Marco Biagi

RECEIVED wisdom can, in truth, be urban legend. Common beliefs about politics especially so. In The Referendum that Changed a Nation, four eminent political science academics put the 2014 vote and its aftermath under their microscope.

SOMEWHERE between a hollow, lockstep rally and a chair-throwing bourach there is a happy medium to which a party’s conference should aspire to be. I have submitted my name for consideration as the SNP’s next national secretary because I believe I have the ideas to steer us there. When in-person conferences resume they should be energising, vibrant and participative events that help propel us and our programme forward as we move towards independence.

IN both the 1980s and the 2010s the UK Labour Party’s left fought to achieve an internal democracy that has long been standard in the SNP. Every SNP parliamentarian and councillor must go through a full reselection process at every election, surprise ones aside. No-one elected to office for the SNP has a job for life. No-one should.

FIVE years ago 444 of the good burghers of one of the leafier parts of Edinburgh walked solemnly to the polling station, entered the sanctified privacy of the booth and with their stubby little pencil scribbled down a vote for a man dressed as a penguin.

SCOTLAND’S constitutional debate lends itself to nuanced argument as much as pub chats over which of the Old Firm teams has the better players. Whether the Gers or the GERS, emotions always rule.