21st October 2021
Today’s British Social Attitudes report contains two chapters of particular relevance to the subjects covered by this website. The first is a chapter by Chris Deeming of Strathclyde University that compares attitudes in Scotland towards aspects of social justice and inequality with those in England on the one hand and those in the three Nordic […]
29th November 2018
One of the key features of the devolution settlement in the UK is that it has become increasingly asymmetric, as both the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly have gradually gained more powers. In contrast, only relatively minor changes have been introduced in England – (i) changing the procedures of the House of Commons so that […]
4th September 2015
Last year’s independence referendum might have settled – for the time being at least – the question of whether Scotland should be an independent country. But it left a legacy of two further debates and controversies. The first, instigated by Gordon Brown’s ‘vow’ in the final days of the referendum campaign, was about how much […]
6th April 2015
Today’s Sun contains another poll of voting intentions for the general election in Scotland. Conducted by YouGov before last Thursday’s leaders’ debate (and the row about what Nicola Sturgeon supposedly said to the French Ambassador), it puts the SNP on 46%, unchanged from the company’s previous full sized Scottish poll undertaken in the middle of […]
15th October 2014
Yesterday, the House of Commons finally had its big devolution debate, discussing both the commitment to further Scottish devolution set in train by the Scottish No vote and the ‘English Question’. David Cameron of course had linked the two together when he spoke to acknowledge the victory of the No side at breakfast time on […]
14th October 2014
The Commons gets its first chance this week to consider the fallout from the Scottish referendum, including a full day’s debate today. Although some of the discussion will be about the hopes and aspirations north of the border for more devolution, there will doubtless be debate too about what changes to the governance of England […]
9th June 2014
Yet another ‘referendum milestone’ is reached today. The latest one is that there are now just 100 days of campaigning left before polling day on 18th September – cue another round of campaign stunts and media speculation. Anyway, the milestone has provided us with an excuse to release a short briefing on how people south […]
7th March 2014
As the referendum debate has warmed up, so the rest of the UK (or at least its media) has begun to take more notice. Consequently, in recent weeks more than one poll has asked people south of the border what they think about some of the issues at stake. Here we share a few observations […]
18th October 2013
There has perhaps been no clearer indication of the fragility of the Union. This weekend the SNP are gathered in Perth laying out the case for Scottish independence, while in London the IPPR think tank are holding a Festival of Englishness. The two countries would seem intent on going their separate ways. Indeed, part of […]
10th September 2013
According to Lord Robertson, Labour’s Shadow Scottish Secretary during the 1990s, introducing devolution would kill nationalism ‘stone dead’. In contrast, his former backbench colleague, Tam Dalyell, argued it would prove to be a ‘slippery slope’ towards Scottish independence. With a referendum on Scottish independence due to be held in a year’s time, at the moment […]
Explore the What UK Thinks website. Non-partisan information on UK attitudes to the EU before and since the EU Referendum.
