Marks and Spencer is planning to close one in four of its biggest stores selling clothess and home goods as its plan to tackle a “difficult economic backdrop” ramps up. Source

CHANCELLOR Kwasi Kwarteng held undisclosed meetings with senior executives of Saudi Arabian firms when he was business secretary, according to documents obtained by The Guardian. Source

THE distiller runs Glenfiddich and Balvenie distilleries in Moray. …

Nicola Sturgeon's full speech to the SNP conference today (Monday October 10). …

A £2 million cash injection for Moray groups has been announced at the SNP conference in Aberdeen. …

What do we owe the future? A million-year view, William MacAskill, Oneworld Books Review by Hillary Sillitto William MacAskill is a young Scottish philosopher now working at Oxford University. Taking a million-year view is quite a challenge. Indeed, as he says, “there are few attempts to make predictions … more than a decade in advance.” […] Source

The week saw the passing of Ian Hamilton at the grand age of 97 years old. A ‘life well lived’ as the saying goes. He was responsible for the return of the Stone of Destiny to its rightful place. It was not, as some Scottish media had it ‘stolen’ by him and his colleagues. For […] Source

SCOTLAND’S remaining oil revenues should be used to create a £20 billion investment fund for the first decade after independence, Nicola Sturgeon has said. Source

THE “just transition” away from oil and gas will have failed if Scots are still living in fuel poverty in the years ahead, the Government minister in charge of the area has said. Source

THE UK’s largest regional airline Loganair has been put up for sale. Source

DEBATES over “process”, referendums, and court cases will do little to boost support for independence – so activists should be focusing on the brighter future a Yes vote could deliver, SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford has said. Source

Question 4: Under what circumstances, if at all, would the SNP government move to open defiance of Westminster? On Twitter you meet all sorts: English nationalists fixated on Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights. Scottish nationalists dreaming of the proclamation of the Provision Government in 1916 or the Lithuanian Supreme Soviet declaring in 1990 […] Source