SNP were prepared to consider referendum without independence option
Alex Salmond was prepared to support a referendum on Scotland’s constitutional future that excluded an option for full independence, new WikiLeaks cables have revealed.
Scotland
Will the ‘Big Society’ have to cover for Scottish coastguard cuts?
The UK government is putting too much emphasis on the use of volunteers and is expecting too much of them to provide a vital service requiring 24-hour manning, a service now facing such serious cuts.
Housing Benefit changes will have “severe impact” on Scotland
A new report has warned that the government’s changes to Housing Benefit will have serious consequences for tenants across Scotland, reports Ed Jacobs.
Clegg’s Scottish discomfort
Lib Dem support in Scotland has plunged by more than a half since the 2007 Assembly elections – and is down 5 points in the last five months alone.
Lib Dems fail to learn lessons from Scotland on tuition fees
As MPs in Westminster prepare for the most controversial vote of this parliament on the coalition’s plan’s for tuition fees, in Scotland the contrast between the Liberal Democrats now and the Lib Dems in 1999 when forming the Scottish governmenttest
As Scotland gets greater taxation powers, is Northern Ireland next?
On the day the coalition unveiled its formal legislative proposals to give Holyrood greater tax varying powers, a group of business leaders in Northern Ireland have called for Stormont to be given the power to set its own corporation tax.
A tale of two Budgets
Left Foot Forward’s Devolution Correspondent Ed Jacobs looks at the Scottish and Welsh draft Budgets, published yesterday.
Wales and Scotland set to publish draft austerity budgets
Over the next fortnight, the devolved bodies are expected to publish their draft budgets against the background of the toughest fiscal environment since the birth of devolution. Last week Left Foot Forward reported on the double whammy being faced by Northern Ireland with health minister Michael McGimpsey warning of “large numbers of redundancies” in the NHS and substantial concerns over the impact of the UK government’s welfare reforms on the most vulnerable.
Political Innovation – coming soon to Edinburgh and Belfast
A quick note to thank Left Foot Forward for helping us with the Political Innovation essays; see here for more about the project and a list of all the essays so far, with a few more to come in the next few weeks. We would like to invite LFF readers to a couple of events that we’re doing in Edinburgh (13th November) and Belfast (20th November) – both are Saturday get-togethers – details can be found here.
Rodents aside, what else happened at the Scottish Labour conference?
In his speech to Scottish Labour’s final conference before next May’s elections to Holyrood, Ed Miliband declared “Labour’s fight back has begun”, but what have we learnt from the weekend on Oban? First, these’s no love lost between the Liberal Democrats and Labour, with Miliband’s deputy Harriet Harman calling Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander a “ginger rodent”.