Politics in Scotland since 1999

With the reinstatement of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, political life in Scotland changed dramatically. Donald Dewar, First Minister in that inaugural devolved administration, had led the Scotland Act through the House of Commons a year earlier and has been lauded, since his death in October 2000, as the ‘Father of the Scottish Parliament’.

In the intervening years, Scotland has been governed by Labour/Liberal Democratic coalitions, by a minority Scottish National Party administration and, since the last election, by the first-ever majority SNP government...

This website is independent; it merely attempts to describe and explain political events and trends which impact upon the people of Scotland. Most of the content is generated by students who are offered the opportunity as part of their learning to research important issues and to offer their own description and analysis of the events they investigate.

While much of the content is driven by the news agenda at any given time, it is also important to explore theoretical and historical political issues, and some of the articles are necessarily, therefore, of a slightly historical nature, or address current events from a longer-term, sometimes theoretical perspective.