One does not wish to be a party-pooper but the “saving” of Aye Write strikes me as being as unconvincing as its original cancellation was unnecessary.
Dividing lines in relation to the ban on woodburning stoves are naturally seen as urban versus rural; policy makers in Glasgow and Edinburgh who neither know nor care about the impact on daily lives of others. There is obvious truth in that analysis. However, the more important and wide-ranging dichotomy is between rich and poor.
It would be a well-informed assumption that Robbie Drummond was made to walk the plank at Caledonian MacBrayne on orders from Edinburgh in advance of the new contract to operate west coast ferry services.
One good thing about the removal of David Tydeman as chief executive of the Ferguson shipyard at Port Glasgow is that it sets a precedent. Finally, it is possible for someone to carry the can.
Humza Yousaf’s call for Tories to be “wiped off the electoral map of Scotland” is not as bad as it sounds. It’s worse.
Budgets used to be big deals; landmarks in the political calendar, full of closely guarded secrets. It was difficult to see any of that in Jeremy Hunt’s attempt to salvage the Tory ship.
Except on the fringes, the structure of Scottish land ownership has only got worse, now incentivised by crazy schemes to attract speculators in “natural capital”. Humza Yousaf went to the City of London recently to beg financiers to put their money into our bogs and trees, forcing up land prices and waiting for profits to roll. Hail Caledonia!
I don’t suppose my endorsement will do him much good in the Caledonian Court of Star Chamber, but Fergus Ewing should take comfort from the fact that on every issue where he is deemed to have transgressed, he was right and they were wrong.
The Post Office Horizon scandal must also be addressed in Scotland. When she appeared before MSPs on January 16, the Lord Advocate, Dorothy Bain, scarcely gave the impression of a woman in a hurry to remove the stains of false allegations or open the door to compensation while victims are still alive.
It is politically prudent to assume that bad ideas do not go away, particularly when they originate in civil service minds of a certain disposition. They just fester and await their opportunity. Such is the case with Ardrossan
