The future’s oors, Alex Salmond tells Scotland

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.