Recent Articles

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5 Myths About the Scottish Lobbying Bill

This is a guest post by Pete Mills from Unlock Democracy In the first week back after Christmas, MSPs debated a Bill to introduce a lobbying register designed to let ordinary people know who is...

Posted 25 Jan 2016

Scotland needs a stronger Lobbying Bill

Remember the phone-hacking scandal? It seems long ago, but we shouldn’t forget how much we learned about the ways big private interests try to influence policy. The Leveson Inquiry dug up all sorts of stories...

Posted 07 Jan 2016

The Scottish people should be involved in the devolution debate

Yesterday (Wednesday 16th September) the Scottish Parliament debated ‘Scotland’s Future: Democracy and Devolution’. One year on from the independence referendum, and with the Scotland Bill due to go to report stage in the next few...

Posted 17 Sep 2015

Are the SNP about to break the Holyrood voting system (again)?

This article was co-authored by ERS Scotland’s Juliet Swann and Danny Zinkus Sutton from Unlock Democracy    Pollsters are perhaps not to be relied upon after their predictions for the General Election earlier in the year. Yet,...

Posted 24 Aug 2015

Scottish Parliament Debating Chamber

What is the Scotland Bill?

The Scotland Bill was no surprise when it was announced in the Queens Speech. In the lead up to the Scottish independence referendum vote last September and following a particular cliff-edge poll, unionist parties became very...

Posted 12 Jun 2015

What’s happening in Scotland?

If the polls are to be believed, next Thursday Scotland will vote to send more SNP MPs to the House of Commons than ever before. Why is what used to be a stable voting pattern...

Posted 29 Apr 2015

Something in the air

Scotland is shrouded in a muggy haar today, and it feels as if we’ve been cut off from the rest of the world in order to concentrate and exercise our democratic right to vote: for...

Posted 18 Sep 2014

A new Scotland

As a politically active individual and an elections geek you’d think I would be excited beyond reason about the independence referendum. In actual fact, I have found the debate to be depressingly repetitive, providing few...

Posted 05 Sep 2014

Women and Scottish independence

This blog was first posted on Engender As the date of the referendum draws ever nearer, and the gender gap in the polls shows no sign of closing, there seem to be more events targeting women...

Posted 03 Jul 2014