A belated hi, folks! Despite the headline, it goes without saying (which is, on reflection, why I didn’t say it in the headline) that the main story this week was the Budget. Still, whatever reservations we may have about the content, at least this one passes easily enough…

Anyway. Mr. Eugenides proves once again that he should be knighted for services to bloggery following his efforts at live-blogging Alistair Darling’s speech. Angus Nicolson provides balanced reflections afterwards.

Tom Harris, unsurprisingly, is favourable, while Jeff asks if it may have fallen between two stools, Bucket of Tongues suggests that it won’t tackle any of the root problems we currently face, and Political Dissuasion notes how it won’t be of all that much use to jobseekers… and he should know!

The new 50% tax rate for high earners raises a few eyebrows: Ewan Watt notes the return to class warfare, while you get the feeling that Stuart wouldn’t object too much to having to suffer from the plight that is earning enough money to qualify for it. Shuggy, meanwhile, wonders if those supporting the move have realised that higher taxes don’t necessarily mean better public services.

Turning to the Scottish end of matters, and the vexed question of those much-needed efficiency savings/drastic slashing of the Scottish Budget (delete as appropriate): Yousuf argues that there’s plenty in the Budget that will benefit Scotland to countreract the £500million reduction; Alex Massie suggests that the SNP should be trying to cut Scottish public spending anyway, to which Richard responds by saying that the Scottish Government has it’s own efficiency programme. Chris, meanwhile, doesn’t like being lectured about fiscal responsibility by the party that has presided over the downturn.

Jeff hails the car wreckage scheme, but Stephen isn’t so sure.

Finally, Kez notes a difference in how the Budget is being reported on the BBC’s UK-wide pages, and in the Scotland section.

Turning to other matters, the Home Office ruling on the Gurkhas’ right to live in the UK has rawn criticism from Calum, Caron and Subrosa.

Of course, it was inevitable that I’d mention the David Starkey furore, when Britain’s most eminent historian/self-important, ranting bigot (again, delete as appropriate) dismissed the Scots and Welsh as ‘pathetic’ on Question Time. Jim argues that Starkey is becoming a caricature of himself, while Clairwil feels that some of the criticism that’s come his way is a little hollow.

So given the accusations of racism that are flying around, would this be a good time to mention the latest Scottish opinion poll? Anthony Wells has the figures, whiel Jeff reflects on current attitudes to independence.

Caron, meanwhile, is celebrating good results for the LibDems in two recent Council By-Elections, but Fitaloon isn’t impressed that in Aberdeenshire, the LibDems won despite the Tory candidate winning more first preference votes.

Stephen and Subrosa aren’t overly impressed at Gordon Brown’s new plans to reform MPs’ expenses.

Staying with Westminster, Malc has picked up on how Labour MPs still persist in referring to the Scottish Executive.

Whatever you call it, Andrew Burns notes how little legislation it’s put forward compared to its Labour/LibDem predecessor.

And however effective you view the Government/Executive (delete as… oh, you know the drill now), Lallands Peat Worrier looks at the main Opposition and finds it wanting.

Jess The Dog tells his own story about Government data loss.

Calum notes that the new Chair of Scottish Labour is strongly anti-nuclear, and wonders how that squares with the pro-nuclear statements comign out of the rest of the Labour Party.

And finally, Richard Havers asks if there’s any point in Gaelic roadsigns.

Anyway, that’s your lot for another week. Lallands Peat Worrier is in the hotseat next week, and you can, as always, mail in your suggestions or fill out the showaddywaddydooberry on the right. Bye-de-bye!

Political Roundup By Holyrood Patter

A very Glasgow based week on the Scottish blogosphere. The UK Cabinet rolled into Glasgow, but a lot the attention seemed to be on the activities of the cabinet ministers in the day, rather than the Q an A with 300 carefully selected Labour officials, sorry, the cross section of the public. Wardog’s   picture of tumbleweed says it all, and he wants to see if some of those involved in  the Q and A have labour membership cards.  Subrosa thinks Lord Mandelson should have to pay for a cheesy photo-shoot at knockhill.

The Mcbride smeargate scandal simply refuses to go away, and the comments of  a certain Herald Journalist fuelled the debate further, and led to a discussion on the nature of blogging. Kezia’s  response to this bizarre outburst was the most thought provoking and accurate by far.  For me, blogging is dwarfing the influence of the media because bloggers are explicitly biased, but journalists have a duty to be objective, which many ignore. Scottish Unionist talks of the age old SNP moaning about the media, with regards to the “infinity-gate” scandal, and Brian Taylor’s comments on Salmond being “stumped” by a maths question.  Justice was restored when the braces loving Arab apologised today.

In Other Web 2.0 news, Patrick Harvie had both praise and criticism in equal measure for his remarks on Dinner with Gordon.  Jeff was as relaxed about the whole affair as the PM allegedly was, while Richard Havers thinks its representative of Harvie’s all round character, which hes not a fan of.

The big story of the weekend was of course the SNP conference. The new slogan gets on the nerves of Yousuf  and Political Dissuasion, who thinks it gives the SNP a confused message.  I was thrilled to attend the bloggers breakfast, while Jeff has an interesting anecdote about a domain name.  My blog reviews the slogan unveiling and Nicolas speech,  and thingummy gives a brief but reflective summary of her conference.

Well I hope you enjoyed that roundup. I’ve been Holyrood Patter, next weeks roundup will be by… God knows. Alex Salmond, or Charlotte Church. Someone better than me in any case!

No Po Sco Blo Ro

Not fluent Judoon, but – with apologies for the delay – a welcome to the non-political Scottish blogging round-up which gathers together a series of the best of the non-political posts from the Scottish blogosphere. Having volunteered to do this review I have increased admiration for those that have completed the reviews before, and for those 24 hour news channel hosts that have to segue effortlessly from one topic to another. In what follows feel free to participate in the spot the joins contest (but nae prizes).

I’d like to begin by referring to the late Sir Neil MacCormick, whose death was recorded in the political round-up last week, but as he bridged the political divide let him bridge the divide between political and non-political round-ups. Sir Neil was a great legal philosopher, Scotland’s finest twentieth century contributor to the discipline. His son-in-law, taught by Sir Neil in Texas, published a very moving tribute to the great man on his blog this month and for those of us that knew him the personal descriptions there will bring a smile to the face. The memorial service for Sir Neil is held at Greyfriars Kirk at 11 am on Friday 17^th April.

24^th March was Ada Lovelace Day. Ada Lovelace was the first computer programmer – writing programs for Babbage’s Analytical Machine and on 24^th March bloggers were encouraged to post about women in technology. Two fascinating posts were nominated – Ben Plouviez’s post on electronic music pioneers Daphne Oram and the wonderful Delia Derbyshire (subject of the fantastic Blue Veils and Golden Sands, a 2002 play dramatising her life and whose original arrangement of Ron Grainer’s theme tune for Doctor Who still surpasses all others); and Ewan Spence’s post on Pauline Gower - who ensured female pilots aided the Air Transport Auxiliary in the Second World War.

The behaviour of Barry Ferguson and Alan McGregor after Scotland’s unsuccessful sojourn to the Netherlands and their behaviour in response to the reaction to their behaviour, and their behaviour in response to the reaction to their behaviour in reaction to the response to their behaviour exercised our leading sports journalists (and Chick Young), for what seemed an eternity at the start of April. Having hastily christened the scandal with the appropriate suffix we had Loch Lomondgate (I’d still have preferred Nedgate personally but with the MSM you can’t have everything) the story was given detailed consideration across the Scottish blogosphere. See the views of Flying Rodent, Malcolm, and a typically thoughtful piece from Will who momentarily turned his forensic eye from politics to point out the past behaviour of the players and their treatment of Paul le Guen. And Big Rab noticed a wonderful juxtaposition in the Daily Record.

The past month has also seen a veritable plethora of posts about Twitter (take delight in the unnecessary adjectives and verbiage because it’s not possible within the 140 characters). Kimire’s post seems reminiscent of the late Dennis Potter’s suggestion that we should live in the instant, enjoying each moment, delighting in the “blossomest blossom”. And Technollama and Pangloss consider the work related benefits of tweeting with hashtags. Finally Woken looks at another aspect of social networking with the jealousies that Facebook friendships can create and the curious affair of the demise of her facebook friends.

As a teenager I used to keep racing pigeons* and consequently was intrigued to see the two nominations from South Side Happenings about the mysterious pigeon-napper of Queens Park– whose persistence in attempting to entrap pigeons finally paid off. South Side Happenings asks if anyone can tell what was going on. Is the recession biting deep? Or is this part of the old school pigeon fancying where the fancier used particularly attractive pigeons to entice pigeons from other lofts, or doocots (it would be the season for it)? Answers and suggestions to South Side Happenings please.

There have been some fine instances of photography on Scottish blogs this month – Up My Tree has “A Stranger View”  a collection of some pictures taken from a disposable camera; Rhythmaning shares some beautiful images of Landform at the front of the Scottish National Gallery for Modern Art and Richard Havers, celebrity novel dedicatee (it’s an Ian Rankin thing) gives us a Saltire in cloud formation.

The travails of getting service at Edinburgh bars are brought to you by Mike Smith (I see that nothing has changed in the past 18 years).

Angry Steve proffers an explanation of employment practices that it occurs to me may help explain the Peter Principle.

Last Year’s Girl anticipates a fond farewell to video tapes (they’ll be telling me to get rid of the 8 track cartridge next).

15^th April was the twentieth anniversary of the Hillsborough tragedy as a result of which 96 Liverpool supporters tragically lost their lives. Stephen Glenn’s moving recollection reflects on his own experience as a supporter with a ticket for the Leppings Lane end, and the impact on football.

And welcome to a relatively new blog brought to our attention: Celebrity Litigation - a blog that lets you read posts from people that should blog but don’t (from which list we must now exclude Iain Macwhirter, but no doubt you’ll be hearing a lot more about him on Sunday in the next political round-up).

And finally, as they say on the news, one last item – How the Second World War was won. Best not to spoil it, but I almost resorted to text speak acronyms.

Thanks for having me, and remember to keep the nominations for the round-ups (both political and non-political) coming in via the widget to your right or to the usual e-mail address scottishroundup@gmail.com .

* cue bad joke about only stopping once I’d beaten them.

The new address for the RSS feed: http://scottishroundup.co.uk/feed/

Here is an important notice for those loyal readers of Scottish Roundup who subscribe to the RSS feed. You may have noticed that no posts have appeared in the RSS feed since 29 March. This is an issue that has affected all four of my blogs, not just Scottish Roundup. So this experience has been a right pain in the neck.

Unfortunately, thanks to the increasingly unreliable service offered by Feedburner, I have decided to ditch the service. This means that I have had to change the address of the RSS feed. If you are subscribed to the Feedburner feed, please subscribe to the new URL:

The new address for the RSS feed: http://scottishroundup.co.uk/feed/

The Feedburner feed will for the time being redirect to the new address. But it will cease to exist in 30 days, so it is vital that you subscribe to the new address. Apologies for the hassle this causes.

Hello, and welcome to this week’s roundup. The Scottish Parliament might be in recess just now, but there have still been plenty of stories keeping bloggers glued to their keyboards.

Fresh video evidence surrounding the death of Ian Tomlinson has raised fresh questions about the conduct of the police during the G-20 protests. Malc thinks the policeman involved should be charged. James at Two Doctors thinks the death will end up being “the legacy of Brown’s vanity summit”. SSP Renfrewshire calls it murder.

But Shuggy thinks it’s the same old. Clairwil is similarly bemused by the online debates surrounding the issue.

FionaF recounts her few experiences with the police — and they’re not good. Caron turns her attention to the police tactic known as kettling.

Alex Massie is troubled by the fact that this incident would probably have got very little coverage had Ian Tomlinson not died shortly afterwards.

Mr Eugenides responds to one criticism that the libertarian blogosphere was slow to react to the video footage. Meanwhile, the decidedly libertarian David Farrer is suitably scathing. Cabalamat takes this closer look at a person’s political alignment may alter their reaction to an event.

The week started on a downer for the SNP as it was announced that Neil MacCormick had died. Richard Thomson provided his tribute from an SNP perspective. Mr Eugenides reflects from the point of view of a law buff. More tributes come from Will P and Lallands Peat Worrier.

On a happier note for the SNP, the party this week celebrated its 75th birthday. David has an excellent history of the party. Richard Thomson also brings us this retrospective.

There has been much embarrassment in Number 10 and the Labour blogosphere over those emails sent by Damian McBride. Labour MP Tom Harris has called the incident “inexcusable”. Meanwhile, Yousuf Hamid laments the failure of a “new politics” to ever emerge. For Stephen Glenn, it is inappropriate immaturity.

Amid yet more doom and gloom this week about the state of the Scottish press, Kirsty Connell takes a look at the state of local newspapers in Scotland.

Meanwhile, the economic arguments for independence have taken a bit of a hammering from a couple of bloggers this week. In the light of yet more problems hitting Ireland’s economy, Yousuf turns his attention to the arc of insolvency. Shuggy goes as far as to say, “There is, as far as I can see, absolutely nothing whatsoever that can be rescued from the wreckage that is the economic argument for independence.”

Mr H notes the closure of a tram-themed café. The closure has been blamed on — wait for it — the trams! You couldn’t make it up.

Jeff warns the Labour Party not to paint the Tories as toffs — especially when so many Labour politicians are embroiled in expenses scandals.

Cllr Fraser Macpherson looks at Vince Cable’s new book, and provides an overview of what the Lib Dems “called for first”.

Andrew Reeves has spotted that staff of the Crown Prosecution Service will be getting a £250 bonus — for getting to work in the snow.

Political Dissuasion returns to the issue of All Women Shortlists.

Bellgrove Belle outlines one of the things she does in her role as a councillor.

Finally, Malc has proposed another bloggers’ meet-up. Sounds good, and I’ll be there if I can. So if you want to meet us, keep an eye out for further details on Malc’s blog. I promise we’re not all like Derek Draper and Paul Staines…

Next week’s roundup will be brought to you by Holyrood Patter. And don’t forget the NoPoScoBloRo which is coming up this Wednesday and will be edited by Scott from Love and Garbage.

We can always do with more suggestions, so if you spot any gems do please let us know by using the contact form on the right or by simply emailing us. The address is scottishroundup@gmail.com. Thanks!