Now if I may add my own experience of politics. I'm sure the affairs of the Scottish Government aren't of interest to the majority of this board, but I have wanted to add this for awhile. The current government party is the SNP (Scottish National Party) whose main goal is to make Scotland an independent nation of the United Kingdom. For Americans, that would be is say...Alaska said they didn't want to be American or Canadian, but Alaskan.
The voting system in Scotland for the Scottish Parliament is as follows: you get two votes. One to vote for a local representative (from a political party or an independent candidate) and another to vote for a political party. The first vote uses the First Past the Post system, where the candidate with the most votes wins and is elected. The totals of the second vote create extra 'seats' in the parliament where the percentage vote equals the percentage of extra seats. These particular politicians do not represent a constituency (political region) but instead are there more to add in numbers better representing how the public feel about the political parties. For instance, I voted for the Scottish Liberal Democrat candidate because I feel he is doing a good job as our local representative, and I voted with my second vote for the Scottish National Party because I believe they did a good job of governing in their first term as a minority government and I support their Independence agenda.
That voting system is designed (apparently) so that no one party should have a majority government. That keeps things fair, so that the ruling party can't go 'We have enough of our people to do what we want', which is what free politics is about. However, the SNP won the last election with a majority government (52% I believe). Which really just goes to show how much support they have, for whatever the Scottish public support them on.
Because of the Independence agenda, the British government are frankly worried about the idea of losing Scotland. All of the British oil is found in Scottish sea for a start. I also believe Scotland has the potential to be the first country in the world to reach 100% renewable power, which would be a great boon to Scotland (and Britain, if Scotland remains part of the UK). In typical politics, rather than prove their idea is better, the other parties of both Scottish and British governments are attempting to goad Alex Salmond (SNP Leader and thus First Minister of the Scottish Government) to launch his Independence referendum now when he explicitly said he would do so once he has Scotland on better ground in the latter part of this term (in 2-3 years time). To branch over to Lonewolf's topic found here: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=11459 I would severely lose confidence in the SNP if they went back on that promise unless the global economy took another plunge. Scotland is a small country, and Alex Salmond wishes it to be independent in full, not in name while surviving on European handouts.
As to why Scotland wishes to be an independent nation...mostly it would be because those who support the idea believe we could do a better job governing ourselves than the British government, who mostly seem to give Scotland the shaft. Granted, Scotland does form a small part of the UK (5 million Scots opposed to 60 million English or thereabouts) but it often does seem Scotland gets an unfair amount of 'badness' from the British government. Some examples:
1: A recent £2 billion tax increase against the oil companies operating in the North Sea. This had the potential to put off further investment in the oil industry, which many jobs in Scotland depend.
2: Most recently, scrapping 2 out of 3 coastguard posts, which have been reinstated after much protest. The reason they were cut was because it was 'too expensive'. Cutting these posts would save £8 million per year. Yes, it's too expensive to run the coastguard which could be funded by 0.4% of the tax hike mentioned above.
3: Joining the European Union (but not the Eurozone currency thank the Lord). This move caused the European Fisheries Minister (who is from Austria, a country with no coastline) to severely screw around with fishing quotas. He butchered Scotland's fishing industry, and gave the Danish a quota on 1 million tonnes for industrial use only (aka animal feed). If you ever buy Danish pork or eggs, you may get a fishy taste. To add, the Danish fishing industry has not once been able to catch this much fish yet.
4: The Poll Tax. I'm not sure what it was exactly, but it was an experimental new tax invented by the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher. Where did she choose to test this tax? Scotland. It turned out that the Poll Tax was a highly unfair tax and lead to mass protest. Because of this, the Conservative party is nigh unelectable in Scotland. In fact, the Scottish Conservatives are having to elect a new party leader. In fact, ALL Scottish political parties are electing new leaders because of the SNP landslide. At any rate, one of the candidates for the Scottish Conservative leadership has vowed to completely dis-associate with the Conservative brand. New name, new logo, new colours (they use blue) and being more centre-right than right wing.
5: Faslane Naval Base. This base is the only nuclear submarine base in the UK. Depending on how you look at it, it's good because having navy personnel is good business for nearby bars etc. But it is bad because no one likes nukes and there were mass peace protests outside the base in the 80s.
6: Coastguard. If Scotland had control of it's own coastguard, I would hope the government would keep the minimum three stations we have, or better yet, expand. As an example, Germany has like 1/5 the coastline of the UK, yet has a larger coastguard fleet. Given the large amount of shipping that is around Scottish waters (oil industry and those going from North America to Scandinavia pass through as well) the coastguard is essential in my eyes.
Anyway, rant over, not sure how much folks can add. But I just wanted to get all of that off my chest. Remember, check out Lonewolf's topic viewtopic.php?f=23&t=11459 to see what got me started.