While slashing welfare and public services, Labour’s spring statement delivers a bonanza for death-dealing bomb merchants. We now see the true and terrible face of austerity 2.0, writes MICHAEL BURKE
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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