Hello there! I am back after a busy couple of weeks for me. As such, I must apologise for the slightly lazy nature of this week’s roundup.

Will Patterson has taken a look at two people who are on the way out in different ways — Mohammad Sarwar and George Foulkes. There is more on Baron Foulkes from Davie Hutchison.

Seemingly, the Home Office will be conducting DNA tests to determine where illegal immigrants should be deported to. Angus Nicolson is not too impressed:

Given that a DNA test will identify only ones’ parental origins, and not ones’ most recent residence, the scientific ignorance is startling.

Elsewhere in Home Office madness news, Liam Byrne has claimed that ID cards will one day become “a great British institution”. Shuggy takes exception.

How about the idea that the Conservatives will back an independence referendum? Mr Eugenides posted his extensive thoughts on the issue.

Holyrood Watcher has received a letter, apparently written to the Presiding Officer by someone who was invited to sit on the forthcoming panel to review MSPs’ expenses. More on that panel comes from David Farrer.

Richard Thomson tackles a staple argument used in debates about public spending in Scotland. Scotland isn’t really the land of milk and honey, is it?

Jeff at SNP Tactical Voting is ambivalent about the Edinburgh trams project, but he has concluded that the SNP have to back it.

There is much more being written about trams on this blog, which is strongly in favour of the project.

Grant Thoms has assessed why the Cameron effect hasn’t taken hold in Scotland.

Bookdrunk has shone a light on (he of Christian Voice) Stephen Green’s “uniquely fucked-up view of the HPV vaccine”.

Why not have a good old point-and-laugh at bureaucracy? I’m sure it’s good for you, after all (laughing, that is; not bureaucracy). Reactionary Snob provides the material.

“Paradoxically”, Bill Cameron admired Bernard Manning — but more because his humour was “refreshingly honest” than anything else.

Meanwhile, Billy the Kidd has been pondering on the freedom of speech that comedians should have. He also gives his two cents on the knighthood of Salman Rushdie.

Over at Red Squirrel’s Lair, the SNP’s decision to abolish the graduate endowment is being celebrated. But there is a but.

While we should welcome the SNP move to drop the ‘graduate tax’, as it has come to be known by some – we should be a little bit more concerned about the quiet dropping of the nationalist’s more radical policies on student finance.

Demea at The Select Society wants help understanding Grammar schools.

Bishop Hill has discovered a handy way of getting council officials to leave your house — just light up.

Finally, many of you might be interested that Matt Wardman has launched a Scottish political blogs aggregator. This basically means that you can read loads of blogs on the one website. (Not mine though. Pah! ;))

Anyway, you can find it at politics-scotland.co.uk.

That is it for this week’s roundup. Next week’s will be edited by Richard Havers.

Thanks to everyone who sent in nominations this week. Don’t forget there is the form on the right which you can always use, or you can just email us at scottishroundup@gmail.com.

First, a brace of posts from one of my favourite blogs, Rhetorically Speaking, regarding our right to do stuff. Martin Kettle’s article on the film ‘Taking Liberties’ provoked a number of responses around the blogosphere, and bookdrunk’s offering is a good representation of the scorn it deserved. The principle under attack is that we should have the right to do something unless a law specifically prohibits it. Later in the week we find an example of a law which specifically protects such a right - breast-feeding in public. Why are such laws necessary? To acquire “a layer of legal protection” against those who seek to deny that right.

Its nice to browse beyond my usual roll of blogs, and I found Iain Gibson’s site quite interesting. He’s partisan, of course, but I think his style of gossip is actually quite informative about the way a parliament actually operates. Iain’s latest thoughts concern the difficulty the Liberal Democrats face at First Minister’s Questions - how to be original? Meanwhile, the list of committee chairs at Holyrood has been finalised. This, according to J Arthur MacNumpty, has caused a couple of people to throw their toys out of the pram. Davie Hutchinson makes the same point.

Another SNP supporter, Jeff worries that there is no such thing as society because he fails to get any help in moving fridge-freezers, or stopping cat brawls in Princes Street. But trawling through the blogs of councillors, researchers, activists and chair-people from all parties, all over the country, its hard not to get the impression that civil society is alive and well in Scotland.

Jamie Hepburn has just been elected to the Scottish Parliament, so its understandable if he feels positive about The Best Not-So-Wee Country In The World… but Cursed Tea (The Scottish Quine in America) thinks she can feel the optimism from across the pond. Meanwhile, Anastacia’s post about her illness, and launching LGBTory, is strangely uplifting too.

Having said that, following the local elections a few weeks ago, many blogs do carry a slightly tragic air, as representatives who have lost their seats have to put an “Ex” before the word ‘councillor’ on their blog. Up on the Isle of Lewis, Ex-Councillor Angus is depressed about something else: the falling number of children on the island.

If Scotland’s star is rising, then it needs a viable tourist board. Richard Havers worries that VisitScotland is not fit for purpose, and putting it under Executive control will only make it worse.

In UK politics, pretty much everyone has been using the word ‘feral’ in everything they write, after Tony Blair’s recent outburst. In 99% of posts I’ve seen on the issue, the response has been derisory. Shuggy is the 1% who says “Just because it’s Blair that’s saying something, that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.” He’s got a general point, although I’m still not convinced that The Independent was the most appropriate target.

The Flying Rodent’s thoughts on the conservative co-option of counter-culture: Witness The Power Of The Free Market TARDIS.

I liked Tartan Hero’s call for the UK to end discrimmination against the Catholic Church.

There’s not much Love on the streets of Falkirk though. Apparently Morrisons have pressed for one of their ex-employees, 22 year old Andrew Love, to be prosecuted for a “racially-aggravated breach of the peace”. Trying to silence one blogger raises the hackles of the rest, and Bill sticks up for the right to free speech. However (and this is one of the best things about blogging), the supermarket manager who made the complaint took to the comments. He claims that he was defending “a member of society that could not defend themselves.” Also on the subject of Freedom of Speech versus Tolerance of Bigotry, Clairwil’s review of The Islamist by Ed Hussain is worth a read. The comments are busy there too.

Finally: a rainbow on Islay.

Welcome to this week’s roundup. If its revised format does not quite sing and dance, it’s not for the lack of fiddling with it by the good doctor.

To begin with, let us consider the delights of Wemyss Bay. A tourist destination to rival San Francisco, Guadeloupe and Bali. All hail to the doyen (OK, one of the doyens) of Scottish political blogging, Freedom and Whisky, who has a splendid post on the Wemyss Bay Incident, a story totally missed by the dead tree press. Of course, Mr F has to work terribly hard to draw out the correct political moral of the tale - and perhaps does not quite succeed - but full credit for trying. And he has put WB back on the map.

SNPTacticalVoting (aka Jeff) dares to make fun of the present (just) Home Secretary for having been in a gang. Well, Jeff better watch it, or I will set the Stockbridge Tongs on him. (Who you lookin at, pal?)

I have a confession to make. I find the whole matter of logos unutterably tedious. But logos, and not least the new London Olympic logo, seem to exert a strange fascination for other bloggers. Thus, notwithstanding the fact that every blogger and his mother was already commenting, the Bellgrove Blogbelle, Mr Eugenides and Robert Sharp all felt obliged to tell the world their views, while even Dr Vee had to have two attempts to get his opinions across. Hey guys, it’s just a logo.

See teachers? Shuggy manages to work J S Mill into a post on drinking. (Pretentious, lui?) Well I was impressed, at least. Though I doubt if Clairwil would have been, as she took the opportunity to have a rant about teachers.

I am not greatly enamoured of rants but I have to admit that Mr E has produced something of a classic this week. You have to read it all to appreciate the level of sustained vituperation but here is a taster:

The only type of pleasure which is not to be curtailed or officially discouraged, it seems, is the quiet, desperate satisfaction these thin-lipped simpletons get from drafting and passing unnecessary legislation; poring over piles of documents late into the night (tightly-typed and printed double-sided on recycled paper, natch) by the flickering, sepulchral light of Fairtrade candles (to save on emissions), trying to come up with exciting new ways of strangling the joy out of life, their spare hand shuttling remorselessly yet fruitlessly back and forth inside their trousers.

You don’t find this sort of stuff on Blether with Brian who is far more concerned with the First Minister’s failure to celebrate the stunning victory over the Faroes. Well what do you expect from a Dundonian?

Meanwhile, in the context of Big Brother, Bookdrunk has noted the fit of vapours which has overcome the MSM when it comes to mentioning that word. See, it’s catching: even I cannot bring myself to repeat it.

Scots and Independent tells us how he almost became one of the Ferrero Rocher set. Has the boy no shame?

Are you part of an oppressed minority? If so, you should be able to sympathise with TiredTory whose political party has already begun the fruitless task of considering how not to lose the next election. (Thanks to Alex for this nomination.)

And yet another oppressed minority: those who fail to take the First Minister’s side in the Libyan farrago. Both Kezia Dugdale and Havering On, in their different ways, have sought to find a different angle on the affair - which is why they are worth a mention.

Angry Steve is also one of the politically incorrect - but I cannot hide a smidgeon of sympathy for his diatribe.

Well that’s it for this week. Nominations for next week, please, on the form on the right.

As ever, my thanks to il dottore, for both opportunity and the assistance.