Clyde1998

A brain drain is a very vicious cycle. Those who have the ability for entrepreneurship are typically those who leave Scotland, leading to a lack of meaningful economic opportunities, leading to more people choosing to leave the country in the future. The question is how to stop people leaving Scotland prior to using their skills to develop Scotland economically and socially. This isn't unique to Scotland, with basically every part of Britain seeing a brain drain (outwith London and its surronding areas, where a lot of these people are heading). The brain drain has slowed since devolution mind.

Also Northampton, being in English League Two, are playing league matches during the international break. With these games being friendlies, it's unlikely they'd allow him to go on international duty anyway.

And another... https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/mar/10/david-attenborough-bbc-wild-isles-episode-rightwing-backlash-fears "The BBC has decided not to broadcast an episode of Sir David Attenborough’s flagship new series on British wildlife because of fears its themes of the destruction of nature would risk a backlash from Tory politicians and the rightwing press, the Guardian has been told."

Reading this article from a few weeks ago:https://alicanteplaza.es/tebas-responde-a-rubiales-pretende-darnos-lecciones-un-gestor-ruinoso-que-ademas-miente It appears the RFEF are contracted to play two matches in Andalusia, with their game against Norway being the only scheduled in that area so far (with only our game to be given a venue), so the game shouldn't be played in Valladolid. Edit: This article backs up the game will be somewhere in Andalusia: https://www.mundodeportivo.com/seleccion-espanola/20230214/1001941234/espana-jugara-santander-valladolid.html

On the "To what extent, if at all, do you think each of the following would do a good job or bad job as First Minister of Scotland?" question (Net: Good - Bad, discounting DK, PNTS and those who don't know who the person is): Forbes +6 (Con +12, Lab -13, LDm +8, SNP +20) Yousaf -8 (Con -71, Lab -34, LDm -22, SNP +30) Regan -18 (Con -54, Lab -29, LDm -54, SNP +7) Sarwar +7 (Con +17, Lab +59, LDm +13, SNP +2) Ross -37 (Con +55, Lab -34, LDm -34, SNP -79) Party shown is for 2021 constituency vote. Forbes' popularity seems to be fairly even across the board and she's the best of the leadership candidates on standing up for Scotland's interests against the UK Government and advancing independence (among the general public). Yousaf only appears to appeal to the core SNP vote.

I'm sure we could bring him into the first team squad should someone get injured. He'll probably learn more by playing for the U21s than being on the bench for the first team right now. Once he's no longer eligible for the U21s, I'd expect him to be in the first team squad ahead of Taylor, if he keeps playing at Serie A (or similar) level. I do wonder if he's been included in the first team squad, especially now he's starting the regularly be on the Newcastle bench. It wouldn't be the first time a young player has been added to the squad with limited first team experience under Clarke - Gilmour, Ramsay and Patterson all come to mind. As Hertsscot said above, we don't have a huge amount of depth in midfield - especially in the advanced areas - so I wouldn't be surprised if he's in the full squad.

I believe that's to do with elections in Norway being held on that date - UEFA want all matches in a group to be played at the same time, so both games in the group have been moved back a day.

Good news; implies they still see potential in him. Hopefully by the time this contract expires, he'll be of at least Championship standard.

Will be good for Souttar to get some game match time; hopefully he'll be back in contention for us by the June international break.

A sizable number of newspaper sales these days are to institutions: libraries, schools, universities, offices, etc. The number of individuals purchasing the Daily Express in no doubt lower than that. Of the people I know who regularly purchase newspapers, they're all of retirement age. Even people I know in their 50s don't regularly buy newspapers. I don't know if that's anyone else's experience, but would tally with the rapid decline of physical newspaper sales. As aaid says, online subscriptions are important to consider; some newspapers may have more online subscribers than physical sales these days. I don't know whether the Daily Express has a Scottish edition website (I highly doubt it), so a lot of their online content will be focused on English sensibilities as that will drive clicks and therefore ad revenue.

This. With our midfield options, he's certainly someone we'll have in the squad.

I've just seen the news he's declared for Ireland - so take him out and put Wright on the left.

Of active players, the uncapped best XI could be something like: Liam Kelly (Motherwell)/Zander Clark (Hearts) Michael Rose (Coventry) - Dominic Hyam (Blackburn) - Tom McIntyre (Reading) - Josh Doig (Verona) Jay Fulton (Swansea) - Liam Henderson (Empoli) Scott Wright (Rangers)/Elliot Anderson (Newcastle) - Ryan Gauld (Vancouver) - Mikey Johnston (Celtic) Tommy Conway (Bristol City)

Aye, that's England and Wales [data] - 111 women, twenty-eight men. Fewer under eighteens got married between 2014 and 2019 (inclusive; 1,113) than in the whole of the year 2000 (1,119), while fewer have got married since 2000 (inclusive; 9,022) than in the whole year of 1983 (9,358). It's something that was dying out anyway: there was less people getting married who were twenty or younger in 2019 (3,216) than there were sixteen and seventeen year olds getting married in 1989 (3,766). The median age people are first getting married has been climbing too: 31.9 for men; 30.4 for women in 2019 compared to 29.6 and 27.5 respectively in 2000. The number of people getting married at all has decline too. Marriage is losing relevance in the modern world anyway, but the age rise barely affects anyone which is why most people wouldn't've even known about the legislation being in the pipeline until it became law.

That is where they've gone to - ie. 47.6% of the Alba transfers went to the SNP, etc. 😉 Unless I've understood what you meant by that.

Just looking at the PDF fae the council website, there didn't seem to be much of a surprise at each stage (the CSV of preferences aren't up yet, so may show a slightly different picture - as it will include the third, etc. preferences of other parties from the third stage onwards). The transfer percentages at each stage were: Start Ind (52 votes) - Family 15.4%; LDm 15.4%; Lab 11.5%; SNP 11.5%; Grn 9.6%; Alba 5.8%; Con 3.8%; none 26.9% Family (68) - Lab 32.4%; Con 13.2%; Grn 7.4%; LDm 5.9%; SNP 5.9%; Alba 2.9%; none 32.4% Grn (121) - SNP 39.7%; Lab 22.3%; LDm 13.2%; Alba 6.6%; Con 3.3%; none 14.9% Alba (191) - SNP 47.6%; Lab 12.6%; Con 5.8%; LDm 5.8%; none 28.3% LDm (491) - Lab 31.2%; Con 19.1%; SNP 14.3%; none 35.4% Con (1310) - Lab 39.1%; SNP 4.2%; none 56.7% The SNP were ahead until the final stage.

It was a Conservative vacancy, but the outcome in 2022 was SNP 2, Lab 1, Con 1.

The SNP is a giagantic-tent these days - although that monolith within the independence movement has been eroding with the Greens becoming a serious secondary player at Holyrood. Had Alba taken a few of the more sane SNP members with them, they could've added to the cause through engaging a different electorate than the SNP. The Greens could've kept the liberal-left happy, Alba would've been able to target the soft socially conservative (perhaps centre-right more generally) voters, with the SNP taking the centre/centre-left. Although depending on how this election goes, a sizable defection towards one of the Greens, Alba or another independence party/group is not inconceivable.

Fair enough; I concede she's not someone I have much knowledge of. There's been very little in the media about her (largely due to it realistically being a contest between Yousaf and Forbes anyway), so I'll have to do a bit more digging about her. Is she a Truss-like character then?

The gender issue is the sort of debate we should only be having once we're independent, as it simply divides the independence camp and is a piece of legislation which has far greater political implication than its (potential) effect on the vast majority of people's lives. Since the 2015 election, I feel the SNP has failed to prioritise the constitution (Scotland's place in the UK) in a meaningful way. In 2015, the party campaigned on Full Fiscal Autonomy to great success, but, aside from the periodic 'we're going to have a referendum at some point in the near future' or 'vote SNP to show support for a referendum', we've seen very little actual campaigning on furthering the independence of Holyrood in any context since then. I feel this has enabled these sort of debates and driven a wedge between sections of independence supporters, which didn't really exist (in the open at least) in the year or two following the referendum. This is why I'm increasingly likely to support Ash Regan, as her primary focus seems to be on achieving independence and campaigning for it.

Sounds like he's doing well out there. Thankfully he didn't go to an Old Firm side, as I think he would've stagnated - probably wouldn't even be playing regularly...

Just going through those who've been in the national team in the past year, recived at least one cap, and are twenty-six or younger. Based on what I can work out, the clubs they were contracted to when they made their senior debut were: 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Aberdeen (2): Scott McKenna, Calvin Ramsay 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Ardeer Thistle (1): Ross Stewart 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Celtic (2): Anthony Ralston; Kieran Tierney 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Chelsea (1): Billy Gilmour 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Dundee Utd (1): John Souttar 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Guiseley (1): Jacob Brown 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Hamilton (1): Lewis Ferguson 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Hearts (1): Aaron Hickey 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Hibernian (2): Josh Doig; Ryan Porteous 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Kilmarnock (1): Greg Taylor 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Man Utd (1): Scott McTominay 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Motherwell (2): Allan Campbell; David Turnbull 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Oadby Town (1): Che Adams 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Rangers (1): Nathan Patterson Two at Celtic, one at Rangers. The clear reality is anywhere a player can get regular first team experience from a young age seems to be the single most important factor, when compared to training facilities or coaching (of course, these things will still help). Anyone with any raw talent will get picked up by a bigger club fairly quickly. Our 'secondary clubs' (Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen, etc.) seem to have the best success in bringing through players who'll play for the national team at the moment. Those clubs don't have the pressure of competing for the title each season, nor the budget to spend large amounts of money (relative to Celtic or Rangers). I doubt any of these clubs have better facilities or coaching that Celtic or Rangers, it's just those clubs can offer first team football at a high enough level at the make-or-break period of their career. Of course, there's the secondary point that the standard to make the Celtic or Rangers first team is higher than it is for Hearts or Aberdeen. The biggest problem with the Old Firm's youth strategy, IMO, is they're unwilling to stick out the difficult period where younger players may make mistakes that established players they can afford to purchase wouldn't make, despite the huge long-term benefits both clubs could receive by pursuing an Ajax-style model of youth development. The onus is really on the SFA or SPFL to introduce rules requring clubs to have a set number of home-grown players (especially those younger than 19-23) in their matchday squads. This should especially be the case in the lower leagues. Rangers had a fantastic opportunity a decade ago to rebuild using young players from their youth system, but chose to purchase random foreign players like Emilson Cribari, Anestis Argyriou and Bilel Mohsni (🙄) and players who'd already peaked as very average SPL players like Dean Shiels, Francisco Sandaza or Kevin Kyle. None of those players were going to benefit the club for more than two or three years at best. The standard of young player coming out of Scotland really seems to have improved heavily in the past few years, however. This may allow clubs to integrate these players on their own volition, but the short-term focus from many clubs seems to override the long-term benefit.

I'd guess, however, Labour may be more content with her than the Tories. Kate Forbes is likely less in-line with the former-Labour vote in West-Central Scotland than Sturgeon - so may open up more chances for Labour to recover. I imagine the Green deal will come to an end should she win; I felt that deal was more a political stunt to provide greater emphasis to the independence majority at Holyrood. The Greens would still likely support the SNP on a case-by-case basis - similar to the situation in the previous parliament.

There was at least one Panelbase/Wings Over Scotland poll (figures from the Feb 2017 poll) which had crosstabs for football team supported (Celtic, Rangers, other, none) due to asking questions about the OBFA. From those numbers, Celtic fans voted 62% Yes in 2014, with Rangers fans at 39% Yes (others 51% and none 40% respectively). Football fans in general voted 49% Yes. This is very much what I'd expect given the demographic background of the clubs and football supporters more generally. Of course, it tells nothing about the difference between those who have season tickets, those who only go occassionally, etc. 2016 SNP constituency support was: Celtic 51%, Rangers 39%, others 46%, none 48%. Labour retained around 30% support for both Glasgow clubs. For the 2016 referendum, the remain figures were: Celtic 58%, Rangers 60%, others 64%, none 58%. The national figure in the poll was 59%, compared to 62% in the actual referendum. I would caution about the much larger margin for error with these figures, but look accurate from an indicative perspective.

Of the confirmed/possible candidates, I think Kate Forbes will win if she stands. I'm not sure she will though, given she's on maternity leave and may take a bit of time to recalibrate with frontline politics. Her religious views may grate with some in the party however. Angus Robertson clearly has the highest profile of the potential candidates and was fairly impressive in PMQs at Westminster, but I don't see him as a party leader or First Minister. I think he'd be a good candidate for Foreign or Defence Secterary if we were independent, but not FM; too 'managerial' is the best term I can think of. Humza Yousaf seems to have risen through the party without much obvious public achievement; he could be one that's better behind the scenes than in the leadership role. I'm surprised by the level of nominations he's already received. Ash Regan is someone I have little-to-no knowledge of, tbh, but her comments about independence strategy are encouraging. Could be a bit of a wildcard, especially the 'independence majority at any Westminster/Holyrood election for negotiations' plan. An independence convention could also refocus minds back on the constitution rather than the gender issue which has been divisive within the independence camp. Her policy of abandoning the Gender Reform Act may cause more divisions.