aaid

I doubt they SNP would be disbanded immediately, although once Independence was achieved I'd have no doubt there would be a lot of people moving to other parties that suit their political views. Personally I think that Scottish Labour and the Liberals would also disappear over time. In a multiparty state, I could see there being a right of centre party which would essentially be the Tories, right leaning SNP and some Liberal and Labour types. A centre left party comprising the bulk of what is now the SNP and Scottish Labour and left leaning liberals - which would probably be the "natural" party of government. A left wing party - or given the inevitable internecine division that happens on the left - several parties, comprising of the left wing of the SNP, the left wing of the Labour party, RIC, SSP, Solidarity, etc. The greens would probably be as they currently are but I guess would depend on the environmental policies of the left. The main barrier to this would be the enmity at a personal and party level as a result of the independence campaigns which might make it difficult for people to work with each other and may need to wait until the next generation of politicians. That said, you could quite easily see a situation where you had post-independence "government of national unity" headed up by Nicola Sturgeon with Kezia Dugdale as Deputy FM.

They can't even get their facts straight. http://wingsoverscotland.com/once-more-for-the-folks-at-home/#more-76341

Of course, where Maurice Malpas got his degree.

Totally forgot about Napier but I didn't think Glasgow Tech awarded degrees at that time. The point you make about the CNAA degrees is spot on and that was the main reason behind RGIT not converting to a University at that point. I have to declare an interest though as I have one.

Additionally, there were only two in Scotland, RGIT in Aberdeen and Paisley Tech. I was at RGIT from 1983 to 1986 and there was a lot of discussion at the time over converting to university status, I have a vague memory of there being a vote which was defeated - the general view among the student body was it was better to remain a central institution. Not sure about Paisley but RGIT was primarily vocational degrees, postgraduate diplomas and full time HNDs. I think along with the six original universities, these were the only institutions awarding degrees in the country.

Not really, the majority of European countries have tertiary education attendance rates of around 40%

So you don't believe there should be any sort of private rental sector whatsoever?

So is it buy to let and renting at a profit that you think is immoral or is it the number of properties, in which case what number would you say is a "moral" number to own? You really haven't made that clear.

Do you believe there is some fundamental contradiction there or is it the number of properties you think is the problem?

Been given leave to appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission

I don't think he has done.

To be fair Euan. Buying a property and then reselling the property on the same day to your husband for £31k more has nothing to do with the state the property was in or in fact probably anything to do with the property itself. Its a paper transaction, the reason for which hasn't been explained. However, it almost certainly had no bearing on the £65k that was paid for the property in the first place.

I'd agree with you that there's something that doesn't smell right about some of these purchases but so far no-one has been able to explain just exactly what the dodginess is all about. There are two sides to every equation and to me the reason why there is an apparent excess in the private rental sector is because of the lack of provision of social housing either via councils or housing associations. A massive program of building new social housing would also help rein in the house prices as well. There is a place for the private rental sector, most notably for people who for a number of reasons don't want to commit to a long term tenancy, the problems not the private rental sector per se, it's the lack of any alternative.

Was he running messages for Michelle Thomson?

I tend to think that myself. That said, I think it's surprising that in all the coverage, no-ones explained what the angle actually is.

Kid? He'll be 27 next month.

It's not that bad.

It probably was, in May the share of the vote in Wales was Labour 37%, Tories 27%, UKIP 14% and Plaid 12%. Don't make the mistake of assuming that politically, Wales is smaller version of Scotland.

I'll keep this post for next year when Aberdeen are in the Europa League having been horses out the Champions League qualifiers.

Lots of Welsh people don't have recognisable Welsh accents.

It's not like the UK where the prime minister - assuming a two party state - controls the House of Commons and can pretty much get whatever he wants passed. Any gun control legislation would have to go through Congress which currently is controlled by the Republicans. This and the federal system means that the reality is that POTUS has very limited power on domestic issues.

This Tory Secretary of State for Wales makes Fluffy Mundell look almost reasonable.

She *finally* left Scotland

That's a very good point. I used to think that if the Old Firm joined the Premiership, then they would be maybe struggle for a couple of years but once they got settled in they would start to challenge at the top end, primarily due to the increased TV revenue and also the attendances. If you look at how the English Premiership has gone in the last ten years then of all the revenue streams, attendances have become less and less significant compared to TV and billionaire owners. The parallel with Newcastle and Sunderland is really apt. Those are two complete basket cases of clubs at the moment but one thing they share with every club in England with the exception of Arsenal, Chelsea, Man Utd and Man City is the ability to attract the highest quality of players, especially from abroad - let's be honest, that's where the best players are from. Players want - probably in this order - the money, to play in the Champions League, to win things and if possible, to live in London. You can use the argument about playing in front of 50 thousand passionate fans every other week but that's what Newcastle and Sunderland get and that doesn't seem to be working for them. Celtic - and Dermot Desmond - would make more money, but for Celtic fans, you can forget about winning anything other than the odd cup every ten or so years, forget about Europe apart from the occasional entry in the Europa league. Currently, Rangers would be relegated in season one, probably with a record number of low points.