Dear Unkonwn, 

Today we are going to speak a little about Scottish Geopolitics. It is not a simple subject in part because of the independence question. Last year, a majority of people answered "No" to the question "Should Scotland be an independent country?". But, even if the question has already been asked to people and if Scotland has chose to stay a part of Great-Britain, you had to know that independence is always concerning Scottish politics, and people still worry about it. 

Few things to know about Scotland

• Scotland is a country of the UK.
• The "head of state" is thus the British Queen.
• The UK parliament is located in Westminster, London.
• Since 1990's, there is a system of devolution that allows Scotland some self-government measures.
• The Scottish parliament (about laws) and the Scottish government (about affairs) are separated. 
• Nicola Sturgeon is the current first minister.

Main Scottish Political Parties

Scottish National party (SNP): The SNP is nowadays the most important party in Scotland. Their current leader is Nicholas Sturgeon. This is a nationalist and social-democratic party that supports Scottish independence.

Scottish Labour Party : The Labour party is lead by Jim Murphy since end 2014. It has entrenched the Scottish majority until recently, and relies heavily on its Scottish contingent in the UK. This party holds today 41 out of the 59 Scottish seats. It is on of the biggest in Scotland. This party is often see as unionist, but the Murphy insist that it is not.

Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party (Conservatives) : The conservative party is lead by Ruth Davidson since 2011. This is, as say in the full name, a conservative and unionist party.

Scottish Liberals Democrats : Their leader is Willy Renie since 2011. Between 1999 and 2007, this party was in coalition government with the Labour one in Holyrood Parliament. Nowadays, it is in coalition with Conservatives in Westminster. It is a federalist and democrat party. 

We can also find the Scottish Green Party (pro-independance) and others minors parties, but they take a thin place in Scottish politics.

The Scottish Political map is changing

As said before, the SNP won votes and is, since recently, the main Scottish political party. Before that, the Labour party was in head. in may 2015, Scotland has voted for the seats repartition in the parliament. Scotland has in total 59 seats that have to be split between the main parties. You can see on this graphic how the political map is changing - found in a BBC article (http://www.bbc.com/news/election-2015-scotland-32635871).

We can see that SNP won 50 seats, and Labour lost 40 seats. That shows how politics evolve in Scotland. SNP is a growing, increasing party that conduct a pro-independance ideology. It's image is the modern party, that is good for "future" of our children. Labour are more seen as the traditional party (because it has been the main one for few years in the past). On this campaign of SNP, you can analyze the image that SNP conveys.