RECOMMENDED as a good read that is also free to view is the online magazine of the Edinburgh Yes Hub.
Produced by Hub organiser Mike Blackshaw – we are delighted to report he is recovering after his recent hospitalisation – this month’s edition of the magazine Saor Alba has significant contributions from the likes of Robin McAlpine of Common Weal, economics expert Tim Rideout and former SNP MP and possible future MSP Michelle Thomson.
We liked Gillian Grant’s column on her fears for the Scottish Parliament. She was one of the original members of the Vigil at Calton Hill that was set up in April 1992 on the day John Major’s Tories won the General Election, even though they only won 11 out of the 72 Scottish seats.
Grant writes: “The Vigil was maintained, as a symbol of the democratic deficit in Scotland, at the foot of Calton Hill (site of the old Royal High School which had been suggested as a possible location for a Scottish Assembly prior to the referendum held in 1979) on a daily basis till September 1997.”
That was when the devolution referendum was won, but now she sounds a warning: “Now we all take the Scottish Parliament for granted. Do we consider it inconceivable that it would ever be done away with? Normal constraints and checks over the Westminster Government no longer seem to apply. We have to strive for solidarity and determination from the Scottish people that our Parliament will not be taken from us.”
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We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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