:00:01. > :00:11.struggle, with politics and arms, and perhaps even the break-up of
:00:11. > :00:15.
:00:15. > :00:19.Tonight, this year has seen the SNP win a majority at Holyrood and the
:00:19. > :00:22.UK government at loggerheads with Europe, so how have the events of
:00:22. > :00:26.this year reshaped Scotland's relationship with the rest of the
:00:26. > :00:29.UK and beyond? We have been to London to see the
:00:29. > :00:34.charity Mark King 400 years of helping Scottish people are indeed
:00:34. > :00:38.in the big smoke. 2011 has seen the political
:00:38. > :00:44.landscape in Scotland transformed, few could have foreseen the scale
:00:44. > :00:50.of the SNP's victory in the Holyrood elections. When the UK's
:00:50. > :00:58.relations with Europe took a nosedive, did it mark the end of
:00:58. > :01:03.the deer were Scotland's relations with Europe and beyond changed?
:01:03. > :01:10.You might think it is easy, sitting there at home, to fill 20 minutes
:01:10. > :01:14.of Newsnight, four days a week. Sometimes it is. For example, what
:01:14. > :01:24.else could we do on the day the SNP won an overall majority of
:01:24. > :01:28.
:01:29. > :01:38.Holyrood? What did we do for Our jaws dropped at the scale of
:01:38. > :01:42.victory. Although not everybody was overwhelmed. We watched as the
:01:43. > :01:48.Labour Party and Liberal Democrat defences fell one by one, and some
:01:48. > :01:58.fell from view. No Tory cuts! Others wished they could disappear
:01:58. > :01:58.
:01:58. > :02:07.from sight. That is not the real subway, it is a sandwich shop! The
:02:07. > :02:15.election was the highlight of the year. It rewrote the rules of our
:02:15. > :02:19.politics. It was reported around the world. The First Minister has
:02:19. > :02:26.been giving the impression of being a head of state ever since. That is
:02:26. > :02:31.him on the left! The surge of the nationalists have pulled the
:02:31. > :02:36.support of other parties, and left them frustrated that it is Alex
:02:36. > :02:40.Salmond who commands events. Hence the lobbying to fast-track the
:02:40. > :02:43.referendum, because Unionists think they might win. The year ends with
:02:43. > :02:50.profound questions hanging over the future shape of Scotland's
:02:50. > :02:56.relationship with London and, increasingly, with Brussels. If the
:02:56. > :03:01.SNP had been on a journey, that is more than can be said for the
:03:02. > :03:08.Edinburgh trams. They stuttered and spluttered, and went into a series
:03:08. > :03:18.of sidings named Dead End, illegal in past and, I will just take a
:03:18. > :03:19.
:03:19. > :03:24.taxi. There was a coalition Kasper Schmeichel coalition when the
:03:24. > :03:31.Supreme Court overruled the Scottish judicial system on the
:03:31. > :03:37.rights of detainees. The Justice Minister blew his top. But he found
:03:37. > :03:42.the scales weighted against them. But there was a kind of Scottish
:03:42. > :03:50.schadenfreude when riots broke out in English cities. That allowed the
:03:50. > :03:55.SNP to point out that did not happen here. Unkind critics said
:03:55. > :04:00.that was because we had nothing left to burn. Throughout the year,
:04:00. > :04:05.we lived in the shadow of sectarianism, with death threats,
:04:05. > :04:13.letter bombs and attacks. But there is an attempt to bring people
:04:13. > :04:18.together. A consultation on same- sex marriage, as opposed to civil
:04:19. > :04:21.partnership. It portrayed the government as liberal and modern.
:04:21. > :04:31.Until eight United religious based counter-attacked took fire and
:04:31. > :04:37.
:04:37. > :04:41.still looms. There was what the protesters would call a proper day,
:04:41. > :04:49.when Zara Phillips married the England rugby captain. What really
:04:49. > :04:52.a highlight?! There was something approaching a good-news story, as
:04:52. > :04:57.two pandas touchdown in Edinburgh as gifts from the Chinese
:04:57. > :05:05.government. They showed they were up to speed with their new
:05:05. > :05:10.environment by asking, have they finished the transit? -- trams yet?
:05:10. > :05:15.Something of significance did not happen, again. Despite terminal
:05:15. > :05:21.cancer and the country's revolution, the Lockerbie bomber remains alive
:05:21. > :05:29.this Christmas. We were promised evidence of Libya's role in the
:05:29. > :05:33.bombing, but so far, nothing new has emerged. We await a new Labour
:05:33. > :05:38.leader this weekend. But the year ahead will be defined by how well
:05:38. > :05:42.Alex Salmond retains his grip and convinces Scottish people that the
:05:42. > :05:52.only way out of the cold of war austerity is a Yes in the
:05:52. > :05:57.
:05:57. > :06:04.With me, Lorraine Davidson and Joyce and alone. -- Joyce McMillan.
:06:04. > :06:11.There has been great excitement, trying to connect Alex Salmond's
:06:11. > :06:17.desire for independence, and David Cameron's stance over Europe.
:06:17. > :06:22.are right to be excited, the events of last Friday, what David Cameron
:06:22. > :06:26.set in motion, potentially, has the capability of changing the nature
:06:26. > :06:29.of the constitutional debate in Scotland. If you are one of the
:06:29. > :06:32.two-thirds of Scottish people on convinced of the merits of
:06:32. > :06:38.independence, the chances are that is based on the belief that you
:06:38. > :06:43.like being part of the UK, you like the bigger firepower of the UK, the
:06:43. > :06:49.status, won the European stage. If suddenly you find that the UK it is
:06:49. > :06:54.Englander mentality, who is going to Brussels and sitting on the
:06:54. > :07:03.sidelines, that does not seem like such an attractive proposition.
:07:03. > :07:07.This has presented Alex Salmond... People who understand Europe, they
:07:07. > :07:12.think it is a great opportunity for Alex Salmond. I am not sure if Alex
:07:12. > :07:19.Salmond has grasped this, but it is one of his big challenges. Do you
:07:19. > :07:24.think it was such a big thing? Maybe the practical implications
:07:24. > :07:28.are not as big as some people are arguing, because any country which
:07:28. > :07:31.is interested in having to its own sovereignty and its own way of
:07:31. > :07:36.doing things is going to have difficulties with the face that
:07:36. > :07:42.Europe is probably moving into, there has to be a much tighter
:07:42. > :07:47.political and fiscal union, but I do think that it shows up a kind of
:07:47. > :07:51.culture gap between Scotland and the Tory dominated England but we
:07:51. > :07:57.are currently seeing reflected in the House of Commons. The attitudes
:07:57. > :08:01.on the Tory backbenches in Westminster are, they are so
:08:01. > :08:06.instinctively you refer bit and viscerally pleased to see the
:08:06. > :08:13.European project running into trouble. Most Scottish people do
:08:13. > :08:16.not have that kind of emotional negativity about it that a lot of
:08:16. > :08:21.people in the Conservative Party in England seem to have a. It does
:08:21. > :08:27.emphasise a culture gap between Scotland and England, and Alex
:08:27. > :08:31.Salmond, if he is up to his game, he should be able to exploit it.
:08:31. > :08:38.do not want to put a dampener on it, but there are a couple of obvious
:08:38. > :08:44.things to say. That was a big story last week, in the mind of most
:08:44. > :08:48.people in Britain, I wonder... The Euro-sceptics will try to campaign
:08:48. > :08:53.for a referendum, and that could come to dominate the political
:08:53. > :08:56.debate, but David Cameron walking out of Europe, will that be in
:08:56. > :09:05.people's minds three weeks from now, never mind in a couple of years,
:09:05. > :09:09.when there is a referendum on independence? Yes,... The practical
:09:09. > :09:16.effects need not necessarily be that big. Britain is a major
:09:17. > :09:21.country, we have had Angela Merkel... All it needs is fishing...
:09:21. > :09:25.Of editing the impact of Scottish interests in Europe, we are not
:09:25. > :09:32.seen to be building alliances. It looked as though David Cameron was
:09:32. > :09:37.lost, he did not know what to do, he did not know how the mechanics
:09:37. > :09:42.work, and it increases demands for Scottish ministers to be leading in
:09:42. > :09:46.delegations, to be consulted Farmoor, for the GMC to be meeting
:09:46. > :09:51.on Europe, but Alex Salmond also has to decide, is he going to go
:09:51. > :09:57.for this debate right now, when the euro appears to be imploding and
:09:58. > :10:03.Europe is a hard sell? Tony Blair was instinctively pro-European and
:10:03. > :10:09.he balked at it. Does he hand back and lose this opportunity? He
:10:09. > :10:14.should go for it, and he should be pushing to get meetings in Brussels,
:10:14. > :10:17.to be at the forefront of this debate, but he also has these
:10:17. > :10:23.inconsistencies. He wants to attack David Cameron for repatriating
:10:23. > :10:27.powers, but he wants to do the same on fishing, he wants to argue
:10:27. > :10:33.against a fiscal union in the UK, but getting involved in one in
:10:33. > :10:43.Europe. He has got lots of fun on a loose -- lots of anomalies to sort
:10:43. > :10:48.
:10:48. > :10:52.End a few weeks, it will be probable but what will be
:10:52. > :10:59.dominating the news is another crisis in the eurozone rather than
:10:59. > :11:05.a David Cameron keeping Britain out of a new treaty. You may be right
:11:05. > :11:09.that Alex Salmond can develop and narrative, but it will not be
:11:09. > :11:16.difficult for his opponents to develop and narrative to say that
:11:16. > :11:26.small countries in Europe should not be aspiring to European Union.
:11:26. > :11:27.
:11:28. > :11:33.Alex Salmond's opponents have not been developing any narratives.
:11:33. > :11:37.the sake of an argument, what happens if they develop one? I do
:11:37. > :11:46.not see much sign of that. The problems surrounding the eurozone
:11:46. > :11:50.are so profound and so difficult to handle, there is not going to be
:11:50. > :11:59.anybody who has a particularly clever answer to them. The debate
:11:59. > :12:06.will be much more about the mood music. We will have to leave it
:12:06. > :12:10.there. Thank you. When King James VI took the high
:12:10. > :12:13.road to London and the English throne as James I, he began a long
:12:13. > :12:16.tradition of Scots heading south. But then as now, not all of them
:12:16. > :12:19.were able to find fortune in the English capital. That is why a
:12:19. > :12:22.charity is marking 400 years of helping Scottish people in need in
:12:22. > :12:25.London. Set up by Scots for Scots, it has enjoyed centuries of Royal
:12:25. > :12:35.patronage and it is still at work today. From London, our
:12:35. > :12:36.
:12:36. > :12:43.correspondent Kenneth Macdonald 75 years ago, it was easy to see
:12:43. > :12:52.why the Calder the smoke -- why they called it ate the smoke. This
:12:52. > :13:02.woman came to London from Blair are full in 1936. They used to go up to
:13:02. > :13:03.
:13:03. > :13:13.Piccadilly Circus on New Year's Eve and have a whale of a time. Hail
:13:13. > :13:30.
:13:30. > :13:36.fellow well met. Some Scots. For centuries, the lure of London has
:13:37. > :13:44.proved irresistible. Many of them do well, but for the rest, who do
:13:44. > :13:49.they turn to? ScotsCare is its modern name, but previously it was
:13:49. > :13:59.called Royal Scottish Corporation. This is a Scots box, it dates back
:13:59. > :14:00.
:14:00. > :14:05.to 16 at 11 and the foundation of the charity. -- Today's by 26011.
:14:05. > :14:14.James VI brought many people down with them. Some of them fell on
:14:14. > :14:20.hard times. The wealthier ones would contribute to this box.
:14:20. > :14:29.corporation has picked up three will charities down the centuries.
:14:29. > :14:33.It helps with people who are first and second generation Scots. I used
:14:33. > :14:43.to be an addict. I wanted to put back into society at help the
:14:43. > :14:44.
:14:44. > :14:49.community. I needed to get funding for the job I was going for.
:14:50. > :14:55.Because I fitted all the criteria, we applied to ScotsCare and the
:14:55. > :15:00.replied and gave me a home visit and gave me help. What were they
:15:00. > :15:07.able to do for you? They have given me funding for an intensive driving
:15:07. > :15:15.course. It means I can drive and get employment. I have actually got
:15:15. > :15:23.a job. ScotsCare gave me the financial help I needed. Last year,
:15:23. > :15:31.ScotsCare helped 1800 Scots. Perhaps in the past we created a
:15:31. > :15:36.dependency culture. But we have started to shift from that. We are
:15:36. > :15:40.now looking at individuals and saying, we want to help you back
:15:40. > :15:50.into work or education. That is what we do now which is different
:15:50. > :15:59.from the past. If somebody on a pension needs help, we might help
:15:59. > :16:09.by giving them an element. And it lives in a cosy flat in London at
:16:09. > :16:10.
:16:10. > :16:17.run by ScotsCare, or Royal Scottish Corporation as it was. When I lost
:16:17. > :16:21.my husband, I had unhappy times with the flat I was in. And the
:16:21. > :16:28.corporation gave the this lovely flat. I never thought that I would
:16:28. > :16:35.need help. It was just the word there. And I knew that they would
:16:35. > :16:43.have helped. But I never needed it. And when I needed to get, they
:16:43. > :16:49.jumped to immediately. Happy, happy, happy. I want to be here and I want
:16:49. > :16:59.to end my days in my own flat. I do not want to go to hospital or
:16:59. > :17:00.
:17:00. > :17:10.anything. I know the man above it will grant be that. This is one
:17:10. > :17:12.
:17:12. > :17:22.corner of a London police which is truly Scottish. But in this society,
:17:22. > :17:25.