Hertsscot

You're right, it is a big story. I don't know enough about the links between the Boys Club and the Football Club to have an informed opinion but there have been sexual predators preying on boys at several clubs. Hopefully we're all a bit better informed nowadays and more aware but no body should be complacent.

Fair point. What is sad is the gloating from other fans. The suffering caused by the sexual abuse of children is too important to be trivialised and sadly perpetrators of such abuse are not restricted to certain football clubs, religions or political parties.

Wragg has now resigned as a Tory MP but hasn't resigned as an MP and Sunak can no longer sack him. And the mainstream papers will be silent.

Am I normal? I haven't needed to complain about any hate crime but it seems it's all some people do. And then they complain that the police haven't got enough time to deal with crime. I also haven't felt the need to ask the police if they have a record of any accusations against me. Maybe I'm just odd.

I don't really like the Greens (have they actually done any good for the environment?) but I do wonder even without the coalition how much of this legislation would have been on the table as much of it has received support from all parties (including the Tories, though they often forget that fact!). The Greens seem very naive and quite arrogant in dismissing genuine concerns, though SNP haven't been much better.

I think there are some differences between the two. Wragg's actions were consensual (not sure that's the word I'm looking for!) whereas the argument was that Grady's advances (stroking someone on the back of the neck) were unwelcome and an abuse of his position. However everything else you say is spot on. SNP were accused of protecting a 'sex pest' for weeks on end by the media and Unionist politicians, Wragg has probably broken GDPR (any other job you'd get away with disclosing personal phone numbers to strangers?) and threatening national security in the process. Yet there's barely a peep from the media, let alone calls for his resignation. Complete double standards.

https://theferret.scot/ineos-claims-grangemouth-grant-despite-closure/ Can't stand Radcliffe, Scottish Government should do better but so should the UK Government that has just lent him millions to subsidise the Brexiteers new plant in Belgium. Oh, and I hope Man United get relegated!

Thanks for that. I was living in England at the time and the only time I heard it was from AS and I thought it was just rhetorical. I'm not sure this has much legal force though. If it did I would have expected a much more precise legal definition (as in the Good Friday Agreement?). I would also have expected to have heard a lot more about it from Unionists immediately after the result. I don't recall any mention of this until more recently, probably when the Union lovers realised that we hadn't gone away. Also I fail to see how legally you can impose anything indefinitely for the future when it comes to politics. Circumstances changes, parties gain and lose power, Governments change and Parliaments cannot be bound by the decisions of previous governments.

Unfortunately we can look at too many players and see too many cheating. Unfortunately too many of us turn a blind eye to it when it's our own team. On the bottle incident though Ramy is right. I hope they find out who the moron was, that the police take appropriate action and that Rangers ban him for life.

I do wonder what future historians, say 100 years time, will make of Scotland's willingness to be held in a union that so obviously isn't working. Yes, you had all that oil and gas but you let your Southern neighbour take it and squander it , producing one of the most unequal societies in Europe in the process. No doubt those historians looking back will analyse the strategic mistakes of independence leaders but they'll still shake their heads at the lack of demand from ordinary Scots.

I'm sure it will be the normal quiet uneventful match.

Some interesting penalty decisions today. A couple given for dubious handballs in the box and yet Mitov wipes out a Hibs player and nothing is given.

You mentioned complacency in your earlier post, that's also true. Many voters up here take good stuff for granted, and fail to acknowledge how the SNP have provided some sort of buffer from the Tories. I had some dental treatment the other week and it would have cost more than double in England! Thames Water is broke and one possibility will be to renationalise it (no doubt Scots taxpayers will pay their 'fair share'), then there's e coli in the Thames, strikes on the trains, strikes by junior doctors and the largest teaching union looks like it will be balloting for strike action, record amount of student debt etc. but the media gives the impression that everything in Scotland is automatically crappier than down south.

Under FPTP things could be either very good for the SNP or very bad. Under FPTP small percentage swings in constituencies could lead to a disproportionately large loss or gain of seats. That's a challenge for the SNP but also an incentive as well. I totally agree how lacking in confidence Scots appear to be. Since moving up here I've not noticed that my neighbours are any more stupid than the ones we had down south, yet many of them believe that they are somehow uniquely incapable of running their own affairs. I can only attribute it to years of brainwashing by the media.

I don't think I missed any but the story about William Wragg didn't appear to be in the headlines if any single paper this morning. Just shows the bias if the media, if it had been an SNP MP they'd be howling for a resignation.

Another Brexit benefit and advantage of being part of this wonderful Union: https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24232835.grahams-family-dairy-chief-slams-brexit-label-plan/

Jeremy Hunt now saying how 'courageous' Wragg has been! Stupid is another word, criminal is another because I'm pretty sure that under GDPR you can't just give out the personal numbers of your work colleagues without their permission.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68731683 William Wragg. Surely that's another by- election on the cards. Any other job there wouldn't be any hesitation about sacking him for giving out colleagues personal data

And we all know that if England wanted to leave the UK, they just would. They wouldn't need or ask anyone's permission.

Tbh unless they are constantly highlighting the anti democratic policy of Westminster that refuses even to discuss how Scotland could be independent then there's not a lot of point them being down there. Yes, they can highlight the deficiencies of the UK internationally or nationally, and they can do a valuable job scrutinising proposed UK legislation but that's not what will get people to vote for them. I see the GE as a vast opinion poll about whether we really want independence and that's why I'll campaign for them.

Yet this legislation was also backed by the Lib Dems and also by Labour. Undoubtedly they'll be no journalists asking questions of them and they'll retain a cowardly silence just as they did over GRR and DRS which those parties also backed in Holyrood. And don't get me started on the Tories. The cynical might say they don't want the hate crime act to work as it would stop them demonising minority groups or they might point out the hypocrisy of the Tories who seem more than happy to stop people expressing their opinions when it comes to public protest.

Wings will be furious

Thanks for taking the time to reply. The party has obviously lost a lot of members, something that I had hoped those higher up would have been concerned about. I don't know how many bothered to give reasons when they resigned. You'd think that people would want to know!

Can I just ask why, if you're so disillusioned with the SNP, that you're still a member? Would it not be better to resign and explain why you're not going to vote for them? I agree the SNP have been very naive about trans issues and how they've been weaponised. However I don't think there's any resurgence in Labour's popularity. If they win more seats in the UK it won't be because of any great love of Starmer. Here in Scotland, Labour (who only pretend to be Scotland's friends) will only benefit from voter apathy and the SNP not getting the vote out. Having said that there was a report last week that Labour still hadn't got a candidate for a third of Scottish seats! Personally I've yet to meet anyone who's told me they're switching from SNP to Labour.

Surely the time for a protest vote is at the Holyrood elections, not a Westminster election? No SNP policies are going to get enacted even if they won every seat but every vote for a Unionist party will be taken as a vote for the continuation of the Union. SNP isn't perfect but it is currently the best vehicle for independence as James Kelly (Alba) pointed out in Scotland goes Pop a couple of weeks back.