News – Scotland and International

Labour fantasy of how Union works

By George Kerevan
ON TUESDAY we got Labour’s Mark III devolution plan – or Mark IV if you include the abortive 1979 version. My point is not to denigrate Labour’s efforts. In fact, I think these latest fiscal proposals should be examined seriously and on merit. I merely observe that this is Labour’s latest offering – which suggests dissention and … Read More

UK budget can’t hide continued cuts Independence is the only way Scotland can properly create opportunities and secure the investment in public services and the economy … Read More	Full tax power discussions herald ‘great opportunity’, say SNP Evidence given to a Scottish Government committee discussing the benefits of the country having full control over its own tax … Read More
£110 million youth funding Minister for Youth Employment Angela Constance will highlight that the area qualifies for an allocation from the EU’s Youth Employment … Read More	Glasgow SNP group elect new leader Glasgow City Council’s SNP Group today (Tuesday, the 18th of March) elected Councillor Susan Aitken as the new Leader of … Read More
PFI contract reviews to save £26 million Plans to deliver £26 million savings across the 28 existing Private Finance Initiative (PFI) projects in NHS Scotland have been … Read More	Boost for Yes after Unison branch debate triumph INDEPENDENCE campaigners have received another boost as a Unison trade union branch sided “positively with the Yes side”. Nation-wide branch Skills … Read More

Snowden rectorial fight spotlights state spying

By Chris Cassells

The practices of GCHQ and the NSA are fundamentally at odds with an open, free and democratic society. This is why we, as Glasgow University students, chose to nominate and campaign for the whistleblower Edward Snowden: to show our support for his actions and our disgust with the perverse desire of the security services to monitor our every keystroke.

Osborne’s currency threat is indeed a defining moment

By G.A.Ponsonby

Did you know that the BBC has demanded an apology from Newsnet Scotland? Well, OK not the whole BBC just London correspondent Tim Reid.

Tim was upset by an article published by Newsnet Scotland the day before George Osborne made his speech in Edinburgh in which the Chancellor ruled out a currency union with an independent Scotland.

Labour Party assumes jobless means ‘thick’

By Campbell Martin

Attempting to show they are as tough on ‘benefits scroungers’ as the Tories, the Labour Party’s spokesperson on Work and Pensions last week announced that the unemployed should have to sit tests in English and Maths.

If an out-of-work person failed such a test, a future Labour government would take away their benefit unless they undertook training in these subjects areas. 

The Battle for Britishness

By Stephen Bowman

Last September I was interviewed on the radio by BBC Newcastle as part of a feature they were doing to mark the countdown to this year’s Scottish independence referendum. The one question that I wish I had answered differently was when they asked me whether I felt British. To my own surprise, I said yes. What I should really have said was, ‘yes, but…’

The New Coalition

By Derek Bateman

What have they unleashed? One of the immediate consequences of the tripartite Unionist front dictating currency policy to Scotland is a hardening of anti-British sentiment. Those who have been pretending this is about questions of personal wealth – give me £500 and I’ll vote Yes – are realising that the real divide is between Scotland and Britain.

The line-up of all of the Westminster parties AND, uniquely, the Civil Service, in an embodiment of the British state, addressing Scotland like a colony, denying us access to what is ours by right and dictating policy without negotiation, is the encapsulation of everything we detest about London rule. It is Better Together’s Spitting Image moment.

We Love You, You Bastards

By Derek Bateman

What happened to my love-bombing? Where are those arms that reached out all the way from the Olympic Velodrome? Where is the shared history and where the shared principles? What happened to the family of nations bound by ties of blood and history? Am I to think that on the back of Please don’t go are added the words or you’ll pay for it?

We The People – A Prototype Scottish Constitution Project

By Mark McNaught

With the international participation of scholars and specialists, we at Newsnet Scotland are undertaking an ambitions project to develop a written constitution underpinning a modern independent Scotland worthy of its people.

Scotland’s Future calls for a constitutional convention after independence in 2016 to draft a written constitution. In the meantime, this does not prevent citizens and people throughout the world with good ideas from crowd-sourcing a solid, well thought out constitution worthy of ratification.

Don’t cringe, embrace your inner Braveheart

By Christian Wright

Since Unionists are forever poking Braveheart in our face as a pejorative, it is time that we took ownership of it and defined it.

Braveheartism: Advocates that Scotland’s past is integral to it’s future. That its history and mythology play a key role in the creation and development of the Scottish identity.

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