Alex Massie Alex Massie

Holyrood Drama? Not so fast, my friends!

Well, that didn’t last long. The entertainment (see yesterday’s post) at Holyrood seems to be coming to an end. As predicted by Jeff at SNP Tactical Voting, there seems every chance that the revised Scottish government budget will, far from precipitating the excitement of an issue-free* election, result in the budget being passed unanimously. Everyone will have extracted their ounce of flesh from the SNP (but no more than that).  The Scotsman’s headline claims all this amounts to a series of “shock” u-turns but I don’t see what’s so surprising about parties backing away from the prospect of an election few people really wanted.

So Labour look like they’ll get £50m or so to fund a few thousand apprenticeships, while the Lib Dems, courageous and bold as ever, seem to be settling for a commitment to work towards securing borrowing powers for the parliament  – something that the SNP also support, even if they remain suspicious of engaging with the Calman Commission.

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