Alibi

I don't know whether Yes would have won without any fiddling of the vote having been done but I do know that the private canvassing in my area showed it to be about 50:50, which is wildly different from the 2:1 against result. I would be surprised if there hadn't been some dirty tricks but it is possible that all they did was increase the margin from say 50.1/49.9 to 55:45. They needed to get something they could claim was "overwhelming" and if they didn't attempt to fiddle the result I would be extremely surprised.

The foodbank he is opening is about a hundred yards from my office in Dumfries. I was hoping to greet him and "welcome" him to the town, the wee nyaff. Anyone else fancy joining me? I have an idea that might expose him to some ridicule. It should be noted that the correct way to pronounce his name is "Munnel, i.e the D is silent, just like Mundell when asked if he knew about #Frenchgate.

Just how stupid do the mainstream media consider the public to be? That headline is pure piss-taking. They cannot seriously believe anyone would buy that line.

I think Harvie's position is reasonable. I also think that FFA is a bit of a trap. For it to work, we would need to get the tax revenue from the likes of Tesco who report their profits for their Scottish operations in England. That tax money is Scotland's. What we need is actually something a bit more than FFA - what I refer to as "independence".

Seems to me that this UK-government ordained minute's silence is just another aspect of attempting to instil a sense of "Britishness" and keep the population compliant. I'll have my minute's silences when I deem it appropriate, not when David Cameron tells me too. 11am on 11/11 is fine, but I refuse to put on a display of synthetic grief for the like of Princess Diana. I wonder if Tony Blair will be joining in the minute's silence seeing as he bears a significant amount of responsibility for the chaos in the Middle East.

I think you're going too easy on him there.

Utterly disgraceful that Scotland 2015 are running with that line. It suggests a connection between the SNP and Naziism and puts that in people's minds in an almost subliminal way. Would they do the same if some one had suggested that Labour or the Tories were Nazis? Of course they wouldn't.

Is Starkey not Jewish himself? I thought I read that somewhere else this morning.

sbcmfc, I'm a consulting civil/structural engineer. We come across this sort of thing quite often. It's actually quite difficult to analyse a traditional roof truss such as you seem to have, but I've seen lots where the upper tie has been raised with no real ill effects. the main problems come from people wanting to convert their loft to living accommodation and then there is usually a problem with the bottom tie (the one you stand on) being too light to carry the imposed domestic loading (1.5kN/m2 as opposed to the 0.25kN/m2 that is allowed for an attic with storage). I have found that if the verticals (oxters we call them in Scotland) are about a third of the way up the rafter and the tie about 2/3rd of the way up it works fairly well. It's not really terribly accurate stuff though, and it's unlikely that a slight change in the level of the tie will have made much difference to the way the loads are distributed. Replacing the nails with coach screws will definitely have strengthened the joists which is goo - never ceases to amaze me how trusses held together with a couple of 2" nails work OK. I would suggest asking your Building Control department if they can give you a letter of comfort stating that they do not have any concerns. I had to do that once and it cost about £100 I think. Had you done the alterations more than ten years ago, I don't think they would have been bothered. Far worse is when people have modern W trusses, the prefabricated kind, which can't really be altered. Frequently people just cut away some of the internal members because they get in the way. Generally have to be reinstated and that's a pain as they're so flimsy with tiny wee timbers that you can't get a decent connection without the timber splitting.

I attended a debate at which he was speaking. Boorish thug just about sums him up. Mike Russell demolished him. I asked him what his plan B was for the pound when Scotland's resources no longer underpinned it - he was speechless.

If this case gets to court, I hope they call Mundell as a witness and ask him what he knew. That would really put him in a spot.

What he said was that if he had still been SoS when he was found out, he would have had to resign. The implication of that is that if Mundell is now found to have been involved, he would also have to resign, although I suspect he would hide behind semantics, i.e. he might say he knew what Carmichael had done but did not play any active part in it, in an attempt to hang on. This is a bit like a football match where one team puts in a few hard tackles early on to injure their opponents. An SoS with his credibility destroyed or even put in doubt would be a sitting duck for the next 5 years. The SNP getting their retaliation in first. I think next week we should step up the winding up. Someone on Twitter suggested they should take in vuvuzelas...

It was a slightly rhetorical question, but how does it work that if we put taxes up, the Barnett money gets reduced but it doesn't work the other way too? Almost as if it made it impossible to vary tax rates at all... Do you think they're doing it deliberately?

What happens if we reduce income tax? Should the block grant not get increased accordingly?

I expect our very honest and unbiased mainstream media will be asking him the question right now. Bound to be the lead story on Distorting Scotland tonight.

I agree he should get a second chance. Resigning as an MP and standing for re-election is his "second chance"... He cannot continue as an MP. He is like a plane with it engines on fire - could limp on for a bit but as an MP he is crippled and will crash and burn. He must realise that himself.

Second chance? Why? He has acted in a crooked deceitful manner. Imagine if it had been an SNP government minister - the Daily Mail would be calling for the death sentence.

the LibDems need to expel him from their party if they want to retrieve any small shred of decency. Doing nothing is just ludicrous.

High Speed rail is a ludicrous idea for short journeys like London to Birmingham - the potential time saving is minimal over the 100 or so miles. It needs to be a long line to make sense.

The press should be investigating whether or not his deputy, David mundell, knew anything about the leak. If he knew too, he should also resign. I don't suppose anyone told Ian Murray? Maybe too much to hope for...

I always carry a spot welder with me in my hand luggage and as soon as I sit down I weld the seat in front so that it can't be reclined. On Easyjet you can't recline the seats any more, although they are actually at a comfortable angle and knee room is suaully fine.

Of those 2, the BMW is the better car to drive and generally when tested beats the A4. You can get it with 4WD now although the oldest 4WD versions might not be 2 years old yet. They seem to start at about £25000+ from a BMW dealer. the 2WD versions are available for a lot less as they've been around longer.

I've had a few Audis over the years, starting with an old Audi 100 quattro estate, 1987 vintage, the "if you want to be on the beach before the Germans" model. I collected a 2010 Q5 yesterday (never buy new cars any more, always used), and I still have my old X reg. A4 Avant 2.5TDI Quattro tiptronic which I will have to sell - fantastic car and only done 120k which is nothing for an Audi but not really wanted as a trade in. Thinking of keeping it but lack of room means I can't really. I love that car despite it being 15 years old and a bit worn, and it's so compact compared to modern versions. Also have an 08 TT convertible which is a cracker to drive, a sort of Golf GTI with a softtop and beautifully built. My wife has an A1 1.4TFSI with the auto box and she loves it, although it has the S line suspension which is horrendously lumpy IMHO. My Q5 is an S line but with the standard suspension which is a bit softer - the s line suspension is very stiff and the standard suspension is far more comfortable while not affecting handling. I would highly recommend Audi if you choose one of the decent models - there are a few in their range that aren't terribly good to drive - but the quality is fantastic, and in my perception they are more durable than BMWs, and in styling terms they don't seem to date as quickly as BMWs. I considered a BMW X3 but couldn't find one in my price range apart from the previous model which is a horrendous clunker - the current X3 is excellent to drive but it's a sort of three pints and a paper bag in terms of its looks. Audis can be expensive to repair but if you find a good independent garage and use common sense, they are fine. I find you can usually buy most things a lot cheaper than Audi charge, although on the newer models there's less you can do as they are basically a big computer with wheels, like all modern cars. The galvanised bodywork also means they don't rust. The exhausts seem to last forever too - my A4 still has the original exhaust 15 years on.

He posted a link to a SATIRICAL website FFS. Doing that doesn't imply you believe what the site says literally. There was no story, but that didn't stop the unionist media making stuff up and extrapolating to attack him and the SNP. It's like RevStu retweeting one of Ian Smart's offensive tweets - doesn't imply he agrees with the content.

Technically he was correct. They didn't lose a single seat to the SNP, they lost 40 of them. He'll probably claim that was what he actually meant.