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Independence is no longer ‘the’ issue
STEPHEN LOW looks at an election in Scotland that, for the first time in a decade, wasn’t a fight about flags

IT’S OFTEN said that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them. It’s a measure of how bad Thursday night was for the SNP that John Swinney’s administration did just that, without even being on the ballot paper.  

It’s a stunning reversal for a party that has been completely hegemonic in Scottish politics for a decade.

And it is, despite Labour cleaning up in the Central Belt, more of a tale of nationalist decline than Labour advance.

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