Independence campaign launch: has Salmond gone too early? The Border Picture: Amanda Slater In two days’ time, Alex Salmond will launch the Yes campaign for independence. This will be a game-changer as far as Scottish politics is concerned – but probably not, however, in all the ways that the First Minister would like. Having such a long campaign will bring benefits to the nationalist cause. of that there is no question.
But it also represents a considerable gamble. By launching a cross-party campaign for independence – and, in doing so, inviting assorted political fringe parties and oddballs into his tent – Mr Salmond risks losing at least some of the control that he can exercise over the SNP at the moment. There is also the unanswered question of what the launch of the Yes campaign will do for the opposition. So while the launch of the Yes campaign has been carefully planned by nationalist strategists to use the time between now and the referendum to their maximum advantage, launching so early is nothing if not risky.
Opinion: Does anyone understand what a referendum is? Picture: Stefan Baudy By Revd Stuart Campbell With the council elections over, the independence referendum is now the next test of Scottish public opinion at the ballot box, something that makes it seem considerably more real. But as the two camps prepare the imminent launches of their official campaigns, there is an aspect to the referendum that everyone seems to be inexplicably overlooking. The Unionist parties have spent much of the last year demanding that the SNP “clarify” every last item of policy in an independent Scotland, from currency and EU membership to renewable energy transmission costs, pension provision and all the way down to what colour the First Minister is going to paint Bute House’s front door.
What nobody seems to have grasped is the fairly crucial point that that’s not what referenda are for. A referendum, by definition, is not a device for deciding multiple policies. The Conservative Party, for example, is against UK membership of the Euro. Close encounter in the woods as 1979 UFO mystery is investigated again. Ron Halliday in the clearing at Dechmont Woods On a chilly day last month, UFOlogist Ron Halliday and spiritualist medium Gary Gray left their car by the M8 in Livingston, West Lothian, and trudged up Dechmont Law. They were following in the footsteps of forestry worker Robert, or Bob, Taylor, who, in November 1979 maintained he saw an alien spacecraft in a clearing within the forest nearby.
Halliday and Gray were there to try and pick up psychic remnants from the encounter and work out just what happened that lonely November morning. The Dechmont Woods Encounter, as it became known, remains of interest because of the reliability of the witness testimony, and also because it was the first suspected UFO case ever to be investigated by police. Taylor was checking up on some saplings in the forest that day, when he arrived at a small clearing. There he says he saw a circular object, six meters in diameter, hovering above the forest floor. He awoke 20 minutes later. A Celtic halloween in eight easy bites. Scots language lessons as the word ‘unionist’ is banned by unionists. Picture: Stefano Brivio A senior Treasury minister has banned the word “unionist” in an attempt to foster more positive language in the fight against Scottish independence.
Danny Alexander, a Scottish Liberal Democrat MP and chief secretary to the Treasury, has told his officials not to use the word because it “plays into the hands of the Nationalists”. Mr Alexander, the MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, is one of a number of ministers who believe that the anti-independence campaign will have to come up with better, more positive language if it is to defeat the Nationalists in the referendum battle. His decision to phase out the word “unionist” in his dealings with the referendum reflects a growing acceptance inside the UK government that the term is old-fashioned, difficult to understand and has associations with both Northern Ireland and sectarianism which they are keen to bury.
Donate to us: support independent, intelligent, in-depth Scottish journalism from just 3p a day. Scramble for seats starts as new electoral map of Scotland is revealed. The fight is on. Today the Boundary Commission is announcing the shake-up of Scottish constituencies, and it is clear that a number of MPs are going to lose out. One Westminster seat is going to go from Glasgow, while another will be lost in Edinburgh. One Highland MP is going to go in a raft of Scottish-wide changes so sweeping that only one mainland constituency – East Lothian – will remain exactly as it is now. Under the proposals, the number of Scottish Westminster seats is to go down from 59 to 52. Seven MPs will lose their jobs as a result of the boundary changes, which will lead to a scramble within parties as MPs seek to either oust fellow parliamentarians from their seats or curry enough favour with party leaders to earn a boot up to the House of Lords. Whatever happens, it promises to be a messy, backbiting business.
However, as far as the actual plans are concerned, the Boundary Commission is proposing a number of changes, including: ● East Lothian – no change. Moira Salmond – Scotland’s first First Lady. Moira Salmond in Abu Dhabi She has been described as the “rock” around which Alex Salmond’s life revolves, but no one outside a small circle of close friends and allies has ever met her.
She is also the wife of the most well-known politician ever to come out of Scotland – and the man who is fast becoming famous all over the world as he attempts to break Britain apart – and yet she has steadfastly refused to step into the limelight alongside her husband for the last 25 years. That is – until now. Last week, Moira Salmond took the very rare step of appearing on the international stage, joining Mr Salmond on an official visit to the Arabian Gulf. If the trip was a one-off event, it could easily be dismissed as nothing more than one, single adventurous blip in the otherwise reclusive life for the wife of Scotland’s first minister. But it was no one-off event. As such, it suggests a major change of gear for one of the most private spouses in Scottish politics. Mrs Salmond is not shy. Opinion: Scotland must secede from more than just the UK if it wants independence. Picture: Jean-Etienne Minh-Duy Poirrier By Russell Cavanagh Today’s Edinburgh is a far cheerier place than that gloomy city I left in late 1997 for exile in Sheffield.
Sure, the city’s beggars have proliferated, almost to the point where they constitute a humming economy on their own; and memories of North Sea blasts make even South Yorkshire winters seem a mere stepping stone to final retirement nearer the South of France. Perhaps it takes an occasionally returning ex-pat to spot the difference, but Auld Reekie is more vibrant than ever. People are more animated and their heads are held higher. Yes, divided opinions exist over the merits of full independence. However, Scottish democracy remains chronically limited by two main tranches of consensus politics which, despite other stark and even bitter differences across the menu of parties on ballot papers, close down manifest choice to a level below that enjoyed by the UK as a whole.
European economic equations Climate change concerns. Messages. Humphing your messages. Picture: Ralph Aichinger The average high street has changed enormously over recent decades. Now high streets tend to be a sea of charity shops interspersed with a series of take-aways and a few empty shops. Occasionally the odd small shop will remain to remind us what high streets used to be like in their glory days. For example, most high streets used to have small grocery shops, butchers, fish shops and so on. To go the messages is to go and shop for everyday goods, such as foodstuffs. Using a verb of motion, go, was obviously appropriate since shopping for the family involved moving from shop to shop, grocers to butchers, butchers to bakers and so on.
Going the messages, or, alternatively, doing the messages, usually involved the use of a sturdy shopping bag, known, not surprisingly, as a message bag, This was often literally a bag for life, even sometimes spanning more than one generation. Message is not always associated in Scots with shopping. Caledonian Mercury: Scottish news, stories and intelligent analysis from Scotland's first truly online newspaper.