by David Milligan

A Labour Party member asked the following question in an article done for "Labourhame" and I answered his question in straightforward language that went to the centre of the Labour Party's core values.  Thanks here goes to Mr Currie who I believe is Labours' Treasurer for Glasgow South who authored the article.  It can be viewed at "Labourhame" under the title of "Stop the bus - Can some non-politicians get on" along with the other responses I wrote.

by Paul Kavanagh

Myth, misunderstanding and legend mix with fact in popular understanding of the Picts.  Many years ago I met a guy who insisted that the Picts were in fact pygmies from Africa.  He was deadly serious, though how a population of Central African people made it to Iron Age Scotland was never explained, CalMac ferries still don't go to the Congo.  Others have maintained that the Picts spoke a language related to Finnish or Basque, or even that they spoke a Germanic language ancestral to modern Scots.   None of these theories is supported by the linguistic evidence.

by Stuart McHardy

As the political scene heats up over the proposed referendum, it is noticeable that the political establishment in Westminster and the mainstream media are missing the point. What matters is the sovereign will of the Scottish people, no more, no less. And in the current debate there are some who are focussing on the future. This means thinking about what Scottish governance should be like in a post-independence state and what kind of constitution we should have.

By Dave Taylor

Tory peer Lord Ashcroft commissioned a poll from YouGov on different versions of the referendum question. Three separate groups of around 1000 Scottish adults were each asked a different version of the question.

Interestingly, none of the questions allowed anyone to respond “unsure/Don’t Know”.  They were “forced choice” questions, which the referendum question certainly won’t be, people won’t be forced to answer a question which Ashcroft has rigged in advance.