The Scottish Government, perhaps noting that wild europhilia is not necessarily a vote-winner, is having the odd crack at "Brussels", while defining itself against a Ukip-ified UK.
In a recent speech, Fiona Hyslop urged "better regulation" to ensure our businesses are not disadvantaged by burdensome red tape. Agenda asked what she had in mind and we can now exclusively reveal that the things the Scottish Government wants are "greater use of directives rather than regulation and enhanced consultation on proposals for legislation, including more detailed impact assessments at those stages of the legislative process where significant amendments to proposals are made".
It added: "Specifically, we want to continue to move away from a centralised approach to fisheries management in favour of further delegation of powers to the national and regional level and to reduce the growing administrative burden imposed on farmers. We would also like to see the reform of legislation governing rail transport which currently prevents host state-owned rail providers from tendering to run rail transport in the host state."
Knowledge of history is not necessarily good for your sanity. Jim Ferguson from Aberdeen wrote to a newspaper recently making the point that, in 1971, British Rail introduced Class 27 diesel-powered push-pull trains on the line between Edinburgh and Glasgow, adding that "a journey time of 43 minutes was achieved for very many years".
Good news, folks, the Edinburgh-Glasgow Improvement Project is going to smash that speed record by the time the scheme is completed in 2018 (possibly) at a cost of £742 million (perhaps more). In this glorious future, the journey time will be 42 minutes.
As Ferguson said: "So much for progress and value for money."
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