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If Labour form the government, I think they will have a lot of internal issues with Trident renewal anyway.

I think that IFAB are talking about removing the mandatory suspension that follows the red card in these cases and I think that's good. Maybe you could downgrade it to a booking for totting up. What I would do would be to only have a mandatory red card for offences outside the box, eg if an attacker has a clear run on goal and the defender clears him out. I think in the vast majority of cases that awarding a penalty - and possibly a booking - is enough punishment as the penalty is a better chance of scoring a goal than the "clear goalscoring opportunity" was. The exception to this of course are cases like yesterday's where the ball is clearly going in the net and in those cases I'd still award the red card. Might stop a lot of the diving as well.

I think he moves to block the ball and as Griffiths is shooting he brings his arm up - probably to protect his face - and the ball hits his arm. So for me its a stonewall penalty. The clincher for me- and I've had to watch replays to see this - is that its not a case of his arm being static and it hitting him, he brings his arm up to where the ball hits it.

Depends on what that looks like, I don't think it necessarily follows that that would be the case. Tory/UKIP, in out referendum on EU followed by BRExit - it would depend on how Scotland voted in that referendum, I'm not convinced its a much of a slam dunk as people think that Scotland would vote No. Tory/Lib Dem, would pretty much depend on what powers are transferred to Holyrood and whether they are perceived to have delivered "the vow". Tory/Labour grand alliance, if that's to keep the SNP out, then you can light the blue touchpaper.

Currency - in my mind its actually the only downside of Independence from where we currently stand and it's actually hard to argue that on that single point that Independence would be a benefit. At least during some short to mid term transitional period until such time as the economy of an independent Scotland settled down. It's no surprise that Better Together concentrated on this and Yes Scotland were on the back foot as far as this was concerned through the whole campaign. However, if countries having different currencies was such an insurmountable problem then there wouldn't be the hundreds of different currencies that exist in the world today. That said, had the vote gone the other way an "in principle" currency union would have been announced on September 19th, I'm completely convinced of that. How to change that, I think you need to accept that it is not an ideal situation and talk about what all the other options are, what the benefits and downsides of each options would be. It needs to be considered as part of the "costs" of Independence and a price worth paying.

If it were one or two polls then you could be right but this has been pretty consistent across pretty much every poll for months now.

Should be a fair few goals as both team's defences are shocking. Will probably be 0-0 then.

Don't think that would work either as you would have people just kicking the ball at opponent's arms at point blank range to try and get a penalty. The problem with the word deliberate is that people understandably interpret that as being "he meant to handle the ball" and of course that's not what the official meaning is supposed to be and what referees apply. When you add in your arm being in an unnatural position, that is just even more confusing. Was the old wording for these sorts of deliberate or intentional offences not something like "Seeking to gain an advantage" which while not ideal does convey a bit better what the law is trying to do. I don't think that is a great description but it conveys better than deliberate or intentional what the law is trying to achieve. I don't actually think that there's too much wrong with the law or the interpretation as it stands, a bit more consistency from referees and fans - and more especially pundits - having a bit more understanding of the law.

In this case it was denying a clear goalscoring opportunity and so has to be a red card. It's either that or the referee sees it as not deliberate and no penalty. A big harsh as its probably a bit of a natural reaction to protect his face, but the correct decision as the laws currently stand.

I generally don't agree with much if anything that David Torrance says but there is one line in his column in today's Herald that is worth sharing - even though the rest of the article is his usual mince. Which is kind of the point about where Labour will get the support from if they are to claw anything back from the SNP. Of course the nature of FPTP means they don't have to claw back a huge amount in order to lessen the damage but even that looks challenging right now. Goozay is right that if they are going to do it they need to come up with a better argument than the current mantra about Vote SNP get Tories. I can't see where that's coming from especially as the MSM are starting to call out their duplicity as regards the NHS.

The polls ultimately were pretty close to the final outcome of the referendum and we saw how the polls can have an impact when the single Sunday Times poll that showed Yes to be ahead. However that was the side that had slipped behind reacting to the polls not the polls themselves being skewed to encourage people to vote No. This is a completely different situation, it's more akin to where No were around six month if so out with a twenty point lead - of course the dynamics of a referendum are totally different from a general election. The Yes campaign though had the grassroots activism to chip away at that lead. Labour don't have that. Remember that the Scottish electorate were comfortable enough in having the SNP in power in Holyrood to vote them in on a landslide in 2011. We know that there were many No voters that voted for the SNP.

I don't think that's what is going on here. This is a completely new situation for Labour - actually for everyone. Labour are used to fighting an election either as the incumbent or as the opposition. If they are the opposition then it's pretty simple, make lots of promises and attack the incumbent's record in government. If they are the. Incumbents then they defend their own record in government and attack the record of the opposition when they were in power - which to be fair is pretty much what Nicola does every week at FMQs. Problem now is that in Scotland they are up against the SNP, not the Tories, and Labour are the opposition but it's a Westminster election and the SNP are not in power there. Even worse, they've never really had any influence at all as far as Westminster is concerned. Since they can't think in anything other than straight lines, all they can do is to fight on the Holyrood battle ground and hope that the electorate isn't sophisticated to realise the difference and also try and discredit them in general terms. Problem is that for a two term incumbent government in Holyrood, the SNP are actually pretty popular.

Johann Lamont's face looks like fizz as well, but when didn't it.

Love this line from today's Herald about Margaret Curran. Another Scottish Labour source said: "Margaret has always been out for herself and Jim needs to have a word with her. It will be a blow to Labour if we lose our Scottish Secretary but we can take comfort in the knowledge that the IQ of the Westminster group will rise when Margaret goes."

Anyone in any doubt about how close SLab are to the Tories should watch this. This is John McTernan - Jim Murphy's Chief of Staff - speaking at last year's Tory Party Conference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP1QyAcQBJE#action=share

Labour conference is a hoot. Jim and Kez doing a "This Morning" style sketch now. At least that's what it looks like.

Oh, I don't know. Strachan can be pretty nippy with interviewers.

The most pathetic thing that night was Scotland fans booing a guy as he came on to make his debut.

That would be more Thatcherism rather than Toryism per-se.

No, 6 of them play for Chelsea.

The EPL may be a top class league, some may disagree but they would be wrong. However that doesn't mean that by definition all teams in the league are top class or that all the players in the league are top class. I watch Chelsea and I would say that looking at the 24 man first team squad, I would say that around 15-16 players would meet my earlier definition of top class. Now there's a few young players in there who should get better and a couple who I don't think are good enough to play for Chelsea. Of those I would only class four as World Class, Courtois, Fabregas, Hazard & Costa with Ivanovic and Matic not that far off that. I'd use a definition of World Class as something like the 100 best players in the World at moment.

I must have higher expectations than you do. Be honest, we have some good players, we have some decent players and we have some okay players. WGS is doing a good job with the players that he has at his disposal and there are good reasons to be hopeful for the future but we don't have any top class players, if we did then we would be doing better than we are.

I must have missed the vote for independence in the 1970s.

Every time I see Jenny Marra, she looks absolutely seething.

That's self-evidently nonsense, that anyone in the Labour Party believes that there should be a Tory government. There may be certain people that feel a deal with the SNP would be a step too far - looking solely at the future of SLab - but that's a different argument. What they can't do on the basis of being Better Together is to try and cast the Scottish electorate and their representatives as being somehow not able to have a say on how the UK should be governed purely because they don't like who they are voting for, and that applies to all the Unionist parties.