Dave78

That's not really the case here in Ireland. Yes, it helps a lot to have the backing of a political party (the current guy used to be in the Labour party), but you have non party aligned candidates too. At the last presidential election one of the 'dragons' from Dragon's Den nearly won it. Their role is mainly ceremonial (although they do set the 'tone' of the nation's politics i suppose), but nobody here really cares what party they're from. They mainly care how good a job they do at shaking the hands of the players at 6 nations games 😄

Do you still believe this fantasy? Even after the supreme court's decision on indyref2?

Ok, so the point about sitting on it is valid i suppose. Agree of course about O'Neill. But then it's never hard to make the DUP look like twats. They remind me of the unionist parties in Scotland from the early days of the SNP's rise to - and in - government. They offer up so many open goals.

I watched all of Salmond's speech (from which this clip is taken) you the YouChoob last night. One point that struck me was about sitting on the stone to symbolise how Scotland was now literally and figuratively 'sat on' by the English.... Did Scottish kings not also sit on it? (genuine question, i've no idea). Regarding your point about Salmond being on the privy council, he referenced that in his speech. Alba is a republican party led by someone who's a monarchist. Odd i suppose, but then loads of politicians have been on 'journeys' with regards to the monarchy (looking at you Sinn Fein).

Interesting. I hadn't heard of this. Of course, the British security services (under instruction of the Tories) would never engage in such nefarious activities, as they're such fair-play honourable guys that play with a straight cricket bat.... right... right? https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/use-of-pegasus-spyware-in-catalan-gate-not-justified-says-eu-parliament/ The government’s use of the Pegasus Spyware against pro-independence Catalan politicians was not justified as there was no threat to the country’s security, a preliminary report drafted by the European Parliament found. According to the report published Tuesday “it is not possible to establish” an alleged threat to national security invoked by the Spanish government to justify the use of the Pegasus spyware against pro-independence Catalan politicians.

It won't be everyone, no. Just the vast majority! 😜 I'd agree with that. However, normally the police treat stuff like this more sensitively. They request folk to attend voluntary interviews. This time they've made a spectacle of it (dawn raids and forensic tents FFS!).

Extremely convenient timing, wasn't it? Managed to spike any forward momentum Yousaf might have gotten from the policy announcements

Aye, just over 5m now. Scotland falling behind and atrophying.

Meanwhile, in Ireland..... https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2023/0418/1377638-cso-government-finance-figures/ "The Government is expected to run a surplus in the public finances of €10 billion this year, while its forecast for next year is for a surplus of €16.2 billion." Also....i'm pretty sure Ireland (specifically the republic) is about to overtake Scotland in terms of population in the next few years.

Your missus is a stunner Ramy. Though i'm surprised she married someone as short as you. Are you standing on a box? Enjoy your retirement big yin!

Saw that. He said they should stop acting like a trade union and more like 'health leaders', whatever the fuck that meant. The lassie from the BMA was excellent and had his number.

The only damage done here was to my eyes because of that terrible photoshop

Hard to judge who is enjoying it more. Them or oor Malcolm.

Brendan Rogers just got sacked by Leicester and is available. I'd make him SNP CEO

Leaving aside today's events (and i have my suspicions regarding the police in all of this - the timing, the 'incident tent' optics of it all), Sturgeon's legacy will surely be one of failure. She was handed a very good hand in the political poker game thanks to Brexit, and has screwed it up. To paraphrase from an old quote from the battle for Ireland's independence, England's difficulty has been Scotland's wasted opportunity.

Not when the main party of independence is led by someone with no strategic political killer instinct regarding how to achieve it. All i want is Alex Salmond back and a big bag of cans

That will be (and i think was in the past when the questions about the £600k first emerged) the SNP's likely defence - the money was spent on salaries of people employed to work on / promote the independence case.

He's playing in a more advanced role too. His goals for Scotland must have made an impression on Ten Hag.

It'd help your case if you threw in a couple of tactical spelling errors. You probably thought about doing that but just couldn't bring yourself to lower your impeccable standards 😄

I take your point. Though i will say i used the word "much" (which we may well agree it was?), not "massively".

You're right, but don't forget the relative strengths of the leagues back then. Having Gallacher, a 16 goal a season striker in 90s England is much less impressive than it would be now, as the EPL was a much inferior league to Serie A or La Liga. Same applies to Hendry, Calderwood etc.

Aye, but Scotland 2.0 got gubbed by Ireland in June. I trust the new Scotland 3.0 will take a different attitude into the 'holiday games'.

I'm pretty sure Clyde was meaning our current form of the last couple of campaigns. Right now we'd be competitive with all of the teams he mentioned. Surely you'd agree with that?

To be fair, (and i can't quite believe i'm saying this after 2 games - one of which was against Spain), i'm not sure he's been tested yet. Agree with your last bit though... A welcome addition.

He's been glued to the coverage on GBeebies all day