Good morning! Richard here, your guest-editor for this Scottish Blogging Roundup. There’s lots been going on this week, what with manifesto launches, television interviews, nominations closing and voting cards going out (at least here in Glasgow). The blogging community has been picking apart these events with its usual gusto, and I’ve done my best to relay some of the highlights from the last few days.

I think it’s only fair to start with perhaps the most toe-curling moment of the week. Tartan Hero dubs Scottish Labour party chairman Cathy Jamieson’s appearance on Newsnight Scotland and trying to explain Labour’s council tax proposals as “Car Crash TV”, and certainly as per the comments, it really has almost Paxman-and-Howard qualities.

CalumCarr is generally distrustful of the claim that Labour are moving away from a negative, fear-the-SNP, campaign.

Smart and clever rhetoric but we all know Blair too well. His words will be read as lies even if he speaks the truth. The truth: long forgotten in the Blair household.

Mickey at Scandalfax shows us a cartoon of Sheridan and the SSP as tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee, as well as an article from The Herald about Sheridan’s mother standing against the SSP’s only Glasgow councillor. I’ve noted myself that Solidarity is calling itself “Solidarity – Tommy Sheridan” to get his name on every ballot paper. Cynical ploy or effective tactic?

Perhaps Prophetrage might be able to help, but might be too busy with the forthcoming Solidarity battle camper van. I kid you not…:

Campaigning for Solidarity is moving up a gear. We’ve been making plans… one of which involves a pimpmobile battle bus. Well, battle camper van. Apparently someone from Solidarity mentioned the bus to Green MSP Mark Ballard, and he responded “Very nice, but we’ve got a battle train!” Well, that told us… not sure how useful a train is going to be in getting the message to people who don’t live within 10 yards of a railway line, but there you go…

Briefly moving away from the blogs, and the national press is beginning to cover the elections up here. Indeed the BBC is reporting that Blair himself on a visit to Glasgow is asking we resist the urge to give him a final kicking. So much for helping improve Glasgow’s reputation down south…

The Economist also weighs in with an interesting piece, and the BBC has fired up it’s election website, including some nice resources for every blogger. Their political correspondents have started blogging, including a controversional piece from Nick Robinson, who was at the SNP’s manifesto launch:

If Scots decide it’s time for Salmond and the SNP – as the polls suggest they will – they’ll also be deciding it’s time to take a first step on a long journey which could see the break up of Britain as we know it today.

What’s an election without a little bit of controversy? There’s certainly something building in the Western Isles and being relayed on a blog. Ex-councillor Angus Nicolson is concerned he’s being ‘gagged’ from appearing on Isles FM by his former party, and seemingly rather petulant one at that, the SNP. It’s not going away either. Probably one to watch over the coming weeks, and to see if has an affect on the outcome.

Flying Rodent isn’t impressed (is he ever?) by the BNP’s Party Political Broadcast, and Reactionary Snob has discovered that the Lib Dems have broken a manifesto pledge by page four of the manifesto itself.

TVForum has a serious discussion on that most implacable of indepence related questions: What would happen to Eastenders, Emmerdale and Big Brother? I suppose the good news (!?) is we probably don’t need to worry about Taggart.

Matt Wardman is frustrated by candidates with blogs simply dumping documents on the page, and provides some helpful pointers for any potential party-political blogger. Speaking personally, I’m just wondering when an SNP blogger is going to choose a different colour scheme than yellow on black… Whilst, to her credit, Anne McLaughlin (indygal) has a different colour scheme, she is singing Dancing Queen at the top of her voice at 6.30am…

McGellie looks at how the party manifestos are proposing to help entrepreneurship, and concludes it’s all just talk:

They all speak the language of enterprise and entrepreneurs. Business is the new rock and roll etc., etc. etc. In reality this is all just so much posturing. No one’s got a practical, costed policy that will give a new business what it needs – not training and education – we’ve got that – what new businesses need is money, spondoolies, cash, funding – on reasonable terms.

Speaking about my own little corner, I’ve continued to be rather frustrated by the lack of information about candidates and the rather annoying tactics in the council elections. One party, one vote, so to speak. That the Independent candidates haven’t seized on the Internet as their best resource seems somewhat strange.

There are some key marginals in this election, and for the first time in many years I actually find myself living in such, rather than a safe-seat. But the smallest majority of all is 99, in Galloway and Upper Nithsdale, and The Scotsman covers the fight between the SNP candidate Alasdair Morgan, and the incumbant Tory Alex Fergusson. Sadly though, neither of them seem particularly keen to consider the internet a core constituency.

Fresh off my Grand National betting disaster, Politicalbetting is asking whether the polls could be over-rating the SNP, and under-rating Labour and the Tories? Tartan hero isn’t convinced, although speaking of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, BBC Scotland’s political editor Brian Taylor relates of Alex Salmond’s fear of “doing a Neil Kinnock”…

Ending with some useful reference links, in anticipation of the big day itself, Cameron Rose provides a useful link to a BBC resource explaining the ballot papers. Will Paterson at The Scotsman has a nice roundup of each of the MSP candidate lists – constituency and regional – including his own take on the likely outcome.

Lastly Facebooker users might be interested in this new group… Oh, and don’t forget to put aside your blushes and send in your suggestions and home-grown posts.

But that’s it from me. It’s been great fun, but also a lot of hard work trying to draw various strands together into a reasonably sized helping of political summation, trivia and humour. Full of admiration for doctorvee doing this as regularly as he does. Right, I’m off to watch the Grand Prix, and try and think of something that’s not political for the next while!

Nominations close today and the parties are beginning to launch their manifestos. The campaign is now in full swing.

Mr Eugenides is not convinced by Nicol Stephen’s promises. Are any of the Lib Dems’ policies negotiable?

Let me save you some time, Nicol. They’re all negotiable, and your credibility is in the toilet anyway.

Blogger Neil Craig has revealed that his nomination is in, and he will be standing as the candidate for the 9% Growth Party. He has some very distinctive policies!

Meanwhile, Labour candidate Kezia Dugdale has scanned the manifestos to see what she makes of them. Her conclusion is that the SNP will face a last-minute backlash and that the Lib Dems will be the biggest losers.

But despite the fact that the campaign has heated up, and the fact that there are only a few weeks to go until polling day, Richard Leyton can’t find much information about the candidates standing in his ward. He will have three councillors come 4^th of May, but he has only found sufficient information on two candidates!

Keep an eye on Will Patterson’s other blog, Scotland Decides, which looks like will be a good blog to read over the next few weeks.

Away from campaigning per se, what the Sunday Mail obviously hoped would be the story of the week turned out to be a bit of a damp squib. Alister says it is because Angus MacNeil admitted it and apologised. The story immediately became dead in the water.

Tartan Hero asks where the Sunday Mail‘s journalistic ethics are. given that the young women involved have themselves rebutted many of the claims made by the paper. It has also emerged that the protagonists were promised anonymity, which the Sunday Mail then broke. There is more from Iain Dale.

Indygal Anne McLaughlin is very angry about Labour’s big (brother) idea to use lie detectors on benefits claimants.

…here we have a Labour government sticking the boot into poor people, desperate people, once again.

In other Labour authoritarianism news, Clairwil is irate at Patricia Hewitt’s reaction to the captured sailors:

“It was deplorable that the woman hostage should be shown smoking. This sends completely the wrong message to our young people.”

It’s extraordinary, almost unbelievable. A member of the British government switches on the TV to see some British sailors taken hostage by Iran and thinks ‘tsk, smoking’. Exactly how much of a health Nazi does one need to be to react like that?

Small Nation looks at Ken Livingstone’s comments on Council Tax, made at the same time as Scottish Labour is attempting to defend the system against the SNP’s proposed Local Income Tax.

But while the SNP makes big noises about fiscal policy, what about monetary policy? James Graham wonders what currency an independent Scotland would use. In the comments he goes on to bemoan the lack of information on the matter on the SNP’s website.

(This isn’t to do with blogging or anything, but while we are on this subject, it might be worth pointing out this interesting paper written by Ronald MacDonald and Paul Hallwood, two leading advocates of fiscal autonomy. They make a strong case for sticking with the pound sterling from page 29 onwards.)

Meanwhile, Richard Havers at the rather good new blog Havering On is similarly worried at the apparent lack of attention being paid to issues of practicality surrounding independence.

Elsewhere, Richard Thomson celebrates Donald Trump’s comments about the ability of an independent Scotland to do well. He compares Trump’s views to those of Ian Rankin.

David Farrer tackles that old chestnut about public spending in Scotland. He has an interesting conclusion:

Scotland – inside or outside the Union – can survive perfectly well without those bribes to Labour voters. But can the Labour Party?

Now, with all of that politics nonsense out of the way, time for a spot of navel gazing. The blogosphere is currently talking about Tim O’Reilly’s suggestion of a “Blogger’s Code of Conduct” to follow in light of recent events.

Angry Steve says Mr O’Reilly needs a reality check, but Will Patterson has put a message on his blog nonetheless.

An article about the proposed code appeared in The Scotsman earlier in the week. Of course, it contained all of the usual clichés about blogging. Holyrood Watcher has this to say about it.

Meanwhile, Oliver Kamm has been at it again. For those who don’t know, Oliver Kamm made his name blogging, and then went on to become an MSM commentator. Since then he has taken many opportunities to take pot-shots at blogging — while continuing to blog himself. Mr Eugenides says all that needs to be said about the man.

But full marks to Reactionary Snob for this top fisking. The Devil’s Kitchen says just a bit more:

this attitude does seem to be redolent of pulling up the drawbridge (and dropping the portcullis) after one is safely across.

Some juicy YouTube action now. Tony Blair opened a YouTube channel this week. YouTuber AYEscotland comes along with a simple response.

Philo at The Select Society has heard all sorts of juicy secrets on the Edinburgh–Glasgow train.

I have gleaned (along with the occupants of the rest of the carriage) useful insights on Scottish Executive policy, the approach of a competitor to a pitch, and only yesterday, advance details of Scottish Labour’s manifesto.

But that is not what interests him today.

Finally, Anastasia Beaumont-Bott has taken some time out of politics to write a big rant about McDonalds.

And that’s it! I think that’s plenty though, there was a lot of brilliant blogging in the first half of this week.

As you have probably seen, I have tinkered a bit with the website and we now have tagging. I started tagging some older posts, but I have only gone so far back because it is quite time-consuming, and I also discovered that it really messes things up if I try to tag archive posts written by other users! But the feature is there in the sidebar if you want to use it.

Here is the plan for the next couple of weeks. Sunday’s roundup will be written by Richard Leyton. Next week will be another special — a roundup dedicated to anything but politics! That will be written by Clairwil. Sometime before the election there will also be a YouTube roundup.

Since the campaign is heating up, we could well end up having three (or more) roundups per week, especially if we want to squeeze the ‘specials’ in. But we will play it by ear and see how it goes.

In the meantime, the next roundup will definitely be on Sunday, so get those nominations in at scottishroundup@gmail.com. Seeya later!

No 27 is from David Farrer of Freedom and Whisky.

Let’s start with a funny one. The LibDem leaflet that I just received says they’ll provide “more Bobbies on the beat”. Now we know why!

Needless-to-say, this week’s Scottish Roundup is mainly concerned with the forthcoming Holyrood and local elections. And don’t forget that saying: “All politics is local”. Cameron Rose blogs about a burst water valve in south Edinburgh, there’s “Election Fever” in Pilton and, over in Paisley, Councillor Kelly – no not that one, I mean this one – is helping the police with, I suppose, their enquiries.

One of the week’s main stories was mentioned by Mr Eugenides on Wednesday. There are supposedly plans for a separate Scottish Conservative Party and the usual official denials suggest to me that the story may well be true. Bishop Hill makes this observation:

Scotland, the country, needs to be cut free. Then it can go through the pain that will cure it of its delusion. Try socialism. Try it again. Then try it some more, and if that doesn’t work then keep on trying it just a few more times. The turmoil and despair that this will create will act as a kind of mask so that when a radical new free market approach is announced, nobody will recall that a long-forgotten party called the Conservatives were advocating just such a policy many years before, not that they were widely reviled for it by the very people who now declared it the road to redemption.

I fear that he’s correct. But when the people finally demand a free-market Scotland some of us will take a morbid pleasure in saying:”Ye ken noo!”

And what would such a party be called? The Rev I. M. Jolly suggests the “Freedom and Whisky Party”.

OK, but what about “THERESAMOOSELOOSEABOOTTHISHOOSE“, which obviously stands for:

The Highland Electoral Reform Executive Seeking A More Opportunity-Orientated Social Environment Leading to Optimal Organic Supply-side Effects Augmenting Business Operation Over The Totality of Holyrood and Inspiring Stronger Healthier Organisation Of Scottish Enterprise

Meanwhile, some Scots Tories have gone further as this article by Clive Schmulian demonstrates.

I do not support most of the SNP’s policies and remain a supporter of conservative values, however I will be casting my vote on the single issue of independence.

A century or so ago some of us libertarian-minded folk would have been voting for the Liberals. But look what they did to Neil Craig. Doesn’t this sound better than Gordon Brown?

Back in the Holyrood campaign 1820 has some Rules for Unionists, Bill Cameron is worried about electronic vote counting, Councillor Burns gets a leaflet from Sarah (me too), Tartan Hero isn’t happy about what the Bogey Man has done to our pensions (me too), Right for Scotland will be supporting UKIP, SNP Tactical Voting writes about the Greens, and Leyton is being stalked by Nicola Sturgeon.

Talking of “Right for Scotland”, that’s also the title of a piece by Scots and Independent on the Scottish Tory question.

Down in London (as pointed out by Holyrood Chronicles) the Times proclaims in full “No shit Sherlock” mode that:

The Scottish electorate should be aware that a vote for Mr Salmond would be a very substantial step towards leaving the United Kingdom.

Can’t we bloggers get paid for scoops like that?

Not everything going on in Scotland this week is about politics – in the ideal world there would be hardly any politics at all. Over on Arran, there’s a new paper that has a blog. Kinglear explains why I have so many maps in my house/car/briefcase. And Havering On discovers an unusual new angle to Edinburgh’s role as Unesco City of Literature.

Finally, I’ve heard from Google that I’ve earned $46 in advertising revenue from my own blog. Still keeping the day job(s)…

Nominations for future editions should go to scottishroundup@gmail.com.

Hi there, and welcome to the first of the occasional ‘special’ roundups that we will be posting on Wednesdays. Today I have decided to look at the blogs written by candidates in the upcoming elections.

In many ways, the blog is the perfect method of campaigning for a politician. For one thing, it is free and easy to set up a blog, giving politicians the opportunity to campaign from the comfort of their own home. There is no need to print out expensive leaflets or spend time going around doors. Blogs also act really well as a discussion forum. Voters can voice their opinion in the comments section of a blog, where debates can thrive.

Blogs have the additional benefit of not being as intrusive as other methods of campaigning. While some voters may not like to be disturbed by a politician knocking on their door and others may see campaign literature as junk mail, blogs do not force themselves down anybody’s throat. People can choose to read a blog or not.

The flexible format of a blog means that you can write about whatever you like in whatever style you want. Although undoubtedly the traditional methods of campaigning will still be evident, blogs are being used increasingly by candidates as an easy and cheap way to reach voters.

However, some blogging candidates — most notably Jody Dunn — have found themselves in hot water over what they have written. If you write anything that could incriminate you, other bloggers will pile on the criticism.

We have seen that with Councillor Terry Kelly, whose blog became so controversial that it led to a “Terry Watch” movement with members from all across the political spectrum. In the end, a Terry Watch blog was even set up, with the sole aim of dissecting Councillor Kelly’s writing.

Councillor Ewan Aitken also found himself facing a critical blog written by The Basa from Edinburgh Sucks.

So blogs can be an effective means of campaigning for politicians. But they are also high-risk. As such, it is interesting to view the ways candidates use blogs and how they cope with the challenges that blogging can bring.

My favourite politician’s blog is North to Leith by Davie Hutchison, the SNP’s candidate in Edinburgh North and Leith. (Interestingly, the MP for Edinburgh North and Leith, Labour’s Mark Lazarowicz also has a blog.) Unlike many candidates, Mr Hutchison is a frequent poster to his blog. He doesn’t get too bogged-down in local issues either, which makes his blog a deft mixture of campaigning and general political commentary.

Still, his blog provides a real insight into the Edinburgh North and Leith campaign. Take, for instance, his post about the first proper hustings of the election. I like his style, fairly setting out his opponents’ positions while adding his own comments to the mixture.

It cannot be an easy skill, and many politicians’ blogs are — to put it bluntly — quite boring. Most blogs feel more like traditional campaign literature than Davie Hutchison’s. Posts tend to outline slogans and make note of when a Very Important Person has visited the constituency, complete with smiley shakey-hands photograph.

I won’t be so rude as to point out which ones I feel fall into this category, but it is another potential pitfall that candidates have to look out for. If people are going to find you appealing by reading your blog, you need to try and make your blog an interesting read!

It could be interesting to keep an eye on the blogs of Katy Gordon of the Liberal Democrats and Labour’s Pauline McNeill. Both are standing in the same constituency, Glasgow Kelvin. I wonder if many battles will be fought across these blogs.

What has been really notable is just how many blogs dedicated to campaigning for the SNP have emerged over the past six months or so. When I decided to set up the Scottish Roundup, one of my aims were to find SNP bloggers, as it seemed as though the SNP were not well represented in the blogosphere. I think the fact that there are now so many SNP blogs is a sign that SNP members are really confident, with a spring in their step, and a feeling that they can now make a difference.

You can even see this in the title of some of the blogs. 520 votes for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth is written by the SNP’s candidate, Jamie Hepburn. He obviously relishes the fact that he is standing in such a marginal seat, and must be pretty confident of his chances.

On the opposite end of the scale, barring a complete catastrophe, Marion Fellows probably won’t be a constituency MSP come May. She is standing in Jack McConnell’s seat, Motherwell and Wishaw. It could be an interesting blog to keep an eye on, from a truly “anti-Jack McConnell” perspective!

Incumbents also sometimes manage to find the time to blog, although with varying frequency. Alex Neil set up a blog in early March and he wrote a few posts before it all dried up. It is not easy to get into the habit of blogging, particularly if there are a lot of demands on your time. Mr Neil has probably found out that he is too busy with the traditional campaigning methods to dedicate enough time to blogging.

This is clearly not a problem for all candidates though. Councillor Angus Nicolson’s blog is positively prolific, with what feels like around a dozen posts per day. I wonder if this approach is a bit too overwhelming, but Mr Nicolson manages to write about a fairly wide variety of subjects, and you are bound to find something that interests you sooner or later.

A similar style is employed by David Meikle, Conservative candidate for Pollokshields. His is quite an irreverent blog, with plenty of short and snappy quick-fire posts. Like the best bloggers, he manages to be relatively entertaining while setting out his opinions.

Blogging probably works best as a voice for perceived minority interests. Perhaps that explains why right-leaning and pro-independence blogs take up quite a large proportion of Scotland’s major blogs. Notably, there is seldom much support for the Government in general — either on a UK-wide level, or in Scotland.

But it is not impossible to find Labour candidates blogging. Councillor Donald Wilson is standing for Labour in Shandon in Edinburgh — though posts are few and far between. A more regularly updated Labour blog is by Kezia Dugdale, who is not a candidate herself 4th in the Lothian regional top-up list, but is also closely tied to Sarah Boyack’s campaign in Edinburgh Central.

Also worth noting is Councillor Andrew Burns, who has actually titled his blog “Really Bad Blog”. Full marks for self-deprecation — even though Cllr Burns’s blog is not particularly better or worse than most councillors’ blogs!

Nor is it impossible to find Liberal Democrat politicians blogging. Take Cllr Fraser Macpherson who is the councillor for Tay Bridges ward in Dundee.

Blogging is also giving independents a voice on the internet. Perhaps this gives them a better chance, given that there is no party machine willing to fund their campaigns. For instance, Julie McAnulty is standing as an Independent Health Candidate in Coatbridge and Chryston

Quite a different proposition is offered up by Adam Lyal (Deceased) of Adam Lyal’s Witchery Tour Party. Mr Lyal is posing as a ghost in the Lothian region. Don’t be put off by the seemingly novelty nature of the candidacy though. He appears to be a big supporter of reducing MSPs’ wages, so it might be worth taking a look if you like the idea of smaller government.

Those politicians who don’t quite have the stomach to go the whole hog and set up their own blog are still getting in on the action though. The Scotland Votes website has got a blog where candidates are writing some posts in the run-up to the elections.

I have left until last possibly the most high-profile blogging politician, who funnily enough represents one of the smallest parties in the Scottish Parliament. Colin Fox’s blog is actually not bad. It has plenty of information for constituents, as well as acting as a space to promote various campaigns and demonstrations that SSP supporters might be interested in.

Although Colin Fox doesn’t write all of the posts (I think), and the fact that it inevitably toes the SSP party line, his blog strikes a good balance. Maybe it could do with updating a bit more often though.

I think that is quite enough from me. Below I have listed the other candidate blogs that I know of but haven’t mentioned in the post. If I have missed any out, please feel free to leave a comment.

Scottish Parliament elections

• Stewart Stevenson (SNP) — Banff and Buchan
• Michael Russell (SNP) — Dumfries
• Lachie McNeill (SNP) — Glasgow Ballieston
• Chris Stephens (SNP) — Glasgow Pollok
• Anne McLaughlin (SNP) — Glasgow Springburn
• Christina McKelvie (SNP) — Hamilton South
• Bob Dalrymple (Conservatives) — Stirling
• Derek Brownlee (Conservatives) — Tweeddale, Ettrick & Lauderdale
• Ruth Cameron (Greens) — Lothians top-up region. A slightly different approach here; Ruth Cameron is using Facebook
• Lorna Bett (Scottish Socialist Party) — Mid Scotland & Fife top-up region

Council elections

• Callum Campbell (Conservatives) — Bridge of Allan and Dunblane
• Grant Thoms (SNP) — Glasgow North East
• Doug Snell (SNP) — North West Dumfries
• Rayleen Kelly (Labour) — Paisley East and Ralston
• Jim Bollan (Scottish Socialist Party) — Renton / Alexandria South
• Cameron Rose (Conservatives) — Southside and Newington
• Iain Gibson (Conservatives) — West Edinburgh and Gorgie / Dalry

Various candidates are also blogging at Holyrood 2007.

Just a quick note to say that Sunday’s roundup will be written by David Farrer of Freedom and Whisky. And since today’s roundup was a ‘special’, it will be a roundup for the whole week. So nominations please to scottishroundup@gmail.com.

Firstly, welcome to the new place! What do you think? As you can see, I am still using WordPress, but having it on my own webspace rather than WordPress.com gives us that bit more flexibility, and should make things easier from now on.

You’ll notice one improvement straight away — we can now embed YouTube videos. I have also added tagging, but I have not got round to tagging any of the older posts yet. I will get it done when I can. Once I’ve got it sorted, it should be pretty cool.

I’ve decided to stick with the default theme, so design wise it should look very familiar. I don’t really have the time to mess around with the design, so I’m just keeping it the way it is for the time being (although I have made / will be making a few tweaks here and there). Also, if you see something that has broken, please do let me know!

By the way, in case you missed it, I had an experiment with a mid-week roundup on Wednesday which you can read here.

By the way, unlike the other blog I write for, Scottish Roundup is refusing to acknowledge the fact that it is April Fool’s Day, so this is the real deal. Anyway, enough about that and onward to the latest roundup.

And seeing as the roundup has just moved to its own website, it is fitting to begin with Osama Saeed’s post pointing out that MPs have decided to award themselves an obsecene £10,000 per year for running websites. In case you couldn’t guess, it does not cost £10,000 per year to run a website. As Osama Saeed says: “Why don’t they just head down to WordPress and get one for free?”

For some more snouts in trough action, look no further than Bishop Hill. It’s illegal to use natural landscape features to absorb floodwaters. Green MSP Mark Ruskell isn’t happy with that. And neither is Bishop Hill.

Next up, a brilliant post by Lesley Riddoch at Scottish Votepods. I didn’t realise that the Scottish Votepods blog was actually going to have posts like this (I thought it was only going to basically advertise the events they have on), so I happened on this one by chance.

I’m quite glad that I did, because it outlines the changes that have been made to the ballot paper. I didn’t actually realise that this had happened, and I consider myself to be fairly up to date on this kind of thing (obviously I’m not). Also fascinating is the revelation that the SNP are calling themselves ‘Alex Salmond for First Minister’ so that they will appear first on the list. It’s just like the way AA1 Double Glazing come first in the Yellow Pages. Clever stuff.

Davie Hutchison noted how the SNP came on top of three opinion polls in as many days. Labour clearly have a lot to be worried about. Holyrood Watcher also noticed the polls, with some additional commentary on Labour’s strategy.

Meanwhile, Anne McLaughlin just hopes the opinion polls don’t make SNP activists complacent.

Still on opinion polls, Richard Thomson is not convinced by the poll that showed only 27% supporting full independence. He says, “It all depends on the question you ask, as well as the number of questions you ask.”

I wonder if an SNP Executive would remember that come referendum time? Would they put forward a proposal supported by a minority, or a compromise measure supported by a majority? I guess the latter would not be so popular among the grassroots.

Fitaloon at Tarland Mad House Blog has his own view on the SNP’s rise:

It is not that Scotland wants the SNP and Independence, its just that we don’t want Labour and in particular Blair and Brown.

Meanwhile, over at Scotswahey, McGellie has once again set out his case for independence.

But this is the weird bit. Independence is no big deal. You still get your food from Tesco or the farmer’s market. You’ll still get your insurance from Italy, your power from Scottish Power’s new Spanish owners, buy your clothes from an Icelandic company and settle any number of transactions with a lovely call centre in India and let’s not forget the Chinese in the mix. When you vote for Independence, the Sky won’t fall in and you’ll still get Sky plus. It’s simply a constitutional rewiring.

Mind you, that’s one of the reasons why I am personally not a great fan of independence. All of those things that we love about life won’t go away. Essentially nothing will change. In that case, is it really worth rewiring the constitution?

Holyrood Belle reckons that Gordon Brown as had a Black Saturday (or a “Black Wednesday +3 days”) following a string of bad press reports.

Here is a good old fashioned cut-up by YouTuber bcnsco, who has made Jack McConnell extol the virtues of independence. It’s also made him act like a scary shape-shifting alien!

(Incidentally, I don’t keep up with YouTube very well, so I would especially appreciate nominations of good YouTube videos. I’m also thinking of making one of the ‘midweek specials’ a YouTube special.)

Bookdrunk is not very happy with Margaret Brown’s latest column in The Scotsman.

Elsewhere, the great “blogosphere vs. MSM” battle has reared its ugly head again, following Guido Fawkes’s appearance on Newsnight. CuriousHamster has this. Mr Power has this (then this). Ehh. Make of it what you will. I just can’t be bothered with the whole Guido Fawkes thing any more.

Korakious at Red Squirrel’s Lair is clearly not a fan of politicians. Apart from the SSP. They are golden apparently.

SNP candidate Jamie Hepburn makes the case for a nuclear-free Scotland, calling nuclear power a white elephant.

What would happen to the UK’s membership of the EU if Scotland became independent? That’s what Dizzy and The Devil’s Kitchen have been wondering about.

I’m not sure about Dizzy’s argument. I buy the idea that England and Wales would be the “continuing UK” while Scotland would find itself having to renegotiate. But who really knows? If Scotland were to become independent, it could be interesting to see what happens. But it could also be quite painful.

Meanwhile, High Politics wonders what sort of impact the Publican Party will make in the upcoming elections.

Finally, Will Patterson has reported on the last day at Holyrood, and finds out who will be saying goodbye for good.

And that’s the roundup for today! What did you make of the midweek roundup? I wasn’t sure if there would be enough posts to go around for today’s roundup, but as you can see there was plenty! I think this could work on a regular basis!

Anyway, as usual, we are always looking for your nominations, so please send them to scottishroundup@gmail.com. Seeya later!