The future’s oors, Alex Salmond tells Scotland
DELIVERING his New Year message, First Minister Alex Salmond has said he is confident Scots will vote for independence.
After being named “Briton of the Year” in 2011, Mr Salmond said the hunger for more powers north of the Border will help to push the country towards full independence.
The First Minister said the coming 12 months would “mark a further shift in the debate on Scotland’s future as we move towards a referendum”.
The Scottish Government has pledged to hold the poll in the second half of Holyrood’s five-year-long parliamentary term, but has yet to name a date or decide on what questions will be asked.
In his message, the SNP leader said: “I am confident that Scotland will decide to take full control of our own destiny and join the international community in our own right.”
However, new Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont urged the government to “get on” with the referendum.
She said: “The longer Alex Salmond delays, the more it suggests he fears the verdict of the Scottish people.”
Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said in his New Year message that most Scots were “not narrow nationalists”.
He stated: “Nationalists believe that Scotland is not strong enough to stand tall in the UK. But I believe, and history has shown us, that Scots are confident, intelligent and able enough to prosper in the UK and beyond.”
Both Ms Lamont and Mr Rennie took over as leaders of their parties in the wake of the SNP’s landslide election victory in May, when the party secured an historic overall majority.
Mr Salmond said: “The Scottish people have shown a hunger for more powers in order to secure a fairer as well as a more prosperous future, and I believe optimism has been chosen over pessimism.”
Quoting Hugh MacDiarmid, leader of the 20th-century Scottish literary renaissance, the First Minister said: “For we ha’e faith in Scotland’s hidden poo’ers/The present’s theirs, but a’ the past and future’s oors.”
In his message, delivered from the newly-refurbished National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Mr Salmond focused on the growing number of Scots out of work.
He said: “My priority as First Minister as we go into 2012 is to ensure all Scots have the security and fulfilment that comes from the opportunity to work.
“That’s why we are investing in a range of capital projects to create jobs, guaranteeing an education or training place for every 16-to-19-year-old and delivering 25,000 modern apprenticeships a year.”
But he added: “With greater powers we could do so much more.”
The First Minister also said that Scotland “once again can be the land that shapes the world”.
He said Scots such as John Logie Baird, Alexander Fleming and James Watt had shaped the modern world, and others could follow in their footsteps.
New Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson also focused on Scotland’s constitutional future in her New Year message.
She said in the coming year she would be “working hard to put forward the message that Scotland is better off in Britain”.
Gairmscoile
by Hugh MacDiarmid
Aulder than mammoth or than mastodon
Deep i’ the herts o’ a’ men lurk scaut-heid
Skrymmorie monsters few daur look upon.
Brides sometimes catch their wild een, scansin’ reid,
Beekin’ abune the herts they thocht to lo’e
And horror-stricken ken that i’ themselves
A like beast stan’s, and lookin’ love thro’ and thro’
Meets the reid een wi’ een like seevun hells.
... Nearer the twa beasts draw, and, couplin’, brak
The bubbles o’ twa sauls and the haill warld gangs black.
Lang ha’e they posed as men o’ letters here,
Dounhaddin’ the Doric and keepin’t i’ the draiks,
Drivellin’ and druntin’, wi’ mony a datchie sneer
... But soon we’ll end the haill eggtaggle, fegs!
... The auld volcanoes rummle ’neath their feet,
And a’ their shoddy lives ‘ll soon be drush,
Danders o’ Hell! They feel th’ unwelcome heat,
The deltit craturs, and their sauls are slush,
For we ha’e faith in Scotland’s hidden poo’ers,
The present’s theirs, but a’ the past and future’s oors.
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Comments
There are 412 comments to this article
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Merіda
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 11:46 PMam2 am2 am2.
Merіda
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 11:45 PMAnyone seen am2? People say I am obsessed. but it's not true. Not according to my psychotherapist anyway.
Merіda
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 11:44 PMSomeone please talk to me. Christmas and New Year are terrible for me.
footdee
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 10:51 PM"by using a "radical" nationalist'------------------Bannerfield heres another radical nationalist poet work ---"a parcel of rogues in a nation "====thats you he`s talking of.
footdee
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 10:48 PMBannerfield ,here`s an example of westminster`s lack of commmitment to Scotland---------------Secret files published after the 30 year rule have revealed that the Tory government in the 1980s refused to fund a north sea pipeline that would have led to the creation of up to 17,000 Scottish jobs.-------------- The revelation, reported in today’s Press & Journal, shows that the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ignored the advice of several of her Ministers and vetoed plans to build a gas pipeline that would have linked North Sea fields together.--------- According to the documents the £1.5 billion project, which had been left by the previous Labour Government, could have led to the creation of jobs at new chemical plants at Nigg and Peterhead.---------------- The P&J report one Cabinet briefing note as saying: “It goes without saying that inward investment of this magnitude would have a very significant impact on the wellbeing of Scotland and of the Highland area in particular,”.
footdee
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 10:45 PMbannerfield Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 08:31 PM #399 Bad news I'm afraid - it's not about vacuous wishlists. It's all about making things that people want to buy or providing services that people want to use at a price they'll pay. Independence is irrelevant to this. -------------------of course that just silly with our own tax and spend policies we can reindustrialise Scotland --the English govt does`nt have that commitment to Scotland-----If you really believe independence is irrelevant ,than you`ll have no objection to the UK in an ever closer relationship woith the EU.
The one that got away
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 09:23 PM@405 Wardog. Read you making an ass of yourself in Daily Telegraph. You are a duplicitous person posting in Daily Telegraph , and like all socialists a closet conservative liking all things rich in life.
The Harder They Come
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 08:50 PM399. You digusting belly crawling reptile.
Shawfield Urchin
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 08:45 PMComment removed by moderator
Cagey
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 08:38 PM401 - So in your opinion the Welsh, Scots and Northern Irish are incapable and it is nothing to do with UK economic policy. Not much of a vision. The thing with taking matters into your own hands is you don't want to blame anybody, you want to make the decisions for yourself. You want others to make the decisions for you and then blame yourself when it doesn't work.
bannerfield
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 08:32 PMshould have been #400......
bannerfield
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 08:31 PM#399 Bad news I'm afraid - it's not about vacuous wishlists. It's all about making things that people want to buy or providing services that people want to use at a price they'll pay. Independence is irrelevant to this. Getting over a culture of blaming others for failing to do this isn't.
Cagey
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 08:20 PM399 - Well what is your alternative? Why do the small countries in the UK perform so badly and what do you propose is done about it? So far we have heard nothing to say this is going to change. So why stick with failure?
bannerfield
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 08:09 PM#398 You've heard the usual politician's "motherhood and apple pie" statements about how everything will be better with them plus a bit of dog whistle politics by using a "radical" nationalist's work to appeal to - shall we say - the core SNP membership.
Cagey
Saturday, December 31, 2011 at 07:58 PM396 - Please give us your vision for success as a region of the UK. When will we achieve average UK earnings, average UK GDP growth and average UK GDP per capita? I am setting the bar pretty low because the UK performance is pretty poor. We have heard a vision of what we can achieve with independence. If you are content with where we are today you are easily pleased.
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