The fresh face of Scotland’s 18-24 year-olds with only one wee plook in Edinburgh South

2 wee snippets which I found cheering in my trawl through the day’s news.

First one concerning the tremendous growth in the visits to Scotland’s Public Libraries over recent years. I confess I hadn’t heard about this singular success before now – hugely encouraging increase in use of these vital public resources. The SNP Scottish Govt putting significant funding in to assist development of these vital community hubs. Link and snippet below:

https://news.gov.scot/news/library-opens-on-christmas-day

Scotland’s national public library strategy, shows there were 28 million visits to libraries in Scotland in 2013/14. The latest audit figures show that visitor numbers have increased, with over 43 million visits to libraries in Scotland in 2017/18.

Since 2014, the Scottish Government has invested more than £5 million to re-invigorate the role of public libraries, supporting local and national activity to make them community hubs, providing services like WiFi, access to health information, supporting people with dementia and tackling social isolation and loneliness.

Next interesting piece is from The Irish Times – describing the ratcheting up of Ireland/Scotland intergovernmental cooperation across a raft of shared policy areas. This story is being carried by the Irish media but getting completely blanked by the ‘Scottish’ msm. (Note the final sentence “Irish-Scottish relations are now on a necessarily much stronger institutional and political footing”. Another important psychological staging post I would argue). Link and snippet below:

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/no-catalan-moment-for-scotland-in-the-short-term-1.4121567

Sturgeon argues that Scottish views on Brexit have been disregarded in Brussels negotiations

Sat, Dec 21, 2019, 06:00 Paul Gillespie

In an important initiative, given all these uncertainties, the Irish and Scottish governments are conducting a joint bilateral review of their relations, encompassing shared policy areas. They include formal structures like the British-Irish Council, political initiatives like the Scottish Citizens’ Assembly as well as business and economic, diasporic, cultural, linguistic, rural, coastal and island communities and academic and research links. Irish-Scottish relations are now on a necessarily much stronger institutional and political footing.

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