Roll up, roll up. It’s roundup time again! First off, a few little notes. I know that Google’s Blogger service has been dodgy this week, but there is some particularly odd stuff going on at Bernie Hughes’ place. It seems as though his blog has been hacked! Ow. Anybody know what’s going on?

More amusingly, Mr Eugenides briefly found himself as the top result for “fuck” in Google Blog Search. I guess that makes him the biggest fucker of them all.

Also, Iain Dale has been looking for Scottish political blogs to link to. What a coincidence — we are aswell! The fact that he needs to ask kind of backs up the point I made when I relaunched this roundup. Scottish bloggers aren’t being noticed in the wider world — we need to up our game! Having said that, the standard is high this week — a few bloggers have multiple entries I’m afraid.

But why should Scottish bloggers matter, you ask? Cassilis knows why.

I couldn’t possibly defend some of the more lurid headlines and scaremongering you often find in the Daily Mail but it always puzzles how people quick to criticise the Mail appear blind to the agenda’s being pushed by their own newspaper of choice (usually the Guardian). Granted those agendas might be advanced with a little more tact and subtlety but they are agendas nonetheless.

Speaking of The Daily Mail‘s agendas, Bookdrunk criticises the Mail‘s confused stance on a vaccine against cervical cancer.

It’s true about the agendas. I don’t read any daily newspapers for that reason. The only ‘newspaper’ (as they call themselves) that I read is The Economist. Better to get a variety of views on the internet and dip in to all of the major news organisations’ websites.

The Scottish Executive tries to encourage people to take public transport to work. But David Farrer sees a certain someone taking the car every Tuesday and Thursday. The car’s engine is usually running while it waits for its passenger.

Holyrood Watcher takes a look at Jack McConnell’s other big environmental problem: the question about nuclear power, which puts Labour in the uncomfortable position of being the only political party in Holyrood taking a strong pro-nuclear stance.

Back to politicians and excess, Shuggy has alerted us to the fact that the smarmiest, most odious New Labour bumwit — a man who always makes me turn the television off whenever his smug, Blair bumlicking face pops up — has topped the list of MPs’ expenses. Well done Eric Joyce, you’ve achieved something at last! Mr Eugenides has more on this.

Peter Chebri takes a closer look at the gravy train, exploring the most notable fiddles muddles by Scottish politicians. Chebri says he’s had a painful experience with corrupt politicians himself.

As always, Edinburgh City Council comes up trumps. Holyrood Watcher notes that they have just spent £100,000 on new furniture.

Reactionary Snob takes a look at John Reid in a strong post.

What an illiberal bastardo, ‘Bomber’ Reid has turned into since taking up the reigns at the Home Office. You can almost see him in a tank as it harrumphs down Whitehall… or, more correctly, he probably sees this image in his Buckfast & Chips ‘n cheese fuelled dreams.

John Reid might have to find something else to fuel his dreams as Patricia Hewitt has proposed raising taxes of drinks that are drunk mostly by those evil youths in an attempt to curb binge drinking. Boorach at The Anti Arty Farty Party isn’t impressed.

Meanwhile Shuggy notes that if it is designed to place alcohol out of the reach of teenagers’ pocket money then they are probably too young to be drinking in the first place! Of course the kids would just start drinking something else. So well done yet again, Labour!

While we’re on stupid law territory, David Sim doesn’t get the new booster seat laws. He suggests a more novel approach to keeping youngsters safe. “Awesome, Wicked, Safe,” that is.

Meanwhile, Rosie Kane has been jailed for not paying the fine she received after an anti-nuclear protest. Gordon the Ranting Raver is pleased for her: “To go to jail for a belief is more than I have ever done in my life.”

Phew, this is too much controversy. Maybe we should try to look at somebody else other than politicians. Mike Power takes a look at comments made by the Imam of Manchester Central Mosque about the execution of homosexuals in Iran. Is it really true that Catholicism is just as nasty to homosexuals?

Meanwhile, Neil Craig has something to say about Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s suggestion that Muslims should apologise for the September 11^th attacks. Craig suggests that Catholics might have a bit of apologising to do aswell.

Jarndyce wants to know, why is prostitution defended because it’s “the oldest profession”?

Angry Steve Hill ponders on the fact that Scotland has been an oversized Labour rotten borough for so long.

These folk, who claim we’ve been suffering under an iron rule of Toryism probably have never seen a tory in their lives, apart from on the televsion.

Jack McConnell’s been getting an awful lot of stick recently for his attacks on independence. His speech at the J.P. Mackintosh lecture generated a lot of reaction. Holyrood Watcher is unimpressed.

We have to tolerate immigration policies designed to placate The Daily Mail? We benefit from interest rate decisions geared to the economy of south-east England?

To which an anonymous commenter replies that were the SNP to be in charge, interest rate decisions would probably be made in Frankfurt.

Will P has a different point to make. While Labour accuse the SNP of obsessing over the constitution, Will P has trouble knowing what Labour’s policies on schools and hospitals actually are because they’re too busy obsessing over the constitution! Whoops.

Stephen Glenn looks at the West Lothian Question. Meanwhile, Scottish Political News is coming round to the idea that a federal structure might be best for the UK.

How well would that work though? Holyrood Watcher (again!) looks at the possibility of Scotland gaining more fiscal autonomy. He thinks the chances are slim.

Is this getting too anoraky? Just you wait until you’ve seen the post from Make My Vote Count taking a look at next year’s local elections in Scotland which will see the introduction of the Single Transferable Vote to regular UK elections. If you ask me, STV should be getting used in all elections.

We’d better leave it there before we get too geeky. Remember to get your nominations in for next week’s roundup by the usual means. You can tag a post in del.icio.us as for:scottishroundup or you can email us at scottishroundup [at] gmail [dot] com. Seeya later!

Welcome to this week’s roundup, now moved back to Sunday. We’d wanted to try a different day for various reasons, not least in order not to clash with other more esteemed and well established roundups, but Sunday just seems the natural day to round up the weeks’ blogging goodness. (Even better if I’d been organised enough to get this up at a reasonable time of day.) What say you, people?

Anyway, here are the goodies. First up, Jarndyce points out that Labour’s shiny new inclusive aproach to faith schools is nothing of the sort.

[T]his is nothing more than prejudice dressed up as liberal neutrality.

Quite.

Over at Rhetorically Speaking, the talk is of veils, crosses and beards. Mike Power, who has recently moved to Aberdeen, approaches the discussion from a slightly different angle.
Osama Saeed explains how the debate initiated by Jack Straw is having real world effects on Muslims in Britian. He believes we are seeing a riding tide of prejudice and violence which is a direct consequence of New Labour’s shameless political opportunism. (Not a Scottish blog link but Jonathan Freedland’s article – “If this onslaught was about Jews, I would be looking for my passport” – mentioned in the comments to Osama’s post, is also worth a read. Unfortunately, there’s every possibility that forcing Mulsims to leave the country would make some in our “tolerant” society very happy indeed. )

Shuggy looks at another religious political issue; the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, has come out in support of Scottish independence. A matter of faith?

With support for the Scottish Conservatives running at an unimpressive 14%, Scottish Political News considers drastic action. Even a liberal leftie like me must concur that “there is definitely more than 14% of Scots who think in a centre right way”.

Over at Freedom and Whisky, David Farrer ancipicates the very real possibility that Scottish independence is on its way and suggests one way in which it could be made to work. That’s if we are able to significantly reduce the size of the public sector in order to make sure an independent Scotland is not beset by economic stagnation.

Letter writer extraordinare, Neil Craig, also has some thoughts on the possibly inevitable move towards independence. Neil made it to the letters pages of the Scotsman.
Richard Thomson reports on the aftermath of the SNP conference. There’s a palpable sense of optimism for the forthcoming Scottish elections. He also questions the wisdom of Nicol Stephen’s opposition to an independence referendum. Is Nicol a Liberal Democrat or not?

Angry Steve asks a £1m question. Would you?

Continuing with climate change, David Farrer makes an excellent point concerning scientific consensus. Even if, like me, you believe the current consensus on climate change is accurate and a cause of great concern, it is extremely dangerous to ostracise and discourage scientists who challenge conventional thinking on this subject as in any other. In science, progress has always been brought about by those who have challenged existing paradigms. (Of course, I’d also point out that many challenges to current climate change theories are funded (often in not exactly transparent ways) by large companies with a vested interest in a particular answer. That isn’t a great way to do science either.)

Not sure whether either or both of the protagonists will thanks me for including these posts but my co-host doctorvee has had an interesting exchange of views, ahem, with the Devil’s Kitchen. Start here, then here and finally (for now anyway) here. The part which really rings my bell is doctorvee’s view on whether you believe in government intervention in the economy:

Once you accept that some government intervention can be a force for good, you have voided your ability to use “small government” as a mantra, a panacea for all economic ills.

That seems to me to be the nub of the issue. I believe, for example, that government intervention in the form of taxation as a means to redistribute income is necessary because the free market does not distribute income in a way which is consistent with creating a fair, equitable and tolerable world for human beings to live in. It is surely more difficult to argue against that as a point of principle if you adopt a very similar position with regard to government intervention in the labour market.

And finally, Boorach highlights the effects of the smoking ban in Scotland. Would it surprise you even slightly to learn that isn’t quite what the S.E. were hoping for?

That’s it for this week. Your comments are always welcome and please remember to send your suggestions to us at scottishroundup [at] gmail [dot] com for next week. And if you want to suggest ways we could do this better, or make any other comment, feel free. Thanks muchly.

Welcome to this week’s Scottish Blogging Roundup. A bit of an experiment as this week’s roundup is arriving on Friday afternoon. What do you think?

Starting off with a piece of news from last weekend, although the comment on it has continued on to the end of the week. Tom Farmer has donated £100,000 to the SNP. This prompted Will P to write an interesting post about the power of money in politics. The post covers most of the major parties in Scotland. But on the SNP, Will P notes:

…you could argue one of the SNP’s big selling points has been its lack of wealthy backers as they have hitherto gone to great pains to point this out…

Over on the Our Scotland forums they were just having that very discussion! The day before Mr Farmer’s donation was announced, Our Scotland forummer October1974 said:

[The SNP gets] no donations from dodgy characters like the other parties.

David Sim isn’t too impressed either. He proposes an agreement between the political parties to keep expenditure down.

What do you think? It seems as though the SNP can’t win. People are forever pointing at them and wondering where the big name donors are. Then as soon as one comes along everybody rolls their eyes!

Not too long ago it was a quaint wee idea to improve a part of Scotland’s transport system. But it increasingly looks like the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link (Earl) is going to become a big issue in times to come. Holyrood Watcher is getting worried about it.

…a white elephant may be hovering inelegantly nearby. Nor is the newly established Transport Scotland agency sticking its head above the parapet. The whole project appears to be driven by Edinburgh Council and its agency TIE, neither of which has distinguished itself in promoting previous transport initiatives.

Richard Thomson is also unimpressed with Edinburgh Council leader Ewan Aitken’s position on Earl.

Speaking of Ewan Aitken, the Basa has set up an alternative to Mr Aitken’s own blog. It seems as though he’s been deleting comments. Tsk. SNP candidate Davie Hutchison supports the alternative blog for putting Ewan Aitken’s actions on watch.

Mark McDonald isn’t impressed with the Lib Dems’ turnaround on the Graduate Endowment.

Meanwhile the alien in Inverness asks, Is there any hope for the SSP?

Looking beyond our shores, Garry has something to say about North Korea’s nuclear test.

Welcome to our Club

The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Hands up everyone who feels proud to be on that list.

Meanwhile, Shuggy takes a look at the reaction of the Socialist Worker and CND.

Confusingly, Mr Eugenides has invaded The Devil’s Kitchen. He points out Chris Dillow’s question for libertarians and liberals: “What currently illegal thing do you personally really want to be free to do?” Judging by the comments at DK’s place, most people just want to go around in the nude.

Maybe you want the right to bear arms. Neil Craig shares with us an unpublished letter to The Herald.

And sticking with the libertarian theme, Bernie Hughes has something to say about so-called progressives.

This reminds me of a debate I had with somebody about boycotts during a politics tutorial last year. When I pointed out that her boycotts were probably costing people their jobs she said, “But when people boycott things they are trying… to make… things better.” Yeah, but those workers are still losing their jobs.

Osama Saeed has a few things to say about the government’s approach towards Islam.

With talks on Northern Ireland going on in St Andrews, Stephen Glenn wonders if an agreement could be on the cards.

I’ll round things off now with a bit of navel gazing I’m afraid as we take a look at Scottish blogs themselves. Mchugh left a comment here bemoaning the fact that “nearly all [Scottish] blogs are right-wing, libertarian or conseravtive.”

But this week saw the launch of a new Scottish blog, Scottish Political News trying to give the Scottish right a boot up the rear!

One of the intentions of this blog is to try and stimulate right wing thinking and debate in Scotland. At the moment the Scottish Conservatives are not doing that well…

This is confusing. One of the reasons I wanted to re-start the Scottish Blogging Roundup was because I thought Lib Dem and Conservative / libertarian blogs dominated the scene. But now I’ve found out that left-libertarians and the Scottish right are nowhere to be seen! Mind you, one theory goes that the people who are attracted to political blogging are those who feel that their perspective is under-represented in the media.

Over the past few weeks I’ve discovered a lot of new Scottish blogs (especially SNP blogs) which was very much my intention. Keep checking the ‘newly discovered’ linklog on the right panel to keep tabs on all of the latest voices on the Scottish blogosphere.

Until next week, get those suggestions sent in to us at scottishroundup [at] gmail [dot] com. Seeya later!

Sorry for bumping the latest roundup off the top of the page, but I thought I’d take a bit of time to explain the ‘Newly discovered’ feature which I added to the sidebar this week.

As you might expect by its name, this is where we are going to place Scottish political blogs that are new (to us at least). If you have any suggestions for what can go there (even if it’s your own blog!), please let us know via the usual method — emailing scottishroundup [at] gmail [dot] com.

It’s worth pointing out that we’re using a del.icio.us account for the ‘Newly discovered’ feature. If you are a user of del.icio.us and you want to bring something to our attention you can simply tag it as for:scottishroundup.

Simple, eh? If you’re a regular user of del.icio.us, this method will be far more convenient than going to the trouble of writing an email. By the way, you can use that method if you want to nominate a post for the next roundup, not just for ‘newly discovered’ blogs.

Update: By the way, as an experiment this week’s roundup will be posted on Friday, so get those nominations in!

Welcome to the second Scottish Blogging Roundup and this week it’s my turn. Before we start, I’d just like to say one thing. ONE NIL, ONE NIL, ONE NIL, ONE NIL! Ahem, anyway, there’s lots of good stuff this week so let’s get straight down to it.

With the SNP doing reasonably well in the polls, Scottish independence is back on the agenda in a big way at the moment. Converts are coming from the most surprising places. This week, David Farrer interviewed Scottish conservative historian Michael Fry on his conversion to the cause. (You may have to scroll down a bit to find the post.)

Will Howell’s has done some excellent work on his new project WebCameraon. Two posts, both definitely worth watching. Top spoofery.

Bookdrunk over at Rhetorically Speaking has some thoughts on the equine nature of women. Oh my. Congratulations are also in order.

And speaking of doctor’s, roundup initiator doctorvee has had some trouble with trains. It never used to happen in the good old days of steam apparently.

Next up, Bill Cameron discusses the US government’s attempts to draw the UK into its criminal conspiracy A dramatic title indeed.

Over at J. Arthur MacNumpty, Will is considering the implications of the by-election for the Markinch and Woodside East on Fife Council. There was a 30% swing to the SNP; is there now no such thing as a safe Scottish seat?

There’s been plenty of talk on Jack Straw’s article and subsequent comments on whether Muslim women should wear the veil. Osama Saeed expresses his concern that “we are witnessing a spiralling race to the bottom as to which party can malign the Muslim community the most”. Shuggy explains that some of the arguments used against Straw’s position are flawed but ultimately takes a liberal view and Caron believes that Straw’s comments reflect Labour’s fundamental inability to respect individuality.

Bernie Hughes looks at the Conservative Party’s prospects in Scotland. Unsurprisingly, they are still dire. Should the Scottish Conservative Party make a unilateral declaration of independence from the Conservatives at Westminster?

Bernie also has an interesting conspiracy theory.

And finally, Holyrood Cronicles reminds us that none of the above posts will be read by anyone in offices of the Scottish Executive. If you thought there was a chance that your voice might be heard within the corridors of power in Edinburgh, think again. The powers that be have taken steps to ensure that blogging subversives like us are unable to disrupt the gravy train system.

OK, one more and finally in the spirit of ITV News at 10 when it was still watchable. I found this yesterday:

This is the biggest spider I’ve ever discovered in Scotland. It just about scared the pants off me. Anyone seen a bigger one?

That’s all for this week folks. Before signing off though, I’d like to add that we’d really like people to nominate posts for inclusion in the roundup, particularly from blogs we’ve not mentioned before. And if you’ve started a new blog, feel free to send us a link for us to plug in our “Newly Discovered” linklog. Please send your nominations to scottishroundup [at] gmail [dot] com. Thanks.