By Mark McNaught

Johann Lamont’s speech to the 2013 Scottish Labour conference vividly illustrates the contradiction between the party leadership’s desire to remain in the UK and any possibility of accomplishing, in the post-Thatcher era, any of the social objectives Labour has historically advocated.

If this is the most finely honed argument she can come up with for Scotland remaining in the UK, 'Better Together' has lost, and Scots will vote for independence in 2014.  It is hard to believe that even she finds it credible.

By Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh
 
Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh is and SNP candidate in next year’s Euro elections. She is the only woman on the list of six. As National Women’s Officer for the Party, she is acutely aware of the need to open up politics for women and as a mother herself of the need to protect children online.
 
The Internet has opened up a vast resource of information to all of us, one that shifts and changes literally by the second.

  By Ken Ferguson
 
Whether New Labour croissants or the more traditional cooked fare, Labour delegates to their Inverness conference had some indigestible breakfast reading in Scotland on Sunday with the news that Co-op party chair Mary Lockhart intends to vote YES in next year’s referendum.
 
A Labour stalwart and supporter of the left wing Campaign for Socialism pressure group which presents - sometimes with some intellectual arrogance - the case for voting No and seeking an increasingly illusory British Road to Socialism, her decision is a blow for Labour but will be particularly stinging for the small, forces of the CFS.

By George Kerevan
 
I CHOKED in my porridge, metaphorically at least. According to the report from Labour’s (latest) internal commission on the future of devolution, there is a “strong case for devolving income tax in full” to the control of the Scottish Parliament.
 
As the commission included both Johann Lamont, Scottish Labour leader, and Margaret Curran, the shadow secretary of state, this suggests Labour might be getting serious about offering a counter bid to independence, or at least to the confederal version of Scottish autonomy being offered by the SNP. Could Mohamed and the proverbial mountain be about to meet somewhere in the middle?