2016 Election campaign begins on ‘independence day’

The campaign for the Scottish Parliament election gets underway today, which marks what would have been the first day of an independent Scotland, according to the referendum white paper.

Tonight will see the first of a number of televised debates between the leaders after they hit the campaign trail around the country.

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon will be in Dumbarton today, while Labour leader Kezia Dugdale will visit Rutherglen.

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Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie will kick off the party’s campaign in a nursery in Edinburgh, while Conservative leader Ruth Davidson will hold an event to ‘thank’ those who voted no in the referendum on Scottish independence.

“Let’s get the SNP to focus on what matters, not another independence referendum,” she is expected to say.

At the launch of the SNP’s campaign for re-election yesterday Sturgeon said she hoped the campaign would be “a battle of ideas, not insults”.

Dugdale said the day shouldn’t be marked by focusing on the past. “Today isn’t a day to re-run the old arguments of the past. The people of Scotland don’t want to go through all that again,” she said.

Scottish Greens convener Patrick Harvie will be in Glasgow speaking on welcoming refugees.