LABOUR and the Liberal Democrats have welcomed a new book outlining a left-wing vision of a beefed-up Holyrood running Scotland within a federal UK.

Drew Smith, Scottish Labour's constitutional spokesman, said ideas in the Red Paper on Scotland 2014 would be discussed by the party's devolution commission. Willie Rennie, Scottish LibDem leader, said: "There is increasing support from across the political spectrum for the Home Rule powers we want for Scotland."

The SNP dismissed the book, by trade unionists and left-wing academics, after it rejected independence.