interest is it for the Scottish political class to be locked in petty arguements?

As Scots, no matter your political persuasion, we have far more in common than we have that divides us.

Goodwill and goodhealth to all - here's to a great 2008!

Progressive nationalism is now the most potent political force in Britain.

Jack McConnell, announced that, no, this was a "magnificent result for Labour", and that it was going to be business as usual. With hindsight, this looks like the most monumental arrogance,

It was Alex Salmond's political genius to recognise the opportunity presented by minority government and to build a moral case for it in a series of speeches that will go down in history as definitive statements of the new politics of devolutionary consensus.

Salmond has created a new form of progressive nationalism, unlike anything seen in Europe in the past three decades. The image of nationalism as a backward and narrow-minded political force, preoccupied with ethnicity and hostile to foreigners, has finally been dispelled.

Labour end this annus horribilis in a terrible state, with a leadership crisis and a donations scandal. The new Labour leader, Wendy Alexander, has failed to offer any intellectual challenge to Alex Salmond's populist nationalism, and the party organisation is disintegrating.

The truth is that the SNP were doing a lot of things that Labour MSPs would have liked to do, but couldn't because of the London connection.

For the first time, all the parties in the Scottish parliament are committed to further constitutional change, including taxation.

Easiest post I have ever made.

LoL

Truth at last, truth at last, truth at last.

Join me in raising a glass of whisky to a better Scotland in 2008 - and beyond!

Scotland hasn't got a king and she hasn't got a queen so how can there be a second Liz when the first one's never been.

di in motherwell wrote:
does anyone agree with me that we can expect defections in holyrood from the opposition parties to the snp?

Ihope not.

Its talent we want.

Ratzo Says McWhirter A Fatzo

Its a bit careless you welcomed the SNP to the modern world at the end, when you praised them at the outset for being the most avant-garde in Europe.

Not a contradiction - on the one hand he refers to how others have perceived them, and on the other, how they have governed at first opportunity.

Fellow Nats, I dont think you are being fair to Iain Macwhirter on this article and his history over the last 7 months. Iain is one of a couple of mainstream Journo's who have written landmark articles in the acceptance of a Scottish Nationalist Party Government.To be quite honest MacWhirter pushed aside the line of the Anglo Media to dare come out and praise the leader Alex Salmond and his first class team. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not the historians will identify that particular article as a key turning point.

As far as head of the Scottish State is concerned, lets not confuse what the British State dictated as their role and the thoughts of the Queen herself. That was a mistake I used to make. I transferred my passion for Scottish Independance into revulsion of all things British.

The choice of a head of the Scottish State will come down to a choice between an elected leader, President or a stable Head of State who is neutral in all things, leads me into believing the existing Royal Family is a far better choice.

No one can doubt the Queens ability to contribute to a fairer constitutional protection of the Scottish People. She is a magnificent person who has in fact seen off so many politicians who you can bet she either admired or could not stand. Anyone who detests Maggie Thatcher as much as we Scots do even now, is alright by me.

Elizabeth 1, Queen of Scots could unite us all that much more. There are Scots who have served in the defense of our own Country who did so under the the Queen/Kings. Lets also face the fact that a Queen of Scots would give us a chance at great tourism. Tony Blair and his other arrogant arsehole New Numpties treated her badly because they could not stand someone higher than them.

Merry Christmas Iain,
JOB WELL DONE !

The SNP formed the Scottish Government and I am still waiting for the £5,000 tax hike that they will impose on Scottish families every year.

Biffa wrote "Many Scots feel they can't trust their media, indeed at times it almost feels like enemy propaganda.
Maybe Scotland won't be free until the last Unionist supporting journalist is forced to eat the BBC charter before being throttled with the last copy of Daily Record."

My feelings exactly, however the BBC are being deluged with complaints. And their disingenous and patronising replies are resulting in further complaints. Honest and fair reporting is now all that is necessary - so keep complaining!

Merry Christmas to all!

Iain,

Thank you for your balanced coverage in this newspaper and the Guardian. It seemed at times alone amid the partiality of the North British press in being an independent mind in an independent newspaper rather than being part of the problem.

In that spirit and finding much to agree with as usual in your article, can I draw your attention here:
"Even on the constitution, the Labour Party has now joined with the SNP and the Liberal Democrats and - incredibly - the Tories to campaign via a constitutional convention for more powers for Holyrood."
Scoop or wishful thinking?
Readers will recall the Devolution Review Debate on 6th Dec at Holyrood when the principal parties in majority opposition proposed and carried this motion:
"That the Parliament, recognising mainstream public opinion in Scotland, supports the establishment of an independently chaired commission to review devolution in Scotland; encourages UK Parliamentarians and parties to support this commission also and proposes that the remit of this commission should be:
'To review the provisions of the Scotland Act 1998 in the light of experience and to recommend any changes to the present constitutional arrangements that would enable the Scottish Parliament to better serve the people of Scotland, that would improve the financial accountability of the Scottish Parliament and that would continue to secure the position of Scotland within the United Kingdom.'"
They having first defeated the minority SNP government's amendment:
"to leave out from 'recognising' to end and insert:
'welcomes the Scottish Government's National Conversation which has reinvigorated the debate on Scotland's constitutional future and caused the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties to seek an agreement on more responsibilities for the Scottish Parliament; congratulates those parties on their changed position; believes that independence and equality offer the best future for Scotland, and supports a referendum in this parliamentary term in which the people of Scotland have the right to choose independence, the status quo, or more responsibilities for Scotland.' "

If either scoop or wishful thinking, would that it were so, as an independent Constitutional Commission already exists (http://www.constitu


tionalcommission.org


/). If not, then the Labour, Conservative and LibDem parties are still denying self-determination its full extent whilst dangling the prospect of more cherry picked devolution in Scotland to defuse English voters grievances, stoked by their own dissembling spin amid conflations of narrow discredited nationalism with its entirely legitimate counterpart, and all in the narrow interests of their own Westminster based parties and their similarly self-serving political elites, backers and fellow travellers. And this from one of the most centralised European states we are in - a legacy of two world wars arguably ending when the Berlin wall fell and prolonged over some 20 years since in this quasi-federal UK with its threadbare parliamentary democracy after successive governments by nigh on elective dictatorships in first Conservative and now Labour hegemony. Along with predictably declining membership, is it any wonder that no party was supported by more than 20% of the total electorate in the last General Election? That was not a mandate, it was a warning. And not the first.

Without a codified constitution, recognition that it was not parliament, let alone government, but we the people who are individually and severally sovereign was the key to the door of sequestered rights and self-determination barred to us by successive governments of both major parties: first by the Thatcher, then Major and thereafter the Blair governments to our sequestered rights. Thanks ultimately to the Scotland-UN Committee bringing albeit reluctant international pressure to bear, Blair made a virtue of necessity which led to the recall of the Scottish Parliament, but with devolved powers and an electoral system to ensure an SNP vote never brought down a UK government again. (http://www.realmofs

cotland.com/Default.

aspx ) And thanks to Labour's hubris (if not incompetence too) and the SNP and its voters who had had enough of being belittled, everything has to change. But it can't remain the same unless we chose to do nothing about what our forbears died for.

As to the antithesis of de-facto Federation, where power devolved is power retained to divide and rule, Confederation accommodates both pro-Independence and pro-Union preferences. It is that difference which could make all the difference following the outcomes of the next round of parliamentary/assemb


ly elections, whether preceded or followed by the Referendum on Independence. Hence, if the turn out for Independence and this Union are neck and neck, then that for Independence could secure a renewed Union through negotiation of a Confederation. In short not a zero sum outcome, but win win for our family of nations and nations of families.

Look further. Imagine if you will an initial Confederation of the UK (England, Wales and Northern Ireland plus the dependencies of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of man) and independent Scotland. With Ireland participating, it would be little different from the Council of the Isles. Imagine how that might evolve into a Confederation of not 2 but 3 or 4 nation states and 3 dependencies. A Confederation reuniting our past and future with the Commonwealth, Europe, America and our diaspora everywhere.

So too in that other Union with others, whether in our promised but still denied Referendum were we to chose (better sooner rather than later) to be in or out, this constitution treaty or not, and between an intergovernmental, confederal or federal future relationship, whether to a federal EU core or not.

Independence first opens all doors and Confederacy (still) ticks all my boxes. Liberty, equality, co-operation, and kith and kinship being some. Perhaps it will yours when your preference is sought.

Meantime's, best wishes for Christmas and the New Year, and for what promises to be a memorable Burn's Night:
http://www.scottishi


ndependenceconventio


n.com/

Keith
(of no party but party to the solution)

...if i ever get the hang of including links

....in order, like so:
http://www.constitut
ionalcommission.org/

http://www.realmofsc
otland.com/Default.a
spx
http://www.scottishi
ndependenceconventio
n.com/

Hark, the herald angels sing, the Scottish Nationalists have come out to play....

Sorry, folks, a few words of dissent. 'Dissent' is something you have to tolerate when you aspire to be democratic.

I don't agree with this article, or your beliefs. May 3 2007 did not represent a 'great victory'; it was a Latin American botch, something we should feel ashamed of. We have no way of ever knowing what the true will of the Scots was that day. For all you know, it could have been a Labour landslide.

Since becoming the leader of a minority Scotish Executive, Alexander Salmond has ridden roughshod over polite and settled political norms. He does not lead 'The Scottish Government'. This is an unhealthy fantasy which courageous Unionists should at all times oppose.

The actions which Mr. MacWhirter proclaims as 'progressive nationalism' would not have been possible without the financial support of the British government. It's called biting the hand that feeds you; not very diplomatic.

What has been noticeable is the extent to which the Scottish political class has been jockeying and manuevering to prove itself Tartaner than thou. According to a report in 'Media Guardian' of 19th December, even the Daily Express is at it, with Salmond having a private meeting with Richard Desmond. One would really like to know what the feminist element in the SNP thinks of their leader consorting with a pornographer; then again, how long will it be before we see photoshoots of Alex and Moira in Bute House appearing in 'OK!', or SNP party political broadcasts on Mr. Desmond's TV channels?

One of the reasons I oppose Scottish nationalism are the views of people like 'Patriot, Glasgow'. That poster believes that they have a monopoly on patriotism - however, they write,

"SNP policy remains a second post-independence referendum on the House of Windsor.An awful lot of the Party's activists will push for its abolition. I certainly will. "

At least they're telling the whole truth; a little more than we get from the SNP's leadership, which for as long as I can remember has always tried to jockey and manoeuver every policy around the lodestar of 'independence'; as if its members really, really believe that Scotland is really like the wretched Third World colony of some late Victorian imperial power. It is a form of Scottish cringe which one would imagine would be of great interest to academic psychologists researching the persecution complex; but otherwise it's an extreme perversion of history.

The Union has served us well; being separate will no doubt mean selected Scottish nationalists will have the chance to become European Commissioners and Ambassadors to the United Nations, but it will otherwise serve everyone else very poorly indeed.

redcliffe62
Your post verges on the unintelligible. Have you any knowledge of punctuation or grammar. Perhaps your too lazy to write in a coherent manner.

Perhaps you're too lazy to use an apostrophe!

The relationship between a journalist and a politician should resemble that of a dog and a lamp-post. Iain Macwhirter's relationship to Alex Salmond seems more like a small kitten, purring as he is tickled under the chin. And the self-congratulatory tone continues in the comments from the team of regular posters - also known as SNP researchers - "Good article Iain", "fair summary Iain", "Well said Biffa!".
It was just about acceptable in the immediate aftermath of 3rd May, but The Sunday Herald is doing it's readers no favours by continually printing these love letters. We need a media that will hold our government to account. Ditch the kitten and bring back the dog.

The union is finished; long live Scotland...

The relationship between a journalist and a politician should resemble that of a dog and a lamp-post. Iain Macwhirter's relationship to Alex Salmond seems more like a small kitten, purring as he is tickled under the chin. And the self-congratulatory tone continues in the comments from the team of regular posters - also known as SNP researchers - "Good article Iain", "fair summary Iain", "Well said Biffa!".
It was just about acceptable in the immediate aftermath of 3rd May, but The Sunday Herald is doing it's readers no favours by continually printing these love letters. We need a media that will hold our government to account. Ditch the kitten and bring back the dog.

"We need a media that will hold our government to account."

PJ, I think all in all the SNP has been very much held to account in the Scottish media even when idiots like Nicol Stephen attempt to invent charges against them. It is just a great pity that the Labour Party in government, and Blair in particular, literally got away with murder with the media having little or nothing to say about it!

And it isn't just governing parties who need to be kept in line. Opposition parties who break the law when begging for money should be jumped on too. Especially the Alexander's of the world eh?

I watched the dreadful debate on the abolition of the Graduate Endowment Tax, it confirmed my fears that we don't have a parliament, just a big 'Cooncil'. The SNP speeches were noticably poor, in fact the contribution by Ken Macintosh was the sole noteworthy event in a very dull morning.

If people are desperate for independence I strongly advise them to watch the Scottish Parliament at work, if this does not convert them into staunch unionists then look up 'Psychiatrists' in Yellow Pages!

Martin, Glasgow.

While supporting your right to free speech, I profoundly disagree with your assertions.

Your assertions, for that is all they are, are only a regurgitation of the negativity shown in the NuLab election campaign and, the subsequent actions of the Unionist Alliance since May 3rd.

There is no doubt, that at times, the Union has served its purpose but, is now past its sell-by date.

A Union which wishes to subjugate the will of the Scottish people e.g. illegal wars, Trident, Poll Tax, nuclear power, privatised (partially/wholy) NHS, universal free education inter alia, is obviously past its usefullness.

Anyway to you and all who contribute to these threads, have a wonderful Christmas and a 2008 much brighter than 2007.

So this is the New Scotland, is it? Give the nats a few months in power and suddenly their supporters are exhibiting incredible levels of intolerance and arrogance. Such utter hatred towards anyone whose views they disagree with. Wendy Alexander? Lock her up - not because she's necesarily done anything wrong, but because she's a member of the Labour Party. If the success of a future independent Scotland depends on an unholy alliance of trots, islamist apologists, marxists and anti-English xenophobes, then long live the Union. Altogether now, everyone... deep breath... "Freedom!"Come on, you can do better than that: "FREEDOM!" etc, etc...

Los Angeles wrote:

Progressive nationalism is now the most potent political force in Britain.

Jack McConnell, announced that, no, this was a "magnificent result for Labour", and that it was going to be business as usual. With hindsight, this looks like the most monumental arrogance,

It was Alex Salmond's political genius to recognise the opportunity presented by minority government and to build a moral case for it in a series of speeches that will go down in history as definitive statements of the new politics of devolutionary consensus.

Salmond has created a new form of progressive nationalism, unlike anything seen in Europe in the past three decades. The image of nationalism as a backward and narrow-minded political force, preoccupied with ethnicity and hostile to foreigners, has finally been dispelled.

Labour end this annus horribilis in a terrible state, with a leadership crisis and a donations scandal. The new Labour leader, Wendy Alexander, has failed to offer any intellectual challenge to Alex Salmond's populist nationalism, and the party organisation is disintegrating.

The truth is that the SNP were doing a lot of things that Labour MSPs would have liked to do, but couldn't because of the London connection.

For the first time, all the parties in the Scottish parliament are committed to further constitutional change, including taxation.

Easiest post I have ever made. LoL Truth at last, truth at last, truth at last. Join me in raising a glass of whisky to a better Scotland in 2008 - and beyond!

LA
I'm with you all the way on that one sir.

Tae Scotland , and tae Freedom.

Crawford Fulton wrote:
I watched the dreadful debate on the abolition of the Graduate Endowment Tax, it confirmed my fears that we don't have a parliament, just a big 'Cooncil'. The SNP speeches were noticably poor, in fact the contribution by Ken Macintosh was the sole noteworthy event in a very dull morning. If people are desperate for independence I strongly advise them to watch the Scottish Parliament at work, if this does not convert them into staunch unionists then look up 'Psychiatrists' in Yellow Pages!

Oh Mr Fulton, if you think this way then one of two things are at play. Either you have never applied the same level of judgement to behaviour and performance at Westminster or you are an inbuilt part of the Scottish cringe that keeps flailing itself with phrases like, "We're too small, we're too poor, we're hopeless, we're doomed, we're all doomed!"

No one can convince me that the baying buffoons and ritualised Tweedledum, Tweedledee antics in Westminster is an argument for maintaining the Union. On the contrary, the sooner we escape that pig's trough the better.

Crawford Fulton

Talking about "dreadful" debate do you recall the "debate" in Parliament when the Unionist Parties ganged together in support of the lies the Prime Minister told as a reason for murdering Iragis. The flashes shown behind the reporters on the Irag "war" were not Iragis celebrating the return of democracy but an already beleagured population being blown to bits. Since then devastation, death and desolation has ruled in that country and the tears of the Iragis are just as valid as the tears we shed for our soldiers.

When the leader of a chain of hand-holding skaters suddenly turns in a tight circle, he sweeps the entire chain into a circle-describing pattern, with each successive skater circling at a greater radius from him. Since the greater the radius the 3.14159 times greater the circumferential distance to be traveled, the accumulated momentum of the chain imparts ever greater acceleration to the hintermost of the original chain, which centrifugal force in turn breaks the hand-gripping and causes the hintermost individual skaters to successively break away at great speed. This fast spin-off they must cope with as best they may.

Which could be the state of Scotland in the 2008 global financial collapse. As an independent republican nation, we could cope. That would mean our own currency and a national bank to issue credit for essential infrastructure. For you can rebuild a banking system on physical assets (machine tooling) and skilled people. The reverse doesn't work as with the UK's "managed decline" politics.

Sporran McHaver wrote:
So this is the New Scotland, is it? Give the nats a few months in power and suddenly their supporters are exhibiting incredible levels of intolerance and arrogance. Such utter hatred towards anyone whose views they disagree with. Wendy Alexander? Lock her up - not because she's necesarily done anything wrong, but because she's a member of the Labour Party. If the success of a future independent Scotland depends on an unholy alliance of trots, islamist apologists, marxists and anti-English xenophobes, then long live the Union. Altogether now, everyone... deep breath... "Freedom!"Come on, you can do better than that: "FREEDOM!" etc, etc...

SPORRAN
"Wendy's Not necessarily done anything wrong"??
WHIT?
Where have you been Sir? Planet Zog? Labour HQ?
SHE'S ADMITTED IT !!!!!
ps Where you ARE right is that it wasn't NECESSARY for her to do it !!!

stuart donaldson wrote:
aye Duns but remember Margo is a balloon the most humoured person in Scottish politics but depsite that she is the grimest and most sour faced of all :-) think of the "humour her line" who else is known by their first name - Margo she almost smiles when in reality any loose cannon with an unusual first name is known the same way -- think Wendy :-)

Quite agree, her brain is bigger than Dumbarton Rock, more like Edinburgh Rock really (the confection) - popular, colourful, attractive, initially sweet, but quite sickening and has a decaying affect; also crumbly and flaky when you get your teeth into it.

Rab The Man wrote:

Sporran McHaver wrote:
So this is the New Scotland, is it? Give the nats a few months in power and suddenly their supporters are exhibiting incredible levels of intolerance and arrogance. Such utter hatred towards anyone whose views they disagree with. Wendy Alexander? Lock her up - not because she's necesarily done anything wrong, but because she's a member of the Labour Party. If the success of a future independent Scotland depends on an unholy alliance of trots, islamist apologists, marxists and anti-English xenophobes, then long live the Union. Altogether now, everyone... deep breath... \\\"Freedom!\\\"Come on, you can do better than that: \\\"FREEDOM!\\\" etc, etc...

SPORRAN
\\\"Wendy's Not necessarily done anything wrong\\\"??
WHIT?
Where have you been Sir? Planet Zog? Labour HQ?
SHE'S ADMITTED IT !!!!!
ps Where you ARE right is that it wasn't NECESSARY for her to do it !!!

Rab the Man, you're missing the point, I think. Whether she did anything wrong or not, it seem you and your colleagues in the Scottish equivalent of UKIP hate Wendy more because she's in the Labour Party than for any other reason. Tell me, do you foam at the mouth when you watch Braveheart?

Crawford Fulton,

I have watched the parliament in acton over the last decade (all of my adult life - what it was like before, I cannot really remember) and have to say that I did find the last few years a bit depressing.

I agree that the executive arm of government's presentational skills and policies have reeked of the council chamber.

However, the last 6 months have been a breath of fresh air (excuse the cliche). It has shown what can happen if you have a government in charge who firmly believes in Scottish democracy.

We have a choice now. Vote for parties which see the chamber as stepping stone out of the council chamber and into Westminster (though as the number of Scots MPs dimish and their role reduces, this may more induce those seeking a London lifestyls and money than the political idealist), or vote for a parties (Greens, SNP, etc) which see the Scottish parliament as the chamber where the democratic will of civic Scotland finds its crucible (and thus is the pinnacle of aspiration).

Crawford, things are what we make them. If you want to hate something because you have an ideological attachment to something else (a firm attachment created out of many years of habtuation), then, in your mind, you will find things to hate about it and ignorethose hings which can be positives.

Scotland, Crawford, is now a growing democracy. It needs people who can grasp the thistle and contribue to the cut and thrust of democratic interaction (opposition and leadership, the friction between the two providing the nervous tension needed to focus minds).

The world which you still yearn for died over a decade ago(and probably before that).

Even Cato learned Greek at a late age. look to his example and try to interact with a new world.