All to play for as the Brexit cliffhanger hits extra time in Westminster
5 years ago
BETTER late than never. MPS in Westminster will at last take control of the Brexit process today after nearly three years of being spectators to the greatest political crisis in half a century. No-one says it’ll be easy. Today’s votes could end in a shambles as Parliament votes for contradictory motions, or no motions at all, as happened over the similar multiplechoice ballot on Lords reform in 2003. No-one is clear even about the voting procedure.
The Prime Minister has said that she will probably ignore the result. The press are likely to turn on MPS as the “jobbing PM” Sir Oliver Letwin and his team start acting as a surrogate government.
10 years ago
PAOLO Nutini relaxes backstage ahead of a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in support of the Teenage Cancer Trust. The Scots singer was asked to be involved by the charity’s patron Roger Daltrey and joked: “When Roger calls, you simply say: Yes.” It is the 14th year that the famous venue has hosted artists and comics in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust and this year Ed Sheeran and The Cure are among performers. “This is an important cause and should have the support of as many people as possible,” Nutini added.
25 years ago
THE world’s most extensive range of collaborative research between two universities was announced yesterday by Glasgow and Strathclyde, writes Chris Holme. The new programme, Synergy, was launched at the Royal Society of Edinburgh and is aimed at pooling resources for benefit of the new parliament and Scotland’s economy. Synergy will bring together the institutions’ joint expertise in seven areas: agriculture and food, education and training, sustainable development, national and local government, social inclusion, quality of life and community health. Both universities are already part of the Project Alba programme to develop pan-scottish, high-tech research and collaboration on computer software that has already helped attract inward investment to Glasgow.
50 years ago
SCOTLAND will enter Frankfurt’s giant stadium tomorrow and the firecrackers should pop, as the banners of west Germany flutter in their thousands. Among this fanatical congregation, the few dressed in tartan will be insisting to their neighbours that the proceedings are sport, not war. There are many occasions when Scotland travel, flaunt their nationalism in other people’s faces and demand their voice be heard. But this time we will behave quietly and with impeccable manners. That change of heart has nothing to do with a loss of Scottish virility, a new and more sophisticated view of human existence.
100 years ago
A DEPUTATION to press for the appointment of more women police and to urge that effect should be given to the recommendations of the Home Office Committee set up in February 1920 was received yesterday by the Home Secretary, Sir John Anderson, and the Secretary for Scotland being also present. The deputation was organised by the National Council of Women of Great Britain and Ireland, and 52 representatives from national societies were present. The Home Secretary, in receiving the deputation, said that he proposed to set up a Committee to deal with women police.