Scottish news bulletin: 8th January 2009
- Reform Scotland
- 8 January 2009
All newspaper references refer to Scottish editions. Where there is a link to a newspaper's website, the relevant page reference is blue and underlined.
Economy
Restaurants: Record closures loom for Scottish restaurants, with fears of large scale closures and job losses. (Scotsman page 1)
Law Firms:
Leading law firm Thornton’s Solicitors cuts one in seven jobs, sparking fears of widespread job losses in the Scottish legal service. (Scotsman page 6, FT page 12)
Car sales: New car sales in Scotland plummeted by a third last month, and were at their lowest level last year since 2000. (Scotsman page 6, Herald page 4)
Interest rates: Interest rates are expected to be cut to 1.5 percent today, as the Bank of England tries to inject confidence into the economy. (Scotsman page 6, page 29, FT page 2, Guardian page 2, Times page 1, Telegraph page 4)
Scotland and the Euro: The First Minister defended his comments on Spanish television about Scotland recognising the benefits of joining the euro, saying that the plummeting pound and parlous state of the UK economy has caused many to view membership favourably. (Scotsman page 14, Telegraph page 7, Daily Express page 8)
VAT: The UK government’s 2.5% reduction in VAT has done nothing to encourage people to spend, says chief executive of Next. (Herald page 4)
Local Government
Councils Financial Crisis: Scotland’s councils are hurtling towards an unprecedented financial crisis, with severe cutbacks now being revised upwards again - by as much as 50%. The global financial crisis and the Scottish Government’s call for £500million in savings across 2010-11 have been cited for the crisis. (Herald page 1)
Local Income Tax: The SNP’s local income tax plans have dissuaded companies from moving their operations to Scotland, one of the country’s top business leaders claimed last night. (Scotsman page 10, Telegraph page 6, Daily Mail page 2, Daily Express page 15)
Health
Hepatitis C Inquiry: A judge yesterday demanded answers from the Scottish Government over the planned independent public inquiry into how patients were infected with contaminated blood. (Scotsman page 7, Herald page 2, Telegraph page 9)
Flu: Scotland’s flu rates are now higher than England, figures revealed yesterday. (Scotsman page 11)
Education
National Tests: All pupils in Scotland are to sit new national literacy and numeracy tests in Primary 7 under Scottish Government plans announced yesterday. (Herald page 1, Times page 3)
Politics
Conservative Cuts: Scotland will escape the worst of the spending cuts imposed by a future Conservative government, the Scottish Tories claimed last night. Plans have been made that spending in Scotland would be cut by £28 million, far less than its £500 million population share. (Scotsman page 16)
Budget: The First Minister is considering a repeat of his successful tactic of last year, challenging the opposition parties at Holyrood to bring down his minority administration by voting against the Scottish Government’s Budget. (Times page 5)