Although the Scots concept of Sovereignty is indeed that it resides in the people, it was dispiriting to hear MSPs (Members of the Scottish Parliament) taking an oath of fealty to the current Queen and to her heirs and successors. Mind you, as Thomas Paine put it, the difference between a republican and a courtier is that one of them "thinks Monarchy IS something; the other knows that it is nothing" (but knows that his own self-interest demands that the "juggle" be kept going).

The Scottish National Party, even with a minority administration during the previous term, managed to put through a number of measures which have demonstrably been to the benefit of many people, among the most prominent being a progressive reduction and then cancellation of "prescription fees", thus bringing the National Health Service closer to the intention of Beveridge and Bevan than any UK government did during the last half-century.   What they will achieve with an absolute majority is for the future to see and The People of Scotland to judge (I capitalize that phrase because almost every sentence spoken by a politician here contains it at least once!).

I see it's nearly three years since I wrote (above) about how here in Scotland we have to argue for Indepedence whereas every other nation recognises this as the proper way of things; no doubt there will be much bleating of the "too poor a country to make it on our own" variety in the next three. As Edward Said put it, in any colonised country there's always an elite which identifies its interests as lying with the colonizer rather than the rest of the population. As Steve Biko put it, among the most effective weapons an oppressor has is the mind of the oppressed. As someone - perhaps a voter questioned by a journalist - put it during this election campaign, the SNP has already "done no' bad", which in Scottish terms is high praise indeed. Aye, we're a dour folk.