Ken Macintosh is nothing if not ambitious. “I am hoping not to mention independence at all at conference,” says Scottish Labour’s shadow secretary for fi nance, employment and sustainable growth, conceding within the same breath “it is almost certainly a hope, I doubt it’ll be a reality”. The Eastwood MSP hardly inspires confidence in his independence claim by launching into how “thin” SNP arguments, particularly their economic case, have proved to be, ticking off one instance after another from behind his constituency office desk in Thornliebank. “I find myself a little bit frustrated to have to talk about it all the time when it’s of such little intellectual substance,” he laments. Such is the state of flux Scottish politics finds itself in, Macintosh and his...

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson today announced a root-and-branch review of domestic powers retained by Westminster under the existing devolution settlement as she outlined support for further financial powers being handed down to Holyrood. A working group led by former Scotland Office Minister and leader of the House of Lords, Lord Strathclyde, will examine the case for increased devolved powers with detailed plans to be published ahead of next year’s referendum on independence. The fresh call for further powers beyond changes that take effect in April 2015 under the Scotland Act comes 18 months on from Davidson vowing to draw a “line in the sand” on devolution as part of her bid for the Scottish Conservative leadership. The party must “turn over a new...

Love him or loathe him, Alex Salmond knows how to tee up a Scottish National Party (SNP) conference. Last October, the Aberdeenshire East MSP strolled onto the stage in Perth brandishing a copy of the Edinburgh Agreement, signed earlier that week alongside David Cameron at St Andrew’s House. Five months on and he arrives in Inverness a matter of days after laying out the Scottish Independence Referendum Bill and, in so doing, revealing the date of next year’s poll. The hitch, however, is that even the esteemed statesman has limited influence over circumstance: in the autumn, it proved to be a highly divisive internal debate over the future defence policy of a Nationalist government; this spring, it is proving to be a highly divisive external debate over regulation of the press that...

The date when people in Scotland will vote on their future has finally been announced – Thursday, 18 September 2014. First Minister Alex Salmond announced the date for the Independence referendum to parliament as he put forward the Scottish Independence Referendum Bill. The date was so shrouded in secrecy that even copies of his speech which were handed to other MSPs and the press in advance, had the all important date redacted. It will be due for Royal Assent in November and fulfils a requirement to have six months between the passage of legislation and a referendum. The date in September also avoids a clash with European Elections, the Commonwealth Games and will come a week before the Ryder Cup is hosted in Scotland Introducing the Bill, Salmond said: “People will be able...

One of Britain’s most influential business leaders has suggested Scotland’s move for independence could end up leaving the country being regarded as a “hostile nation” like North Korea. John Longworth, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, inferred that Scottish independence risks destabilising its trading relationship with the rest of the UK. Longworth, who made the remarks in a speech today at the Chambers’ annual conference in Westminster, listed a series of problems holding back Britain’s economic growth, including a lack of a long term energy policy and planning. He suggested Britain should be more like South Korea – which despite its isolated position in the world has managed to sustain impressive rates of economic growth in the last 50 years. But then...