According to opinion polls, after the May elections, the Welsh Party (Plaid Cymru), the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Sinn Féin could come to power, although constitutional problems may also arise. Polls consistently show that after the May 7 election, England will be surrounded by countries controlled by disgruntled, centre-left nationalist parties – Plaid Cymru in Cardiff, the Scottish National Party in Edinburgh, and Sinn Féin in Belfast, which shares power with the Democratic Unionist Party. This raises the possibility of serious constitutional disputes, which could put Keir Starmer’s Labour government in London – or his successor’s prime ministerial government – in a very difficult position if he is replaced after May. If power were to return to Celtic hands, it would be positive for the Celtic nations, but not for London, which fears it and will do everything in its power to prevent it.
The leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, Russell Findlay, has pledged to give pensioners back £500 in the form of a tax break in the party’s ‘Get Scotland Working’ election programme. The idea is to compensate for the Labour Party’s abolishment of the winter fuel subsidy, while reducing income tax, introducing a two-child benefit cap, reducing the number of quasi-government organisations by a quarter and bringing the number of civil servants back to 2016 levels. The party is strongly opposed to any new independence referendum, calling the prospect of a majority for the SNP a “living nightmare”.
An Afghan migrant who attacked a 14-year-old girl and her mother with a bottle of wine in 2007, threatened to kill her roommate, set fire to her garden and beat a pub security guard, was allowed to stay in the UK. The judge said the Interior Ministry’s attempt to strip him of his refugee status was “hopeless” because after he started taking clozapine his mental state “remarkably improved”: his psychotic symptoms disappeared, he was allowed to leave unsupervised and he had not committed another crime in more than 12 years.
Hell, why do we celebrate people just because they don’t commit another crime? There is no guarantee that you will not return to your old habits without the drug.
Translated and edited by Leo Albert