One of the prime minister’s closest allies has said he is not afraid of a referendum on Scottish independence.
International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander gave public backing on the issue to his sister Wendy, leader of the Scottish Labour Party. for more click here
A year ago this weekend Scotland was in political meltdown. Voters had thrown out the Labour party, ending its 50-year grip on power, and put in the Nationalists but with nothing like a convincing majority. Alex Salmond had won but by just one seat and the election itself was a discredited debacle, not quite Zimbabwe but, with spoilt ballot papers and nearly 200,000 lost votes, hardly the model of a modern democracy. for more click here
A SENIOR Tory MP has said it is too soon to think about increasing the Scottish Parliament’s powers – even though his party has signed up to a review of devolution.
Scots-born shadow defence secretary Liam Fox, on a visit to Edinburgh, said he would prefer to wait and see how Holyrood settled down. for more click here
GORDON Brown rejected pleas for more UK cash for Scotland yesterday.
The Prime Minister said the SNP were wrong to claim that Scotland was “under-funded” by the Treasury.
He spoke as Finance Secretary John Swinney accused Westminster of refusing to give the Scottish government millions of pounds in extra cash to spend on prisons. for more click here
Almost an hour before Gordon Brown addressed his first Scottish Labour conference as prime minister, a vast queue began to form outside the main venue in the Highland resort of Aviemore, as its security system became jammed with human traffic. for more click here
THE Scottish National party is to take its campaign for independence into cyberspace by seeking to change the endings of all websites based in the country, from “.co.uk” to “.sco”.
Alex Salmond, the first minister, is to lodge a formal request with the American-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is responsible for allocating all internet domain names. for more click here
FIRST Minister Alex Salmond today challenged opponents of independence to put their alternative plan to the voters in a referendum.
And he held out the prospect of a three-way choice where the electorate would be asked to rank separation, further devolution or keeping the status quo in order of preference. for more click here
IT WAS supposed to ease tensions within multi-cultural Britain, helping diverse communities to heal divisions caused by the terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow.
But a proposal to make Britain’s teenagers pledge an oath of allegiance to the Queen was immediately dismissed by Alex Salmond, the First Minister, as “Monty Python-esque” – a description which captured the Anglo-centric origin of the idea, as well at the contempt with which it is likely to be viewed north of the Border. for more click here
ALEX Salmond would start legal moves to bring Berwick back under Scottish control if the town’s residents voted to leave England in a referendum, it emerged yesterday.
A spokesman for the First Minister said borders were “fluid” and there were precedents from around the world of towns changing hands from one government to another. for more click here
SOME years after the Second World War, there were reports of Japanese soldiers found on distant Pacific islands refusing to surrender their arms, convinced they were still at war.
A similar problem is currently facing the Scottish Labour Party, if sources close to Wendy Alexander are to be believed. for more click here