Not so long ago I seem to remember the unionists criticising the S.N.P. for wrapping themselves in the Saltire as though this was a bad thing to do. Fast forward to this past week when the Scottish Conservatives have changed their logo. They have attempted to use the Saltire while trying to keep it incorporated in the Union Flag (please note flag, not jack!). Two shades of blue slashes with a slash of red. Rather obviously this has been named the double cross logo. Were P.R. or design people paid for this?   What’s in a Name? Meanwhile poor Jim Murphy just cannot keep upRead More →

I was shocked to read in my local press this week that Labour controlled North Lanarkshire Council’s education chiefs are paying private firms £729million to build schools worth around just a fifth of that amount. North Lanarkshire Council have saddled a generation of taxpayers with an enormous debt by entering into a 31-year Private Finance Initiative to build schools. The local authority says the arrangement provides “excellent education in first-class facilities” for children. But so does prudential borrowing without the huge costs. PPP/ PFI funding has been widely condemned for offering poor value for money and this is why it was replaced by the SNPRead More →

The days since the signing of the Edinburgh Agreement have been marked by vicious and very personal attacks on the Scottish Government and Alex Salmond in particular.  For once the genesis of this is not in hatred of the SNP, Alex Salmond or the thought of Independence.  It is a reaction to the sudden recognition of how damaging the Edinburgh Agreement is to the Unionist cause by those that purport to represent it. So obsessed were David Cameron and his array of Labour and LibDem helpers in Better Together in ensuring that only one question would be put before the people of Scotland, they completelyRead More →

Last week was a fairly bad week for the Party, and there’s no getting away from that. Two resignations in the Parly group and a host of bad headlines about legal advice – and everyone’s lining up to give the government a kicking. It’s true that many of the activists are unhappy about Nato – I’d count myself amongst that. But then, it would be a very small party if everyone had to agree with every single policy, and the basic premise that people put aside differences to work for a common cause of a nuclear-free independent Scotland still holds true today as it hasRead More →