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Politics, Media and ReligionThe Scottish Parliament was reconvened in 1999 after being dissolved in 1707. Its role is (roughly) analogous to a state assembly in the United States, in that it deals with domestic issues of health, police, transport, education and criminal law whilst the United Kingdom parliament deals with foreign policy, defence, social security and taxation. The political make-up is much different to Westminster, with the main opposition being the left of centre Scottish National Party (which advocates full independence for Scotland), and the ruling left of centre Labour Party governs in coalition with the centrist Liberal Democrat party. The right of centre Conservative party is only third largest, but is largely ignored by Scottish media. There are also Green, Socialist and Independent members. Scottish politics as a whole are very much left of centre (and would be called socialist at best in America, probably verging on communist). The media follows suit politically, but tends to be fairly parochial in places. The leading tabloid is the Daily Record - normally quite leftie, but went through an ugly patch a couple of years back when it supported Christian fundamentalists over banning the mention of homosexuality in schools. There are Scottish versions of the main UK tabloids on sale too. The main quality newspapers are the Scotsman (relatively to the right) and the Herald (mainly to the left). Again, there are Scottish versions of the main UK broadsheets too. With appropriate concessions to the locals, television programming is broadly the same as the rest of the United Kingdom, ditto radio. The state religion in Scotland is the Church of Scotland, which is Presbyterian. Although it is the leading Christian denomination, there are also significant numbers of Catholics and Anglican (Episcopalian) Christians, as well as Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists and Jews. Most Scots do not attend any organised religious body, and there are large numbers of atheists and humanists. In Glasgow (the largest city in Scotland) large numbers of Catholic Irish immigrants and their descendants have historically clashed with hardline Protestants in a microcosm of the troubles in Ireland. Because of this immigration, support for Irish Republicanism in Scotland is high compared to other parts of mainland Britain, and partially explains why there were no IRA attacks in Scotland during the last 30 years. Thankfully the sectarianism in Scotland is dying down somewhat, but still remains potent in certain areas, exacerbated by the two main football (soccer) teams in the country, Rangers and Celtic, being very much associated with, respectively, the Protestant and Catholic communities. Rival fans repeatedly clash at matches and in some cases this has even resulted in deaths. |