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For most of the time that the Scottish National Party (SNP) has existed, public attitudes towards it have ranged from indifference to hostility or bafflement. Until fairly recently it was hardly taken seriously as a political grouping and was largely ignored. All this changed in May, 2015, when in the General Election for the Westminster Parliament, the SNP won 56 of 59 seats in a historic landslide. It is generally acknowledged that much of the credit for this victory goes to Scotland's chief minister, Nicola Sturgeon, who far outmatched any of the other political leaders in pre-election debates. Paradoxically, it appears to have been the campaign and the aftermath of the previous referendum on Scottish Independence in which the "no's" won, that led to a phenomenal rise in SNP membership. With the defeat of the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, the SNP now replaces the latter as the third force in Westminster politics. This book now looks forward to an independent, democratic Scotland.
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The story of how the quest for autonomy from an over-mighty south-eastern England shaped the history of three communities-Scotland, Ireland, and Northumbria. A history for our time, showing that the choice between 'union and independence' that shapes current debates about the future of the united kingdom in the age of brexit is a false one. Book jacket.
There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who insist that football is just a game, and those who know better. Take the April 1967 clash between England and Scotland. Wounded by their biggest rivals winning the World Cup just nine months earlier, Bobby Brown's Scots travelled to Wembley on the mother of all missions. Win and they would take a huge step towards qualifying for the 1968 European Championship, end England's formidable 19-game unbeaten streak, and, best of all, put Sir Alf Ramsey's men firmly back in their box. Lose? Well, that was just unthinkable. Meanwhile, off the pitch, the winds of change were billowing through Scotland. Nationalism, long confined to the margins of British politics, was starting to penetrate the mainstream, gaining both traction and influence. Was England's World Cup victory a defining moment in the Scottish independence movement? Or did it consign Scotland to successive generations of myopic underachievement? Michael McEwan, author of The Ghosts of Cathkin Park, returns to 1967 to explore a crucial ninety minutes in the rebirth of a nation.