December 18

A 'Yes' vote came in September 1997: Dawn of Scottish parliament England have A bill giving Scotland its own parliament for the first time in three centuries has been unveiled in Glasgow today. Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar revealed his blueprint for the future of Scottish politics and called on the House of Lords not to delay or disrupt its passage into law. "In well under 300 days we have set in train the biggest change in 300 years of Scottish history," he said. The bill outlines the parliament described in the white paper, Scotland's Parliament, published in July. It outlines a 129-member Scots parliament to be set up by the year 2000 with powers to legislate on all mainstream issues of national importance, including health and education. Following elections in 1999 the majority party will form an Executive to act as government of the country. The parliament, to be based in Edinburgh, will have the power to vary income tax by 3p in the pound. Mr Dewar added: "This bill will give Scotland the power to boost its self-confidence, economically, culturally and political." He said the Bill had clear backing from Scots, who overwhelmingly voted in favour of devolution in a referendum in September. The Conservative party, which campaigned for a "no" vote at the referendum, now accepts a majority of Scots want devolution. But Tory constitutional affairs spokesman, Michael Ancram, said: "That does not mean that we have to accept the Bill as it stands. "There are areas of major concern such as the effect on the constitution of the UK as a whole." Inter-party talks are already under way on how the bill will be handled. All UK citizens aged 20 or over will be eligible to stand for election to the Scottish Parliament but only those living in Scotland, or with a main residence in the country, can vote at the 1999 election. The bill will get its second reading during the first two days of Parliament's return in the New Year.

The cover of the 1950 Christmas edition featured a traditional nativity scene 1950: Radio Times hits Christmas deadline Artificially 1969: The The Christmas edition of the Radio Times will be out in time for families to plan their festive viewing and listening - despite recent publishing difficulties. An industrial dispute, which disrupted production of the country's most popular magazine and other publications for several weeks of the autumn, has finally been settled. One newspaper report said the dispute had cost the BBC ?5,000 in lost sales. The Christmas edition of the Radio Times is traditionally its biggest-selling issue. Sales are expected to exceed the weekly average of eight million copies. Last year the BBC made ?,039,464 from its publications, most of it from the Radio Times. The dispute was called by London Master Printers and the London Society of Compositors over pay and working conditions. They were demanding a weekly wage of ?. The weekly edition of the Radio Times failed to appear first on 8 September. The following week an emergency 20-page version of the magazine was printed. Over the course of the next couple of months several more editions were cancelled, or printed in a shorter form. Some research was made into getting printing plates for the Radio Times made up in France. But the printers made it clear they would not handle the foreign plates. Agreement was eventually reached in November to pay printers a minimum weekly wage of ? 15s, linked to a cost of living index. New terms were also agreed for taking on apprentice compositors. From now on, their numbers will be linked to the degree of unemployment among compositors. The 1950 Christmas Radio Times features an illustration of the nativity scene by Walter Hodges on the front cover and inside a picture of the King George VI reading his Christmas message. It will be despatched ready for sale in the shops this coming Friday (22 December).

Vocabulary:

apprentice: works for an expert to learn a trade（學徒）