Summer has set in with its usual severity. The stampeding cattle of politics have made haste to pastures new, while hotfooted journos goad their nags into lazy haste, in glib pursuit. For those left behind, without the warm exuberance of the nimble and sweet Tuscan air, the only consolation is to flagellate out their frustrations on necrotised political ponies. And the choice of equine punchbags this week seems limited – but unsurprisingly Scotland’s bloggers have wired into their rich internal resources, and have kept up peddling their views despite the (relative) absence of an easy story cycle to steal into.

The first lights of the last seven days have been mouth-watering of anticipation of the Glasgow North East By-Election in early Autumn. Despite SNP attempts to play huntsmen and lay snares in the House of Commons, the Labour will carried the day. Calum Cashley donned his anorak and explored some of the procedural detail of this parliamentary vacillation.

One would-be beneficiary of the by-election is the now infamous David Kerr, who must enjoy opening each morning’s crisp newspaper to see what calumny or discord will consume his candidacy next. For most of the week, much of the hullabaloo has run a principled race from the particular to the general, and asks, does it matter that Mr Kerr is a devotee of the Catholic subset Opus Dei?

Various politicians nudged and winked, discreetly, suggesting that it made Kerr a loony. Forward insists that religious intolerance has no place in our civic life. Similarly, Richard Thomson defends Kerr. SNP Tactical Voting couldn’t understand what provoked the mischief, while Scottish Unionist tabulated and catalogued the public disquiet about Kerr expressed by the infamous, greater-saltired Cybernat. Stuart Winton explores the issues more generally, as did that Sassenach man of piety, Cranmer.

Old master MacNumpty, by contrast, with an eye for the political narrative elbowed his readers back towards the forgotten image of loaf-haired Ruth Kelly MP, who shares Kerr’s enthusiasm for the Work of G-d. Where is the historical consciousness, he asks Labour’s innuendo-smeared cadet – and what the price of making a bit of bigoted mischief. To my mind, it is really a question of priorities. If one is disposed to place certain issues of public concern high on your list – Opus Dei membership is an issue. As this heat-and-light generating bloggish discourse has, I trust, revealed.

The pistol at dawn for Kerr this morning, related in the Sunday Herald, finds pictorial representation over at Scottish Unionist, and is reduced to text by Stuart Winton.

The other big ticket item of the week was the Norwich North by-election, in which Labour got thumped. Scottish Tory Boy has the full breakdown from the count. In related electoral crowing, James of Two Doctors sends a huzzah to Brighton, where his Greenie cronies romped to triumph in the council by-election.

No huzzahs for Auld Reekie’s Toon Cooncil frae Kezia Dugdale, who roundly abuses the SNP-Liberal Democratic leadership on the issue of rubbish collection, and their handling of the local dispute. Staying with localness in the Lothians, Scotland’s Liberal Democrat blogging contingent paid their fond tributes to the disappearing tribune John Barett MP, representative of the people of Edinburgh West, who is flinging in his political dishcloth at the next election. Both musing Caron and Linlithgow’s Lib Dem Voice opine on the departing Barett.

Since the end of summer is an appropriate season for leave taking, Stephen also discussed the possibility of DIY Devine MP’s repeating Iain Gibson’s trick in Norwich North, and joining the Chiltern Hundreds to shaft his summary-justice dispensing party, and provoking further electoral activity with further by-elections.

In the balmy winds of the Scottish summer, friendliness and cooperation has broken out, Scottish Unionist playing host to a fulsome article from Doctorvee on Federalism, Devolution and Scotland. Meanwhile, John Swinney has raised the issue of a Scottish oil fund again this week, Subrosa dealing with the idea in her post here, while the freshly-sunned, Egypt-warmed Yousuf returns to muse on the crude stuff here. Although far be it from me to impugn the tastiness and culinary vivacity of Tennents Lager – recalling one of Mr MacAskill’s most amusing comments – that Tennents was “cooking lager” – Jeff discusses the fact that the booze’s brewer, Wellpark Brewery is up sale.

Another consequence of August’s imminence is that Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Kenny MacAskill will have to make up his mind on the Libyan request that Megrahi be transferred out of Scotland. Robert Black QC maintains a blog with all of the recent developments here. Worth a look for those of you curious about the legal wrangles and seeking to understand the difference between prisoner transfer and compassionate leave. To end of the theme of justice, I have a post here about the Cirv project, and how a muscle-pumping police strut may not be the answer to youngsters getting embroiled in violent gangs.

And that, as they say, is that for the immaculately polite and discursively elevated crew of Scotland’s political blogging community for this week. Do send in your suggestions for inclusion next week – its all too easy to follow the same old bloglines and overlook the worthy and the thoughtful.

Ta ta!

Hello again! Holyrood is already in recess, Westminster is heading in that direction and many political bloggers are also taking a breather. Tom Harris went underground for a few days, Yousuf is off abroad and Andrew Burns is trying to “regain some semblance of normal family life”. There have been no political posts in the past seven days from any of James, Duncan or Mike. So I have somewhat slimmer than usual pickings this week.

The lead political story for much of the week was of course the selection of a replacement SNP candidate following James Dornan’s withdrawal from the Glasgow North East by-election because of a potentially damaging Sunday Herald article. Forward wondered if David Kerr, the previously rejected candidate, was having second thoughts about standing again. Jeff agreed that this was likely and thought Anne “Indygal” McLaughlin should step into the breach. She issued a prompt denial and Jeff backed down.

Meanwhile Malc took the Scotsman to task for characterising the nationalists’ situation as “meltdown” but Dave (no, not that Dave – do keep up!) suggested that the SNP’s internal discipline might not be as tight as it once was.

Elsewhere, Angus claimed that Grant Thoms — who had declined to stand allegedly because of his now deleted blog — had discovered that “in the new SNP there is no place for those who are prepared to express their views in public, without official sanction”.

Then when it emerged that David Kerr wanted to follow through, and was now the only candidate, Stephen lamented the “Hobson’s choice”. Jeff wondered if Kerr’s lack of local credentials may harm his chances and I tried to get to the bottom of contradictory claims over his supposedly “strong connections” to the constituency.

Next, Kezia alleged “sour grapes” from SNP members who were “almost convinced that the bankruptcy expose in the Sunday Herald was an inside job actioned right from the very top”. BellgroveBelle issued a strong denial, helped by a picture of smiling party members after the selection meeting, whom Indygal said would all have been “very happy” to have Grant as their candidate, had been “delighted” when James was selected and were now “extremely happy” that David will contest the seat.

In the end, Stuart banged all our heads together and told us to grow up. Fair point!

Next a lighter topic: T in the Park. Montague found a picture of Jack McConnell, allegedly the “laziest man in Scottish politics”, taking his ease at the festival. Jim Murphy blogged that it had been a “brilliant event” and a “great advert for Scotland”, but over at the Steamie, Chris Mackie poked fun at the Scottish Secretary for getting “down wiff da kidz”.

John Mason MP went slightly off-message this week, admitting to a Westminster committee that the Alex Salmond for First Minister ballot paper tactic was – to use his words – “a bit naughty”. Stephen described it as a “trick of personality that cannot be repeated to win the debate on independence”, I expressed the view that the nationalists’ proposed referendum question “sanitises and muddies the issue” and Nationalist Mythbusting examined possible alternative forms of wording.

Cricket now. Sandra White MSP lamented what she called “wall-to-wall” television coverage of the Ashes and was roundly criticised by Rob Marrs, Alex Massie, David Maddox, Tom Peterkin, Scottish Tory Boy, Zippy and Jim. Oh, and me — well, obviously!

The news that the Westminster standards commissioner is to investigate Alex Salmond’s expense claims drew a mixed reaction. Jeff described it as “a rare ‘hit’” on the First Minister while Will took exception to the costs incurred to generate such hits, thereby prompting Caron to argue that they’re entirely separate issues.

Reports that the Conservatives may kick the Calman Commission report into the long grass irked Jeff, who argued that David Cameron “doesn’t have a handle on how to ‘deal’ with the SNP”. Wardog thought that the “pan-unionist alliance” is being stretched to breaking point. And Crap Holyrood Chat featured a verbose motion set down by Kenneth Gibson expressing disappointment at the report’s “rather timid recommendations”.

Miscellaneous posts now. Mr H was unimpressed by a Scottish Government housing advice service. Calum Cashley waded into the argument about whether or not the 450th anniversary of Reformation should be marked. Subrosa penned a moving tribute to the people of Wootton Bassett for the dignity they have shown in receiving and honouring our fallen soldiers. Lallands Peat Worrier reviewed the case against Tommy Sheridan. The ever-prolific Jeff cited a survey of 144 Tory MPs on the issue of Scottish independence. Malc lauded European tolerance. And moving further afield, Jack Deighton reported on Republican attempts to question Barack Obama’s right to be US President.

Next some humour: Conan created a series of spoof ‘Hootsmon’ front pages to communicate his opinion of the Scotsman’s editorial objectivity.

I have one interesting new blog to share with you this week: From the Peripheries, which promises “faintly pretentious, questionably engaging and consistently sensible modern Scottish Conservatism, of a liberal and unionist bent”.

Finally, the annual Total Politics Best Blogs Poll has rolled around again. Caron, Jeff, Holyrood Patter and Tom Harris are giving little away, but I have no such qualms.

And that’s your lot! Next week’s editor is still unconfirmed, but please email suggestions to scottishroundup@gmail.com, tweet @ScottishRoundup or use the nomination form in the right sidebar. Humble apologies for the groanworthy headline, and bye for now!

Hello everyone, and welcome to this month’s NoPoScoBloRo.

Do you ever type “June” when you mean “July”? For some reason, it is one of those bad keyboard tics that I unwittingly employ all the time. It has been the cause of a confusion that I only spotted yesterday. It’s it’s lucky that I did spot it, or there would have been no roundup today. Yikes!

But I caused the error, so it has fallen upon me to step in at the last minute to try and save the day. It does mean that for the second month in a row you have to endure my attempts to package the very best of this month’s Scottish blogging in a handy digest, an endeavour which is not unlike trying to collect water with a net.

Inevitably, the subject that most bloggers were writing about this month was the death of Michael Jackson. Even regular features were hijacked, with Mr Farty producing a Michael Jackson tribute edition of ‘Computer Terms Illustrated’.

Craig collects his favourite bits of Michael Jackson’s career, as well as producing this thoughtful post on Michael Jackson’s life, career and death.

Stephen Glenn recalls his memories of Thriller, the first album he bought.

Tom Harris brought up a point that interests me. The traditional media was clearly struggling to keep up with the story as it unfolded. And it’s not just the fact that the newspapers were already out of date by the time they hit news stands. I wonder how an outlet like TMZ can be so far ahead of traditional media companies. A sign of the times.

Iain Hepburn spotted one PR company, Burkowski, that may have overstepped the mark when it comes to jumping on the bandwagon.

You can’t have failed to spot the sometimes desperate bandwagon-hopping. Local Jacko is a tumblelog dedicated to tenuous mentions of Michael Jackson in local newspapers. It includes this story from the Glasgow Evening Times interviewing his hotel cleaner from when he performed in Glasgow 17 years ago. The cleaner didn’t even like him.

But was there too much coverage of Michael Jackson’s death? Not really says Kezia Dugdale, who thinks that while the global sense of mourning may seem superficial, it is perfectly understandable.

Sistah in Scotland would rather that the people mourning his death “GET A FRICKIN’ GRIP!”

But according to Caron, this type of mourning is nothing new. She notes the comparisons between Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley.

Moving on to other topics now. Those good people at Glasgow Guerilla Gardening are trying to get their site at Townhead looking good for the spring. They invite you to join The Ten Thousand Bulb Challenge where you can donate bulbs or cash to help brighten up this part of Glasgow.

On the back of Roger Federer winning more tennis Grand Slams than anyone else in history, Malc asks who the greatest sportsman of our generation is. What do you think? I’m afraid four of them are mere games players, while Michael Schumacher was a serial cheat so no-one wins that award from me.

Meanwhile, Kat at Wearing the Troosers looks at Scotland’s first female Muslim football club, Ansar Women’s FC. But Fifa’s rules can prevent players from wearing the hijab on “safety grounds”, which means that the club will not be able to play its league games as anticipated. “Not just sexist, but also racist” is Kat’s verdict.

Another post of Kat’s looks at ten reasons why Scotland is suffering from a “brain drain”. It’s all depressing enough. Are they good enough reasons to motivate someone to leave in the “Homecoming” year? Big Rab, referring to Jackie Stewart (resident in Switzerland) has his own thoughts:

Maybe it’s just me but the Year of Homecoming seems to be characterised by people who have been successful and buggered off out of Scotland to forever pay their taxes elsewhere.

It is apt that the new website Dear Scotland was brought to our attention this month. It focuses on Scottish bands that are gallivanting around the world. There, Alec Downie writes about “our tragic national tradition that sees our brightest minds scattered like wilting heather around the globe.” He does, however, find that Scottish music induces homesickness.

Staying with the music theme, Lis at Last Year’s Girl is celebrating a staggering ten years in blogging. She does so by publishing an old post about her first T in the Park.

Meanwhile, one classic advert is celebrating its twentieth anniversary. Sara hails its return. But check out those subtle changes in the new version. What they say about political correctness must be true.

Jackie Walker asks, why was Humpty Dumpty sitting on the wall?

I write this roundup smack in the middle of a typical Scottish summer. Personally I find the heat difficult to cope with. You might think that those sporadic rain showers might offer relief, but the unpredictability is infuriating. I went out for one of my regular walks around the park this week wearing short sleeves. I came home drenched.

Gordon McLean had a similarly changeable commute home, but it sounds like he had a much better visual spectacle. It’s a shame they were unable to photograph it, but the description is vivid enough.

At least we have Amy Palko’s collection of rainbow photographs to compensate.

We always like a bit of photography here on NoPoScoBloRo. Flickr Scotland features this intriguing photograph of a flock of geese following a power glider. It was all a ruse by a couple of people that wanted to film the geese.

Meanwhile, Tour Scotland Photographs brought back memories for another Scottish expat, Colin Campbell, who recounts part of his Fife childhood.

Not so visually appealing is this example of how not to do user-generated content, as unearthed by Gary.

Jeff Zycinski shows the fluffier side of the BBC, recounting his attempts to calm down a couple, one of whom had been trapped in a car park lift. Is it just me or are most stories about malfunctioning lifts specifically about those in car parks?…

And that wraps up this month’s non-political roundup! Look out for the next one which will be published on 19 August. We could always do with more suggestions to be included. So if you see any interesting bloggery, please do send them in using the contact form on the right, or by emailing scottishroundup@gmail.com. Or you can tweet us @ScottishRoundup.

Please also get in contact if you would be up for editing the roundup one day, as I am hoping to get some fresh faces involved. Thanks!

Hi folks! Just when you think you can turn your back on things for a time, events intervene and throw a curve ball at you.

Which is why this week’s lead story has to be the Glasgow North East By-Election: a few days ago, there were two possible SNP candidates: BBC journalist David Kerr and SNP Group Leader on Glasgow City Council James Dornan. Despite Kerr being seen as the favourite, Dornan was selected. Jeff and David cheered the decision, but as you can imagine, Yousuf wasn’t overly impressed.

Of course, Kerr had to end his involvement with Newsnight Scotland if he wanted to be a politically active By-Election candidate, so Kez reflected on how one decision can radically affect your life, with reference to a crap movie. Having said that, Kerr landed on his feet by getting a job as a Special Advisor. Kez waded in again, unimpressed.

However, Jeff wasn’t overly sympathetic to this way of thinking, comparing this career move with a similar one undertaken by Iain Gray in 2003. And look where he is now!

So things were going swimmingly until this morning’s papers, when the Sunday Herald carried a story detailing previous financial difficulties experienced by Cllr Dornan. He has now stood down: Jeff and Yousuf have the first reactions, while you can get a look at Dornan’s statement over at The Universality of Cheese.

This has not been a good week in publicity terms for the SNP: the Glasgow North East saga is only half of the problem. As the row over Diageo’s plan to quit Kilmarnock continues (Flying Rodent sums things up as only he can), Alex Salmond managed to secure a meeting with the company, only for the appointment to clash with a planned TV appearance, and sent Angus Robertson to the meeting in his stead. Kezia is horrified; Jeff notes that while the story behind this may be more complicated, it does look bad for the FM, while Christian points out that the meeting was sprung on the FM at a moment’s notice, and believes that the media are over-egging the pudding. Subrosa echoes this, by pointing out that the attacks on Alex Salmond let Diageo and their planned job cuts off the hook.

Staying with booze, Holyrood Patter takes a look at the Scotch Whisky Association’s objections to a minimum price for alcohol, and questions why they’re the ones complaining, while Julie hails plans to regulate where and how alcohol can be displayed.

More serious matters now, and a bloody week for UK forces in Afghanistan. Fitaloon has been faithfully following the grim sequence of events. There are just too many posts to pick one out: take a look through them. Jess the Dog and Flying Rodent have their own ideas on how to approach the situation there.

In nearby Iran, the row over the allegedly rigged (I have to say ‘allegedly’ or George Galloway will shout at me) election continues, but has dropped off the radar somewhat. Mr. Eugenides notes that for some, it was never on the radar in the first place.

Meanwhile, there’s a new possibility that Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed Al Megrahi, the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombings, may be transferred back to Libya. Jeff argues that this should take place, so Megrahi can live out what little remaining time he has closer to his loved ones. Lallands Peat Worrier points out some of the catches.

Elsewhere, we have a story that no one would have cared about a year ago: the resignation of former US Vice-Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin as Governor of Alaska. Alex Massie is scratching his head, Bucket of Tongues is less than impressed, but Neil Craig is confident that we haven’t seen the last of her.

Speaking of former senior party figures who have all but vanished from public life, Jack McConnell’s poor attendance record at Holyrood has been scrutinised: Scottish Tory Boy takes the former First Minister to task.

At Westminster, the scandal surrounding the News of the World paying to hack into celebrities’ voicemail, engulfing former editor and current Tory PR man Andy Coulson, hasn’t resonated all that much in Scotland: Bucket of Tongues looks at events, and decides that Coulson must stand trial.

Stephen and Caron take fellow LibDem Irfan Ahmed to task over his suggestion that there’s nothing inherently wrong in a husband deciding how his wife should vote.

Shuggy considers reactions to French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to ban the burka.

Stuart looks at Scottish Government plans to let Councils set their own policy on the sale of knives.

Calum takes a closer look at last month’s Euro election results.

Tom Harris hails plans which will make it harder for Lord Ashcroft to donate money to Tory campaigns.

Subrosa and Dave note that Calman is being kicked into the long grass.

Four years on from the 7/7 Bombings, Andrew has his memories of the day.

Finally, Stephen has his own, far happier fourth anniversary to celebrate.

That’s your lot for this week: it’s NoPoScoBloRo time on Wednesday, with Misssy M orchestrating proceedings. On Sunday, we get political again, this time with Scottish Unionist in the hot seat. Bye-de-bye!

Welcome to my first ever Roundup.  I was concerned that this week, being the first week of the Summer holidays, combined with a bit of actual Summer and Andy Murray doing so well at Wimbledon might mean a blogging drought, but, no, the Scottish blogosphere was full of its usual high quality wit and wisdom.

The week kicked off with Kelvin talking about his speech to the crowds at Pride Scotia in Edinburgh. To coincide with the London event, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg wrote on Labour List, something Stephen hailed as a good thing.

This week the big news, or so we thought, was the celebration of a decade of devolution – but over a third of our MSPs didn’t even bother to turn up to see the Queen.  While Subrosa and Fitaloon slammed MSPs’ lack of courtesy to Queen and Parliament, Jeff suggests how we could avoid a repeat for the 20^th anniversary, Malc points out divisions in the SNP ranks on the issue of the monarch and highlights the fact that they don’t intend to give us a say in whether we want a monarch in and independent Scotland and the cute Greek baby looks at the excuses for absence in more details.  Moridura takes a look at the principle of monarchy in an independent Scotland and Will reviews a new book on the effects of devolution on our sense of being British.

Scottish Unionist takes a more compassionate approach, rounding up the quotes of the day to help those who missed it.

To mark the occasion, the BBC commissioned a special poll to find out what we the public want for the future governance of Scotlland.  Brian gives us the official version, Bernard sees opportunity, the Lovely Peat Worrier  spots a dilemma for Labour and Richard gets round to discussing Calman. 

In another poll, on General Election voting intentions, Tom Harris turns positive reframing into an art form.

The various goings on in the run up to the as yet uncalled Glasgow NE by-election is discussed. Jeff  highlights the SNP delay in selecting their  candidate while Yousuf delights that his party is for for once ahead of that particular game and Subrosa warns us that a blast from the past is back. Kez hits back with a potential scoop about the SNP candidate. Belle responds to Labour attacks on Glasgow East MP allegedly straying into the North East seat.

In the meantime Holyrood Chronicles has a look at Michael Jackson’s (no, not that one, the one who headed up the British Army) claim that Scotland would be safer as part of the UK and playfully questions the patriotism of the Scottish Lib Dem leader.  Sticking with defence issues, Subrosa  tells us that Gordon Brown may ditch nuclear weapons. Doesn’t he need them to use against the troublemakers in his Party? Finally, Willie Rennie rages against the cost rises in the aircraft carriers project, upsetting one of the unions in the process

This was the week that Gordon Brown tried to give his Government the kiss of life with big ideas in his Building Britain’s future relaunch. It’s fair to say that Mr Eugenides is not impressed.

Brown also showed that he is pretty rubbish at the art of making up euphemisms this week.  He needs to be more subtle than using the phrase zero percent rise, which predictably unleashed a firestorm of ridicule across the blogosphere.  Mr E’s reaction was somewhat subdued but Willie took him to task. He wasn’t the only Labour politician to be caught with his foot in his mouth, as Indygal amongst others pointed out.

On the wider economy, Jeff says Labour is stripping the cupboard bare for electoral gain while Andrew muses that RBS sponsorship at Wimbledon exposes the Govt’s failure to control public money given to bail out the banks.

The Government stepped in to nationalise the east coast main line after National Express ran out of hard cash to pay the franchise fee. Tom Harris, former transport minister gives his expert opinion.

James, over at The Two Doctors find little cheer in the announcement that ID cards will not be compulsory.

Bernard tells us that we don’t need nuclear power if we invest enough in renewable energy.

Andrew is horrified at the unnecessary deaths of two Police dogs in Nottingamshire.

Pride mingles with sadness at Andy Murray’s defeat in the Wimbledon semi finals, but the Steamie covered the race between the parties to offer commiserations, showing the Tories can win in Scotland. Ewan has the shortest and last word on the hotly debated question of Murray’s nationality in the wake of his defeat. Elsewhere, Yousuf warns that would be tennis stars of the future will be let down if the SNP Government fails to improve sports facilities.

All this in the week that Scottish Tory Boy emerges from a long hibernation just as Jeff was timeously lamenting the lack of Scottish Tory blogs.  Was this really a coincidence?  Mind you, Tory blogs are clearly like buses – you wait for months and then loads turn up at once.

They’’ll have lots to wade in on – Subrosa agrees with Jeff that Annabel’s days are numbered.

Stephen shares with us a new take on Labour’s honesty pledge for their candidates.

And spare a thought for moral_code, for whom a bout of Swine Flu has meant more time to blog.  In a way, it’s reassuring that the illness is relatively speaking, mild,  but we at Roundup send our sympathy and best wishes for a speedy recovery.

That’s all from me – next week you will be in the capable hands of Will.