The Scottish National Party has played a significant role in the politics of Scotland in the last forty years. In particular it has contributed to and shaped the impact and dynamics of devolution. This collection brings together academics, writers, commentators and analysts of Scottish politics to address the nature of the SNP: its position in Scotland, its influence on devolution, its role as a minority administration and its relationship with other institutions in Scotland, the UK and Europe."

Analyses the rise and fall of Labour in Scotland and asks: is Labour's decline irreversible? After being the leading party in Scotland for 50 years, Labour was shocked to lose an election and office to the SNP in the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary elections, and thunderstruck when the SNP won a majority government in the same elections in 2011. This book analyses the last 30 years of Scottish Labour, from the arrival of Thatcherism in 1979 right up to the results of the 2010 Westminster elections and 2011 Scottish Parliamentary elections.

The British Labour Party has been one of the key political institutions in the UK in the last century for the advancement of social change. Yet one critical aspect of its makeup has always been misunderstood, underplayed or misrepresented: it's Britishness. Throughout the party's history, its Britishness has been an integral part of how it has it has governed, and done politics. Moreover, over the last decade or so, a new mobilising form of national identity has emerged, one that has become increasingly problematic for Labour: that of Englishness. Indeed there is some evidence that...