The Scottish first minister has cooled the view of an early referendum. She needs to diagram well for the next tender for independenceThe favoured parlour game at the SNP annual conference in Aberdeen is counting the property dealers and corporate lobbyists who toiled once to carve out the party’s role in UK politics as the flag-bearer for social justice. And when you stroll past the stall that belongs to the Scottish Police Federation you wonder how many more Scottish justice secretaries they might be able to cram into one of their cupboards. That,though, is your whack if you are seeking anything that even vaguely resembles political theatre.
It’s not a bad position to be occupying when you’re the party of government and less than seven months absent from a national election that the latest polls indicate will deliver you an historic second successive working majority. Not only does the party seem unassailable in Scotland for a generation but Nicola Sturgeon is secure also on the domestic front in the knowledge that the grip she exerts on party discipline is greater even than that which her predecessor, and Alex Salmond,possessed.
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Source: theguardian.com