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          blue background, A younf woman holding a large black sign that says VOTE ! in white letters

          Scottish elections: young people more likely to vote if they started at 16 – new study

          Healthcare word seen in a scrabble

          “Leave no one behind” – the Health Foundation’s report into health inequalities in Scotland 2023.

          Sign saying NHS Greater Galsgow & Clyde in front of a hospital building

          Concern over patients waiting in corridors for free beds at Glasgow Superhospital

          A row of tall houses on the left, with parked cars in front on the side of the street

          Saving Scotland’s tenements

          Ben Nevis. Forground has green shrubbery, then background a mountain with two tops. Blue sky with a few streaky clouds

          Exploring the Highest Mountain in the British Isles: A Guide to Ben Nevis

          Image via Steller Systems, a potential candidate.

          Cancelling future frigates could be final nail in the coffin for the UK

          A hospital corridor with trolleys on the sides.

          Glasgow hospitals halt non-urgent operations due to pressure

          A scene of people demonstrating, holding Scotland flags. One man wears a tartan cap and holds a blue flag with both the Scottish cross and the EU stars on it.

          Is Alister Jack sane?

          Cartoon by Stan

          Film reviews award season

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          blue background, A younf woman holding a large black sign that says VOTE ! in white letters

          Scottish elections: young people more likely to vote if they started at 16 – new study

          A scene of people demonstrating, holding Scotland flags. One man wears a tartan cap and holds a blue flag with both the Scottish cross and the EU stars on it.

          Is Alister Jack sane?

          Image Malcom Laverty

          The Brown plan

          The climate change impacts of Russia’s war with Ukraine

          Britain wastes £1bn on drones to monitor English Channel

          The Autumn Statement – time to take a closer look

          Photo Mtaylor848, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

          Christmas cheer for Tesco if grim reading for the political classes

          Scottish independence isn’t going away

          Russia as a low-tech nation

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          Saving Scotland’s tenements

          A large red researcgh vessel in the sea with ice sheets all around it on the water.

          Rosyth shipyard attracts UK Government contract to maintain fleet of scientific research vessels

          large posts saying 'Glasgow Airport Business Park' on the left and right of a road leading away from the main road in the front. . On that road leading away building with walls almost entirely existing of windows.

          Why doing business in Scotland may be better for your corporate wellbeing

          A mountain of spools forming a tree on the left, a sandy area to the right and a row of houses at the back. mountains in the distance on the right

          The Ullapool Giving Tree

          Electric off-roader heralds return of vehicle mass-production in Scotland after 40 years

          Photo Mtaylor848, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

          Christmas cheer for Tesco if grim reading for the political classes

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            Sign saying NHS Greater Galsgow & Clyde in front of a hospital building

            Concern over patients waiting in corridors for free beds at Glasgow Superhospital

            A hospital corridor with trolleys on the sides.

            Glasgow hospitals halt non-urgent operations due to pressure

            Two more unions reject Scottish Government NHS pay offer

            GMB union reject Scottish Government pay offer to NHS staff

            Lymphocites gathering

            How careful should we be when choosing a scientific term?

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              Wood stove at the foot of the bed in the Danish Blue room at Pig Hill Inn, Cold Spring, New York. Printed with permission and confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0.

              When smoke gets in your eyes

              Opening of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP27 in Egypt. Photo courtesy of the UNFCCC

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              Night of the strangling figs: a biological horror story

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              The Brown plan

              By getting cold feet over voting reform, Labour has missed an opportunity that might have saved the union.

              Martin RochebyMartin Roche
              10-12-2022 07:00
              in Politics
              Image Malcom Laverty

              Image Malcom Laverty

              Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

              So unimpressed is Scottish Labour that it has not bothered to promote Gordon Brown’s plan for creating a “new Britain”.

              Before reviewing Gordon Brown’s new constitutional blueprint for the UK and, most notably, for Scotland, I thought it wise to actually read the full thing. So, where better to look than on Scottish Labour’s website? It was a fruitless search. The document is not there, or if it is, it is hidden in some dusty digital recess. Such was the media fanfare given to the Brown plan on its launch that it surely should have been the splash headline on one of Scottish Labour’s key digital platforms. That it’s not there perhaps says the Labour Party in Scotland is not as marketing sharp as it should be, or that Brown’s latest plan to ‘save the union’ left Anas Sarwar’s party as underwhelmed as the rest of Scotland.

              Gordon Brown is a serious man. He’s a heavyweight, well-read, thoughtful intellectual. There are few of his cerebral weight in politics these days, and we could do with more like him. He’s also a good Scot and a good man. His proposals to devolve a range of important powers to local authorities in England are sensible. Since the 2010 coalition government scrapped England’s Regional Development Agencies, many of the most deserving parts of England have been without effective economic development machinery and powers.

              Almost all such powers are fully devolved to Scotland, though the post-Brexit Conservative government has been undermining the devolution settlement in numerous ways. One of the structural weaknesses of the Brown plan is just that – a Tory government in London will always want to take power to itself and take power away from Edinburgh. Scotland would have to go on living next door to a different sort of elephant every time the government or prime minister changed in London.

              The talking shop

              Brown has proposed a UK-wide talking shop chaired by the prime minister of the day. This might just be a helpful mechanism when London’s government is Left of Centre, but likely to be a forum for profound disagreement and public bitterness when Westminster is in Tory charge. He wants to see Scotland better represented in the great Whitehall departments of state, like the Treasury and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. How will this be done if, after the next general election, the Labour party still has only one MP in Scotland?

              What if it has five MPs? Will these Labour MPs represent the democratic wishes of the Scottish people? Will a Labour government ask SNP MPs, or even a Tory or two, or what about a Lib Dem here or there? Do we detect a democratic weakness from a Labour Party that once upon a time was keen on as much democracy as possible?

              Moving a few thousand civil service jobs from London to Scotland, as Brown proposes, must always be welcome, though it’s hardly going to fundamentally change the Scottish economy or do much to help Scotland tackle chronic problems like poor health, educational under-achievement and income inequality. Sadly, for a man who genuinely and deeply cares about the less fortunate in life, Brown offers nothing that gives hope of radical and lasting change to the economic status quo.

              Labour is surely correct in proposing to abolish the House of Lords. Everyone on the British Left, and even some in the Centre-Right, know the Lords is a shameful stain on British democracy. Brown should have insisted that abolition be immediately adopted as Labour policy. Putting the matter to ‘consultation’ makes Labour look indecisive and uncertain. An idea, that if grabbed firmly, would have won widespread public support has been neutered and become a ‘so what’ item.

              The union has been weakened

              But where the Brown plan spectacularly fails is in completely ignoring voting reform.

              Introducing PR for Westminster elections could have been a sure fire way of saving the union. Scottish voters might have been attracted to the idea of PR for Westminster elections seeing it as a way to greatly reducing the possibility of the Conservative Party ever again holding unfettered power at Westminster. The old sore that ‘Scotland doesn’t vote for Conservative governments but gets one most of the time’ could have been put to bed.

              The moment to save the union was there to be grasped. Voting reform, along with the abolition of the Lords and much tighter control of party funding and MPs’ incomes, had the potential to be a package of compelling voter attraction in Scotland. The moment has passed. Courage deserted Keir Starmer. The union is no safer today than it was before the Brown plan was announced. The opportunity for radical realignment and to strengthen the union has been lost.

              Indeed, following the Supreme Court’s ruling that all power over the constitution legally sits in London, the union has been further weakened by the latest polling that shows 56% of Scots want independence. Gordon Brown’s new agenda appears not to be the talk of the steamie. It has come, and it has gone.

              Great read! Let me buy you a coffee.

              Tags: DemocracyScotland
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              Martin Roche

              Martin Roche

              Aged 15, Martin began his working life on a Scottish evening newspaper. He then ran his family business before reading politics and international relations at Aberdeen University, as a mature student. He worked in London in investment promotion attraction for Scottish development agencies, followed by a 35-year career in international PR consultancy. He has been a columnist on African Leadership magazine, commenting on geopolitics, a regular contributor to foreign direct investment media and has written for business publications worldwide. He recently returned to Scotland. He lives in Glasgow.

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