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A theme begins to emerge 125

Posted on March 20, 2014 by

Continuing our trawl through the “Devo Nano” report. No squirrels this time.

apdtaxh

Labour, of course, immediately trumpets any anti-independence opinion from big business, but suddenly treats anything welcomed by industry with great suspicion if it’s in line with SNP policy, so no shocks on that front. But not for the first time, the party seems to have rather misunderstood the entire concept of devolution.

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Category analysis, scottish politics

More powerful microscope required 73

Posted on March 20, 2014 by

All this week we’ve been mockingly referring to Scottish Labour’s devolution proposals as “Devo Nano”, nano- being a mathematical term meaning “one billionth”. The implication there is that the amount of actual power being devolved would be very very small. We’re not subtle. But as we dig down into the full 298-page report, it’s beginning to look as though our sarcastic description is in fact somewhat over-generous.

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Category analysis, scottish politics

The long and the short of it 77

Posted on March 20, 2014 by

Labour’s full Devo Nano policy document is now available, at an artery-clogging 298 pages. We’ll be having a good old wade through it today, because despite Johann Lamont’s comprehensive explanation of its contents on telly on Tuesday night, we still have a couple of minor queries over the precise details that we’d like to get definitively cleared up, and this should do it.

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Category analysis, scottish politics

A litany of idiocy 197

Posted on March 19, 2014 by

Every time today that we’ve re-watched Johann Lamont’s multi-vehicular pile-up of an interview on last night’s Newsnight Scotland, we’ve seen something new in it that we missed previously and which makes us pull this face:

gordonb

So (hngh) we’re going to have to get these down for posterity.

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Category comment, idiots, scottish politics, transcripts

Interview with the vampire 199

Posted on March 19, 2014 by

Among supporters of a Yes vote this site has often been an outspoken defender of Newsnight Scotland’s Gordon Brewer. Sometimes prone to lapsing into a poor impersonation of Jeremy Paxman, all hectoring and interrupting and not listening, on top form the BBC man is in our book the finest inquisitor of politicians in the UK, with only Bernand Ponsonby of STV capable of giving him a run for his money.

After last night, we’ve rarely felt more vindicated.

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Category analysis, scottish politics, video

Introducing Devo Nano 128

Posted on March 18, 2014 by

So, the wait is over. Two full years after announcing the setup of its “Devolution Commission” (comprising three MPs, three MSPs, one MEP, a pair of general-purpose office wonks and one increasingly-unhinged councillor), this morning Scottish Labour unveiled its final report, strikingly clad in the flag of, er, Shetland.

labshetland

As we write, only the executive summary has been made available – a slim 14 pages including the preamble, reasoning and recommendations. These are our observations.

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Category analysis, comment

What you can’t have 129

Posted on March 18, 2014 by

We’ve finally got hold of a copy of the long-awaited report (or at least, the executive summary) from Labour’s “Devolution Commission”. While we wade through the fine detail, we thought we’d quickly let you see the list of things Labour has decided that Scotland absolutely cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to handle for itself.

devonano1

Analysis to come.

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Category scottish politics

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