Immediately separating the administration of the welfare system in the event of Scotland opting to become an independent state “would present serious risks to the continuity of payments to people in both Scotland and England”, according to a new report.
David Cameron will today use his speech to the Scottish Conservative Party Conference in Stirling to once again rehearse the arguments in favour of Scotland remaining within the family of the United Kingdom. “There is”, he will say, “simply no challenge we face today where breaking up Britain is the right answer”.
A former Conservative Scottish secretary has called (£) moves by the party north of the border to increase the powers afforded to the Scottish Parliament a “suicide mission”.
All of a sudden, the debate around Scotland’s future has gained the kind of substance that many have been yearning for.
With the CBI having already warned of the risks to industry of Britain no longer being at the heart of the European Union, a further uncomfortable truth surrounding the Conservative Party’s increasingly isolationist rhetoric is now becoming apparent.
Two of Scotland’s biggest political beasts will be pitched against each other later today in the debate over the country’s future.
Polling published today by Ipsos Mori for The Times suggests that the SNP’s independence headache continues as support for Scotland staying in the UK has increased to its highest level since August 2011.
Doctors across Scotland have attacked the operation of the government’s welfare to work health assessments as “Kafkaesque”, with GP leaders warning that Scottish doctors are being “flooded with additional avoidable work”.
Scotland’s council tax freeze is harming local public services and benefiting the wealthy the most, undermining the Scottish government’s assertion that the policy is a “vital lifeline to hard pressed Scots”.
Attempting to put in place an economic system without a fully-functioning central bank or convincing currency arrangements to underpin it, or without the knowledge of whether such a system would be compatible with admission to the EU or not, is like a ship setting sail for voyage without the security of its sheet anchor.
