Scottish Roundup

This has been a strange week in politics in some respects but obviously politics isn’t the be all and end all of life as we know it (apparently) and therefore there are other topics that I have covered in this weeks roundup

There were a lot of recommendations this week with a few leftover from last week, so here goes;

Starting with the visit of David Cameron to America to see Barack Obama and BP and Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi over on Red Meg’s blogshe is agreeing with David Cameron that the release of Al-Megrahi was wrong while Frankly’s Blogue explains the due process.

Caron’s Musings has the Florence and Precious Mhango vigil in Glasgow in words and pictures, including one of our very own J. Arthur MacNumpty who Caron spotted in the large crowd of supporters.

I thought there would be more about the Labour leadership race in the macblogosphere, giving my own blog a shameless plug I covered the news late last night that Ed Balls MP was considering quitting the leadership race on my running blog.  Tom Harris MPexplains why David Miliband would be the greatest threat to the coalition.

I did try to get more of a Labour Scottish angle on this but using the Total Politics top 50 Scottish blogs list, all of the Labour ones bar Tom Harris MP are no longer with us, invite only or really out of date.  I tried.

While we are talking about Total Politics blogging guides, it is that time of the year again when the 2010-11 Total Politics best blogs are being compiled and you only have the next week to participate.  For the explanation, rules and email address to send in your nominations can all be found here at the Total Politics site.

I am also going to highlight the proposed tax by Edinburgh Airport, they now want to start charging you a £1 just to drop off someone at the airport, the Scottish Liberal Democrats Margaret Smith MSPand Conservative Gavin Brown MSP both have petitions on this – if you want to tell BAA and Edinburgh Airport where to shove their proposed tax please sign them both!

Suitably Despairing questions whether the Green Party is being played by the SNP as the Home Renewable Energy Grants were axed by the SNP, a very good point put and one to remember as the budget discussion starts later this year.

Stephen Glenn on Stephen’s Liberal Journal talks about the passing of snooker’s great, Alex ‘Hurricane’ Higgins.

Who would you put on the naughty step? Christian Ronaldo, who has recently become a new father is the choice of Adventures of a lady in training.  While on football, the best round up of the World Cup from the Scottish angle that I’ve read comes from Billy Williamson over at Dear Scotland.

Sticking with the football theme The Scottish Football Blog has come under some pressure on copyright laws, a really interesting read and I for one are very sympathetic to his plight.

As we are on the sticky subject of copyright within blog posts etc, this post titled Blogger gets libel threat for criticising website caught my eye via twitter last night about Gordon Brown MPs website.

As we approach August, those of us who stay in Edinburgh are preparing for the Festivals, Alastair Braidwood on Scots Whay Hae! has done the first part of a few previews of the Edinburgh Fringe, well worth a read.

Now for a musical theme Aye Tunes is well worth keeping your eye on as a great and useful guide to what gigs and other events are coming up soon and for slightly different lists and views pop over to Peenko or perhaps The Pop Cop.  Staying on the musical review theme, Wesley Shearer AKA the Scottish Scribbler writes about the Blue Sky Archives while Have fun at dinner tells us about a folk trio from Aberdeen, The Son(s).

Nulty Goes To Partick has an amusing post, the good, the bad and the ugly (with swearing) about research recently undertaken by scientists about apples, well that is where it starts.

Moving onto home grown vegetables Taexalia tells us the story of her home grown potatoes, a really interesting read and while we are on the something different section Life in a Scots Sitting Room has a great post titled Freaky Trees.

BellgroveBelle explains her personal experiences, the good and bad, of breastfeeding her baby.

The SPVA Sucks! ventures into the territory of mental health issues, too often overlooked and not discussed, specifically screening for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and whether the Conservatives have backed down.

Now I iz 2 is a photo blog by Tom Clark, wow, an amazing selection and still on photos, although unlike Tom’s not an exclusive photo blog, Scotland Here And Now has a great post about the Royal Botanic Gardens here in Edinburgh while on Scotland in the Gloaming has an amazing picture of the Firth of Clyde afterglow.

Going the Extra Mileis fundraising for Help 4 Heroes in fact starting tomorrow the plan is to run over 200 miles in 10 days on Islay and Jura and a little on the Kintyre Peninsula.

I have left this one until last, delibrately, because I really couldn’t stop laughing, honestly, I am not telling you what it is about, but see if you can read it without smiling or laughing? The Missy M Misssives gets the last laugh of this week’s roundup.

That’s all folks, don’t forget to nominate your favourite blog posts for next week’s roundup.

First of all a very big thank you to Lallands Peat Worrier for stepping in at the last minute to make sure you didn’t go without a Roundup. He’s written here about why he is a supporter of this site.

Secondly, we have some news from the Scottish Blogosphere. Roundup congratulates Subrosa on her success on having one of her posts translated into French and Italian by those nice people at Wikio. If you want to submit your blog to them, you can do so here.

A new Labour Blogger, Once More, with Feeling has appeared this week and given her thoughts on the impending Labour leadership election.

And now onto the Roundup proper, featuring, among other things, the alliterative range of subects in the headline.

In politics, Munguin’s Republic tackles the issue of Public Sector Pensions and wonders if the coalition government will make a difference.

There’s mixed news on the immigration front. On one hand, Stephen praises the Supreme Court’s decision against the “Discretion test” which allowed the removal of LGBT asylum seekers to face persecution in their home countries while Joan McAlpine brings the worrying news that Precious and Florence Mhango’s time may be running out and urges help for them.

Holyrood may be on holiday at the moment but Nick Clegg’s announcement that the AV referendum will be held on the same day as next year’s Scottish elections has caused controversy amongst bloggers. Jeff says we should accept it, The Shoogly Peg will be supporting AV, making the argument with some interesting bathtime analogies. Subrosa, however, fears that respect has become irreverence and First Person worries that the AV referendum will overshadow the Holyrood poll.

Looking forward to Holyrood, Lallands Peat Worrier thinks that Labour may be preparing to use the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbasset Ali Mohmet Al Megrahi features in Labour’s campaign plans. Jeff dusts off the crystal ball that said the General Election would take place in March and that the SNP would win Glenrothes to predict wipeout for the Liberal Democrats.

Andrew Reeves is concerned Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve had a last minute field-promotion here at the Scottish Roundup, and yours truly has been cheerfully and willingly dragooned into composing this exceedingly last-minute overview of Scotland’s blogging interests over the last week. Apologies pre-emptively to those of you who prefer to live more de-politicised lives – what follows will by necessity rather retrace what the fine folk have had to say who populate my own blog roll. And they’re almost all party hacks, anoraks and sundry analysts. Nevertheless, plenty,  I’d submit, to divert the open-minded!

From Holyrood: Prison, knife crime and crofters…

It has been an immensely busy legislative week for Holyrood, with final stage 3 deliberations on both the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill and the equally creatively entitled Crofting Reform Bill. At stake were eye-catching criminal justice stories including presumptions against short term prison sentences and Labour’s Tory-backed proposals to introduce a presumption that knife-carriers be send to jail for a period of at least six months. Aptly enough, on the very day the Criminal Justice Bill was debated, the Lord Chancellor Kenneth Clark gave a speech on the potential virtues of doing away with short term prison sentences. Dean McKinnon-Thomson asks does prison work? His Tory comrades in the Scottish Parliament had no doubts and no qualms. Prison is just dandy, they claimed, and voted for as much of it as possible, a position which I rather volubly dispute. James Kelly describes the defeat of minimum sentences for knife-possession and the general abolition (albeit conditional and contingent rather than absolute) of short-term prison sentences as a defeat for the forces of conservatism in Scotland. Alex Massie generally supported Clark’s theorising and described Holyrood’s practical moves to bring them into effect as a “shocking, startling outbreak of good sense”. Was Mr Massie was a mite surprised, do you think?

Subrosa dips into her own origins, and describes the final passage of the Reform Bill a ‘historic week for crofters’.

Like many of us, Jeff’s mind is turning to the Holyrood election on the 5th of May 2011. This week, he sets down his tactical thinking, positing “ten factors which will decide the Holyrood election.” Tris, rugged Consul of Munguin’s Republic, responds with a further analysis of what is at stake for Salmond, Gray and emphasises the importance of communication. Also with the election in mind, Mark Ferguson of Morhamburn  - a public affairs and media relations company Based in Edinburgh – asks, “Where is the centre of gravity for the SNP?” Similar questions are preying on the mind of Gerry Hassan, who discussed the Maximum Eck’s recent remarks on the SNP’s mission and how independence for Scotland fits into that project. Whether as a deliberate longjumper or an accidental highjumper, Hassan wonders if this is Alex Salmond’s “big leap forward (or not)”.

This week as also seen EnCore’s discovery of an untapped pool of oil, 110 miles off the coast of Aberdeen. Both Bellgrove Belle and Subrosa don hard hat and goggles and take a look at the implications of this unanticipated new well of black gold – and aptly enough ask just who will benefits from its glistering ebon flow.  Power and Its Minions dons his expert and satirical white coat to explain another truly significant breakthrough, dealing not so much with the constitution of the earth’s crust, but rather more with the governance of these islands of ours.

From Westminster: AV referendum, Your Freedom, Gay Marriage…

Jeff may wish to add an eleventh factor to his analysis, with the news that the Coalition’s referendum on the Alternative Vote system is scheduled to fall on the very same day next year. Nick Clegg’s coinciding plebiscite plan has been vehemently criticised from many quarters of the Scottish political world, both procedurally and substantively. Alex Porter has a sharp word or two to say, while Ian MacQuarrie gets a sinking feeling. James Kelly is going so far as to get out his political death certificates, with a post entitled “Respect agenda, RIP”. On the more general question of the substance of Alternative voting – I can’t decide how to vote and would appreciate help in making up my mind. Meanwhile, Big Rab discusses one of the Westminster coalition’s other big plans – the so-called Great Repeal Bill  and the Your Freedom site they’ve set up to solicit suggestions of ‘unnecessary laws’ from the public common. In which association, Caron confesses to her own shameless and wicked history of lawlessness.

Marching at this year’s London Pride, bushel-topped Mayor of the city, pressed by Peter Tatchell, Boris Johnson said that  “If we can have a coalition between Tories and Lib Dems, why can’t we have gay marriage?” Dean MacKinnon-Thomson of the New Right argues that the Conservatives should pursue Boris’ proposal in earnest. Meanwhile Stephen the Yellow Bonnet Laird of Linlithgow experiences mild raptures and (I assume sardonically) suggests we heave ho DavCam out of Number 10 and enter a coalition with equalising Boris instead.

Gallimaufry…

Bright Green Scotland take us ‘Behind the Smokescreen’ on student fees.

Scotland for the Senses has a splendid piece on Tam o’ Shanter and Alloway’s Brig o’ Doon

Hector MacQueen of Scots Law News turns his learned eye back over the apparently endless criminal cases involving tackle-out enthusiast, Stephen Gough, better known as the Naked Rambler by comparing the unjust punishment meted to out to rambling naturists in Scotland with a recent, very similar case in Switzerland. Adopting another comparative attitude, James Taylor asks What can the Liberal Democrats learn from Apple?

Meanwhile, in the world of fiction, Donna of Badsville reviews the weighty shelf of books she devoured over the month of June. Scots Whay Hae! inaugurates its You Have Been Watching, “a weekly feature looking at the good, bad and ugly (but mainly the good) of Scottish Film past.” This week, Alistair Braidwood discusses Peter Capaldi’s Strictly Sinatra.

And to end with a different sort of fiction, South Lanarkshire’s planning committee is not, I fancy, top of any idle soul’s list of exciting diversions. However, life has suddenly got much more interesting for its Labour convenor (in the Chinese proverbial sense). Joan McAlpine writes about the scandal which seems to be engulfing Councillor Jim Docherty, whose moustache is without question wider than two fish. Rab has a good-going rant about the whiffy associations which are alleged between the Cooncillor and his mate, the property developer (and serial planning permission applicant).

In despatches from the east coast, Hythlodaeus criticises the abundance of hooch-skirling shops whose tat tartanry festoons Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.

Farewells…

Finally, it is worth noting that this week Scottish Labour-supporting bloggers moved from an at risk category to an endangered species, with Yousuf foregoing his yap now that he has graduated from university and is embarking on wage labour in the private sector. After a period of mute abeyance, Ian Hamilton QC too has confirmed that he shan’t be rattling out any more posts. “It takes energy to be a nuisance and I have run my course”, he notes.  Finally, in a highly-recommended post, Dundee’s Stuart Winton takes the opportunity to discuss whether the macblogosphere in general is tending towards decline.

And thus, good friends, that is very much it for this week’s edition of the Scottish Roundup. Do continue to submit suggestions of spiffing blogs and posts and whatnot to us. What’s more,  no doubt Duncan will keep us informed about how Roundup 2.0 is shaping up. As ever, feel free to forward your vituperation, complaints or misdirected takeaway orders to lallandspeatworrier@gmail.com.

Cheerio!

LPW

Well after mulling over the options for a couple of weeks, it seems as though the option that is most likely to work is some kind of group effort. Many people volunteered to help, but few wanted to do so full time. So the next step is… er, to decide what the next step is.

Just now my plan is to have around half a dozen editors, with other regular contributors. For the time being, if possible I would like each of the editors to be in charge of a month. This would include editing a roundup one week, arranging the rota of guest editors for the rest of the month, then passing on to another editor to take over after four weeks.

Beyond that, I am hoping that as a group we can discuss how we should evolve Scottish Roundup for the future. A few really interesting suggestions have been thrown into the mix, and I think it’s worth considering them carefully.

I am thinking about the right sorts of tools to use. If anyone has any suggestions of good collaborative tools to use, that would be greatly appreciated. I’m thinking of using Google tools if possible, partly because I already use them for parts of Scottish Roundup anyway, and also because these are likely to be familiar to most of the contributors.

I will get in touch with those of you who have kindly offered to help out. And if anyone else is still interested in being part of the group, please do email me.

Also, if anyone is able to edit the next roundup (4 July), the door is wide open! Thanks.