Tag Archives: alex salmond

Opinion: Firm Friend and Equal Partner – Alex Salmond’s Lecture at the Scott Trust

By Nick Tyrone | Published 28th January 2012 - 10:30 am

I attended Alex Salmond’s lecture at the Scott Trust this Tuesday. It will come as no surprise to most of you that it was a terrifyingly brilliant performance by Scotland’s First Minister. However, it is important to note that the man is an enviable position at the moment and is well aware of that fact.

For a start, he has the luxury of being both in government and opposition at the same time (government in Scotland while being able to dump on everyone in Westminster, including Labour). He proudly declared on Tuesday night that not only are the three main party …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , | 10 Comments

Opinion: No is not enough; Scottish Liberal Democrats must embrace independence referendum

By Graeme Cowie | Published 18th January 2012 - 11:53 am

Alex Salmond’s SNP have a political mandate to hold a referendum on Scottish Independence. With an unprecedented majority in the Scottish Parliament and a manifesto pledge, the question is not if we have to confront this issue, but how.

Leaving aside arguments about the Scottish Parliament’s legal authority to legislate on an independence referendum (this can be resolved amicably through Westminster legislation) the Scottish Liberal Democrats must engage with the merits, not just of independence, but also “devo-max”.

Although Liberal Democrats generally support the Union, not all members are so-minded. Some (myself included) are ambivalent or notionally support Scottish independence, …

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Posted in News, Op-eds | Also tagged , , , | 23 Comments

Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism special: Dramatic independence referendum duel in London and Edinburgh

By Caron Lindsay | Published 11th January 2012 - 3:58 pm

It’s been a torrid few days in Scottish politics.

Since the SNP won an overall majority in the Holyrood elections last year, there has been much talk of the independence referendum they pledged to have in the second half of their term. They have been tight-lipped on their plans.

There has been uncertainty on the legality of such a referendum. Even respected legal blogger Lallands Peat Worrier, himself an SNP supporter, has expressed that the terms of the Scotland Act may not allow it. And amid all the bluster of this blog post from senior SNP strategist Stephen Noon is …

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Posted in News, Scotland | Also tagged , , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Willie Rennie apologises for ‘unintentional offence’ of Lib Dems’ Alex Salmond cartoon

By Stephen Tall | Published 3rd November 2011 - 7:15 am

Some embarrassment for Willie Rennie, MSP and leader of the Scottish Lib Dems, this week following the publication by party staff of a cartoon satirising First Minister Alex Salmond’s hailing of the similarities between Scotland and Qatar:

The Stv website takes up the story:

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Posted in Scotland | Also tagged , , | 16 Comments

Interview with Mike Moore MP – Action in Government, ideas for the future

By Caron Lindsay | Published 5th September 2011 - 1:51 pm

Interview: Mike Moore MP –  Action in Government,  ideas for the future

It can’t be much fun being Alex Salmond these days.  The euphoria of May has subsided, and he’s  realised that there’s nobody else to blame for his majority Government’s actions.  On top of that, wherever he looks, he sees the grin of Wilie Rennie,  ready to highlight any example of anglophobia, of  dodging , delaying, ducking and diving. The Scottish Liberal Democrat leader has had accolade after accolade in the press for providing such high quality opposition to the SNP …

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Posted in LDV interviews, Scotland | Also tagged , , , | 5 Comments

What does the Inverclyde result mean for the Scottish Liberal Democrats?

By Caron Lindsay | Published 1st July 2011 - 6:51 pm

As Helen Duffett reported early this morning, the Inverclyde by-election saw Labour holding on to the seat, but with a dramatically reduced majority over the SNP. This was always going to be a tight fight between those two. You would think that Labour would be the likely victor, but the SNP came within 500 votes of unseating them in May’s elections. With the SNP in majority control at Holyrood, how would they fare in this first electoral test?

Scotland has felt very different since the Holyrood elections. The political environment feels a lot darker. In the run up to the …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , | 25 Comments

Tavish Scott writes… The SNP budget is too severe on services but too soft on waste

By Tavish Scott MSP | Published 26th November 2010 - 10:54 am

The Scottish Government has published its budget.  But it’s for one year not three!  No SNP Minister can explain why it was right for nationalists in Wales to produce figures for three years but not for the SNP Government in Scotland.

SNP Ministers say they can’t give a four-year budget because they have just set up a public service reform group. That’s code for “we don’t know what to do but whatever we do will be after next May’s Election. Yet the SNP have known the broad numbers for months.

After all, Alex Salmond wrote to Vince Cable on 12th February to say, …

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Posted in Op-eds, Scotland | Also tagged | 2 Comments

Hung Parliament talks: what will be proposed to Monday’s meetings?

By Mark Pack | Published 9th May 2010 - 3:50 pm

The Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party and the Federal Executive are scheduled to meet again on Monday. If a firm proposal is coming out from the talks today, expect it to be put to them both tomorrow. The big question is what might be proposed…?

Right across the party, both from senior to grassroots levels and from social through to economic liberals, there is very strong feeling that significant movements on electoral reform are a must for any arrangement. Given the country’s current economic woes, there is widespread agreement that PR isn’t the only issue at stake, but – for example – …

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 38 Comments

Vince lays down the gauntlet to Alex Salmond

By The Voice | Published 8th March 2010 - 9:45 pm

Lib Dem shadow chancellor, Vince Cable tonight addressed Reform Scotland on the action that needs to be taken to reform banking and protect the economic recovery. LDV is publishing extracts from Vince’s speech, below, including his call to SNP leader and Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond to follow the Lib Dems’ lead and state clearly how the Scottish government will live within its budget in the years ahead:

Banking
We need to rethink our approach to banking. Successive Labour and Conservative Governments have left Britain vulnerable to an over-inflated financial services sector, where institutions became too big to fail.

On a UK level – where British banks are 4.5 times bigger in terms of their liabilities than the country’s economy – this is bad enough. But in Scotland, this has been still more pronounced. At the time they got into trouble, RBS’ and HBOS’ liabilities were 25 times the size of Scotland’s economy.

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Posted in Scotland | Also tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism #14: As a liberal republican sees it

By Kevin McPhillips | Published 2nd March 2010 - 1:20 pm

Last week, Scotland’s First Minister, Alex Salmond, launched the Referendum (Scotland) Bill consultation. The SNP has few aspirations, beyond independence for its own sake. I can’t help but think of them as someone courting a reluctant bride. They keep asking, and keep cajoling, hoping that eventually the electorate will say yes, and let them take them up the aisle.

On Friday, Nicola Sturgeon, who faced parliament about her own troubles earlier in the week, said “this isn’t about what the SNP wants, it’s about what the people of Scotland want”. Well, she’s wrong. This consultation actually is …

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Posted in Op-eds, Scotland | Also tagged , | 5 Comments

Daily View 2×2: 31 December 2009

By Alex Foster | Published 31st December 2009 - 7:37 am

A windmill made of the flags of Europe with the slogan "whatever the weather, we must move together"Good morning on New Year’s Eve 2009 as we here at LDV Towers celebrate the passing of the year and indeed the decade. There’ll be fizz spilled on the Night Desk for sure, and I’m cooking beef wellington canapés and a chocolate/chestnut torte.

But what, I hear you ask over the hubub, happened on this day in history? Well, did you know that until the 1750s, the new year actually began on Lady Day (no, not her) in March? And in fact that’s why the tax year is still based around that time of year?

New Year’s Eve is the day on which, in 1951, the Marshall Plan ended (did you know the UK got more money out of it than any other nation? It didn’t help we still had the vestiges of empire to spend it in). In 1960, the farthing ceased to be legal tender; and in 1998, the value of the Euro was first establised.

Birthdays include Ben Kinglsey, Donna Summer, Val Kilmer and Alex Salmond – together at last!

Don’t forget Lib Dem Voice is still seeking your nominations for Liberal Voice 2009.

And one more thing – today there will be a Blue Moon – the second full moon within one calendar month. This won’t happen again until full moons either side of the London Olympics, in August 2012

But, finally, what of the newspapers and blogposts? Read more, after this:

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Posted in Daily View | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism #12

By Caron Lindsay | Published 1st December 2009 - 5:53 pm

Yesterday was St Andrew’s Day, a special day of celebration in Scotland. If Iain Smith, Liberal Democrat MSP for NE Fife which includes the town of St Andrews had his way, it would have been a full public holiday, not just the half day that civil servants can take if they want that the SNP have delivered in Government.

There’s a lot going on in Scottish politics at the moment. Here are just a few snippets:

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Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism #9

By Bernard Salmon | Published 6th October 2009 - 1:45 pm

Who does Alex Salmond think he is?

With all three main party leaders having now agreed to participate in televised debates in the run-up to the next general election, Scotland’s Opportunist-in-Chief is threatening to throw his toys out of the pram
unless he’s included in any debate shown north of the border.

But Salmond is indulging in pure gesture politics once again. As my colleague Stephen Glenn has pointed out before, Salmond has no right to expect to take part in a leaders’ debate when he won’t even be a candidate at the next Westminster election.

He leads the fifth biggest party at Westminster (behind the Democratic Unionists) and will be fielding candidates in less than 10 per cent of constituencies UK-wide.

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Posted in Op-eds, Scotland | Also tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism #7: The Megrahi Documents

By Stephen Glenn | Published 2nd September 2009 - 12:45 pm

The Megrahi case has ripped apart the peace of the Scottish Parliamentary recess, with even some former Lib Dem leaders taking a differing view to our leader in Holyrood. Today the UK Government and Scottish Parliament have released papers relating to the discussions that have gone one over the last two years. It ranges from correspondence between Westminster and Holyrood, to memos of meetings with Libyan officials, to the compassionate release request listing medical conditions.

These start chronologically with the first letter from then-Lord Chnacellor Lord (Charles) Falconer to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond outlining the Memorandum of Understanding that Westminster had set up with Libya regarding a number of judicial issues. The Memorandum was drawn up to look at increasing bilateral co-operation covering, amongst other things, commercial and criminal issues. The legal issues were not exclusively about Mr Al Megrahi, but looking at the bigger picture of co-operation between the two nations at large. However, Lord Falconer did say that nothing could be ruled in or out, but that co-operation and consultation between Westminster and Holyrood would be carried forward.

However, it the path of the UK’s justice secretary Jack Straw’s correspondence that sheds a lot of light on the situation, especially considering the Labour response in Holyrood.

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Posted in Europe / International, Op-eds, Scotland | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Haggis, Neeps and Liberalism #2

By Stephen Glenn | Published 11th March 2009 - 10:50 am

This is the second in a regular, and now named, series of articles by Scottish-based bloggers giving their thoughts about developments in Scottish politics.

On Friday evening I’d just completed a long week at the office in one sense wishing I was in Harrogate with my fellow Lib Dems – but at the same time too exhausted for a full weekend of Conference, having squeezed one full extra day into the week that would go without payment as a result of a freeze on overtime. But as I walked to the bus through Edinburgh Park I saw that lights were …

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Posted in Conference, Op-eds, Scotland | Also tagged , , , | 8 Comments