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FOR the Millennial generation, inflation (aka rising prices) is something to read about in the history books. Instead, for in the past few decades, we have been living in a period of falling prices – otherwise known as deflation. Why have prices tended downwards for manufactured items? Answer: China. Thanks to China and Asian manufacturing economies such as Vietnam and Indonesia, any surge in demand for consumer goods in America or Europe is met with an increase in output in Asia. To be blunt, the world has a surplus of manufacturing capacity that puts a lid on shop prices. Until now that is. Last week, the latest US consumer price index registered a 4.2% annual spike and alarm bells started ringing. You might think 4.2% sounds tiny. But five years at that rate (a typical parliamentary term) and prices will have jumped by nearly a quarter thanks to compounding. If you don’t receive complementary wage rises, you are suddenly going to be a lot poorer.
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack is backing the UK Government’s challenge to two Holyrood bills which incorporate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Charter of Local Self-Government in Scottish Law. PETER A Russell s letter (May 4) is more telling for what he doesn’t say than what he does. His criticism of Alan Morris amounts to pointing out that after 2014 we got the Smith Commission and the 2016 Scotland Act. It would be easy to point out that in that same year we also got Brexit, and as Sir Tom Devine says: “I cannot recall any issue of such magnitude since 1707 [the Act of Union] where the manifest will of the Scottish people, as confirmed explicitly by virtually all the nation’s MPs in the UK Parliament, and overwhelmingly by a democratic vote in a UK referendum, was not only rejected, but treated with such brazen contempt by a British Government.”
EVERY election is important. But tomorrow’s will be crucial to making the next step towards an independent Scotland. If this is what you want (and if you are reading this paper you most likely do) the only way to get there is by casting both of your votes for the SNP. Some will say that a second vote for the SNP is a wasted vote. “Look how many people voted for you on the regional list in 2016 and you still lost a majority!” they cry from behind their Twitter screens. And that is true – we did get more votes on the regional list in 2016 than in 2011; but – crucially – we got a smaller percentage of the regional vote, and that small drop of a couple of points was enough for us to lose the majority that we had.