Portal:Scotland

The Scottish Parliament general election, 2007, will be the third general election to the Scottish Parliament since the devolved legislature was created in 1999. Polling will take place on Thursday 3 May. The election falls two days after the tricentenary of the political union of Scotland and England.

Jack McConnell, as First Minister, will go into the election commanding a small majority (of 5 seats) consisting of a Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition government. The Scottish Executive coalition has been in power, with three different First Ministers, since the first Scottish Parliament election in 1999. Opinion polls suggest its majority could be lost in 2007, due to falling support for the Labour Party and rising support for the Scottish National Party (SNP). No single party is likely to acquire an overall majority. Nor is there an obvious alternative coalition ready to form a new Executive.

The SNP, currently second place behind Labour in terms of numbers of Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs), seems best placed to gain from shifting voting patterns should Labour lose seats, and, based on current projections based on recent opinion polls, there could be some possibility of an SNP-Liberal Democrat coalition, which may extend to include the Scottish Green Party. The other parties now represented in the Parliament are the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party, the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP), Solidarity and the Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party.

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The Thin Red Line was a famous military action by the 93rd (Highland) Regiment during the Crimean War. The 93rd, led by Sir Colin Campbell, took part in actions at Alma and Sevastopol before routing a Russian cavalry charge on October 25, 1854, at Balaklava.

This painting by Robert Gibb is housed at the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders regimental museum at Stirling Castle.

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• ... that Fowlsheugh cliffs attract 170,000 breeding seabirds annually, and may be one of the few nature reserves with more vertical than horizontal land area?

• ...that Edinburgh University did not teach Scottish history until 1901, when a new professor, Peter Hume Brown, insisted that it was not revolutionary to study its national history?

• ..that Whuppity Scoorie is a traditional celebration in Lanark, Scotland during which children run around a church three times swinging paper balls over their heads?

• ...that the Anstruther Fish Bar in Fife has won the accolade "best fish and chip shop" in Scotland, on three occasions?

.that the Laigh Milton viaduct (pictured), built in 1812, is the oldest surviving railway viaduct in Scotland and one of the oldest in the world?

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Scotland

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Please visit the Scottish Wikipedians' notice board and help to write new Scotland-related articles, and expand and improve existing ones.

• WikiProject Scotland
• WikiProject Medieval Scotland
• WikiProject Scottish Castles
• WikiProject Clans of Scotland
• WikiProject Deletion sorting/Scotland
• WikiProject Transport in Scotland

• On 1 March, 2006, Scottish Wikipedians' notice board participant Nach0king created Wikipedia's one millionth article: Jordanhill railway station (in Glasgow).
• Scotland is the 38th most often referenced article on the English language Wikipedia. It has 15,633 incoming links, placing it just above articles such as Sweden, Poland and Paris, and just below Europe, China and California. Read more.
• Scotland was in the top 500 most visited articles on the English Wikipedia in February 2004. It ranked as 350th with 2844 hits, just above God and not far below Britney Spears. Read more.
• Scotland has an article in 84 different languages on Wikipedia.