DoofersDad

You may have a point regarding Assad's democratic mandate but the problems in Syria are totally separate from the global terrorism scare other than the fact that the conflict in Syria has allowed ISIS to get a foothold in Syrian territory. Assad is just as much an enemy of ISIS as we infidels in the West are. I very much doubt that the security services are straight with us but that does not mean the threat is not very real. You'll be telling us next that the holocaust never happened.

Spot on, Charles. Actions speak louder than words and despite all the tiresome anti Tory, anti austerity rhetoric of the SNP, Swinney has delivered an austerity budget that goes beyond even what Osborne delivered for the UK in that not only has he not raised the income tax rate, but yet again he has refused to allow local Councils to increase Council Tax. The pathetic justification given for not using the new devolved tax raising powers they have been shouting long and hard for is that it would be an unacceptable burden for the poorest in our society. Nothing could be further from the truth. The poorest in our society don't pay any income tax and by progressively raising the tax threshold to £11,000, the current government has already taken nearly 300,000 Scots out of income tax altogether. (Wicked, wicked, Tories!) And with regard to the Council tax, Swinney has even more scope to focus any higher payments on those who can afford to pay. Raising the basic rate of income tax would benefit the poorest most and would cost them nothing. Allowing Councils to increase Council Tax rates would again cost the poorest least and give them the most benefit. Whilst appealing to the most vulnerable with their rhetoric, this wretched Scottish Government willfully refuses to use the powers it has in order to raise the money required to support these folk. They claim to be anti-austerity and yet impose austerity with a vengeance for fear of losing the votes of those on whom the tax burden would fall. The level of hypocrisy is truly breathtaking. As a member of the Highland Council's Citizens Panel, I have recently completed a consultation survey on their Budget options. They are looking to see how they can save over £20m from their budget. It is sobering to think that if the SNP had allowed Councils to increase the Council Tax by a modest 1.5% each year, the Highland Council would be raising £16m more in Council Tax next year than the Government is allowing it to. That is £4m more than wee Nicola grandly announced recently that Scotland was giving to "Global Climate Change Justice" to demonstrate her leadership in world climate change politics. Just think, if this Government had not imposed its austerity strategy on the Council, we, in Highland with just 4% of the Scottish population, could have donated £12m to Nicola to save the world and still had £4m left to provide support for some of the most vulnerable in our community.

Hmm. From the report it doesn't sound too good at all.

Put the ball into the box from a free kick? Don't be silly - we might lose possession!

Why do we make it so difficult for ourselves? It's great to get the 3 points. of course, but Kilmarnock were so poor that we could and should have taken them to the cleaners. The BBC report, referring to a period when we were 1 up, summed things up well when it said "The home fans began to voice their frustration as their side seemed to develop a tendency to play the ball backwards when an attack looked possible." In the 2nd half Kilmarnock had to score and pushed forward more. Instead of exploiting the space created and trying to kill the game off we continued with the passing at the back and generally trying to play it narrow through the middle. This allowed the opposition to regroup and cover. It allowed them to keep pressure on us in our own half and gave them hope. Generally we passed the ball about crisply and tidily but there was rarely any end product. Polworth played well and was looking to get forward and both Mutombo and Sho-Silva showed some ambition to get forward when they came on and the game was more stretched. But at the end of the day, I think their keeper (who had no chance with either goal) only had one save to make. It should have been a comfortable win but in the end it was a nervy one. Unless we can have a bit more urgency getting forward and create more chances, we are going to struggle to keep out of the relegation zone this season.

HT 0-0 FT 2-0 Ist ICT Warren 1st Opp Boyd Time 48mins

Complete nonsense, Oddquine. How about we just stick to the facts? I'll keep it simple. The detailed Forth Replacement Crossing Study was commissioned by Transport Scotland during the last Lab/Lib administration. The first 3 reports of that study were published in February 2007 which was before the SNP came into power and the Final report of the study was published in June 2007 which was after they came into power. The Lab/Lib government could not have acted on the study because they were no longer in office when the final report was published! The SNP on coming into Government were presented with the report which gave options for the crossing which by this time most people had accepted was urgently required. The ground work was all in place and the SNP simply had no option but to take the process forward. To state that the Lab/Lib government didn't initiate any process is demonstrably wrong as is your equally absurd statement that the SNP government did all the work to get the crossing approved.

It's a shame those in the European competitions aren't to be in at the group stages. It reduces the opportunities of the wee clubs to play a relatively lucrative game against a big club and it increases the chances of the usual suspects getting to the more lucrative stages of the competition. In addition, it denies poor Celtic the opportunity of actually progressing from a group stage!

If only I had a pound for every time a player said he was happy at a club and wanted to stay but who then left at the first available opportunity for a bigger pay packet elsewhere. No point alienating the fans and in any case, the happier you apparently are, the more money another team will need to offer in order to prize you away. I'm sure all the players are happy here.

Apart from the fact that this thread is all about the SNP's performance and not that of previous administrations, it is simply not true to say that Labour did nothing. As stated previously, it was the previous administration which commissioned an option appraisal in response to the survey showing the bridge's problems and put the process for replacement in motion. The SNP simply had to follow that through when they came into power.

Posted Monday at 11:36 PM · Report post DD you can read the BBC article on the link below which will give you some more information and facts on the First Ministers trip. We take our water for granted up here and even south of the border I would prefer a glass of wine instead, enjoy your trip. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-35020463 The above was posted by IBM on the other thread. It illustrates the propensity for SNP supporters to simply give a link to something on the assumption nobody will bother reading it and instead assume their point is proved. What the article actually demonstrates is that this contribution to "Global Climate Change Justice" is simply political opportunism. Sturgeon herself actually admits that in the grand scale of things £12million is not much but it gives her the opportunity to claim that Scotland is "leading by example". The article goes on to quote opposition criticism of the SNP Government stating that they have missed their targets every year since the Climate Change Act came into force and that their plans to reduce passenger duty on flights would be likely to increase emissions by around 50,000 tonnes a year. Instead of focusing on these populist headlining gestures, it would be better if the SNP did a bit more in a practical sense to reduce emissions closer to home.

I'm not saying it should have been started earlier. I'm simply saying that the timeline and the circumstances are such that the decision would have been the same regardless of which party was in power. It is simply not something that the SNP can justifiably use a positive example of their performance in Holyrood.

Having moved the discussion to a new and rather more appropriately titled thread, we seem to have moved away from the original point which was the inappropriate credit being given to the SNP for pressing ahead with the 2nd crossing. As I stated in the other thread, the process to explore the options was initiated before the SNP came into power following a report which made it clear that the bridge would not be able to cope with current, let along increased traffic flows. Since then we have had claims that the SNP could not have progressed it sooner because their first administration was a minority government and all the other parties opposed the idea. The fact is that the crossing had the support from all except the Greens. Nor is it true that the SNP had to wait till they had a majority Government to get parliamentary approval. Final approval was given following a debate on 15th Dec 2010 (before the 2011 election) when MSPs voted 108 - 3 in favour! There is simply no justification for the SNP to claim credit for implementing something which everybody recognised was an essential project.

Can't believe too many fans are going to be enthused by this. Presumably the club will have to take all games seriously if they aspire to reach the more lucrative later stages and therefore will still need a program of friendlies Perhaps to encourage some sort of atmosphere at the games and to encourage season ticket sales, the club could include entry to these games within the season ticket price?

Well, the Scottish Government has to do something with the extra money they get through the Barnet formula. But what is all that about floods in South Africa? I'm in Africa at the moment and there are water restrictions in places. In fact it is so bad I'm having to drink wine instead.

The SNP are very good at claiming credit for just about anything they can whilst shirking responsibility for their failures. There was an inevitability about both projects and it just so happens that the SNP were in power when the decisions were made. They have had to be pushed hard to put money into dualing the A9 and nearly 9 years after coming into office we are only now seeing the first work starting. It is hardly something to brag about. Following discovery of major structural problems which meant the bridge would have a very limited life at full loading, the previous administration commissioned work to identify options for replacement. When the SNP came into office, they simply had no option but to approve it. I appreciate that there is precious little the SNP can justifiably claim credit for so I suppose I can understand why they are so desperate to claim credit for these infrastructure projects.

It is really quite scary. Mind you, Goldie has scored a lot more own goals in her career than Josh.

It will be interesting to discover just what the 56 55 54 will be saying in response to Osborne's pledge to continue to pump significant extra resource in real terms into the NHS in England. These are the MPs who have decided to vote on devolved matters (like the NHS) on the dubious justification that they can protect Scotland from the indirect consequences of the Tories' spending cuts. They are from the party who, in the referendum, won loads of votes by scaring the voters into believing that remaining in the Union would result in disinvestment in and privatisation of the NHS. They are from the party which runs the Government in Scotland; a government that was criticised in an Audit Scotland report earlier this year for failing to increase spending in the NHS in real terms, for increasingly failing to meet targets and for increasingly having to resort to the private sector to bail them out. Hopefully Robertson's rabble will head North and tell Sturgeon's stooges that it is possible to commit to long term investment in the NHS by ensuring that the nation is not crippled by debt. One dreads to think what the long term future for the NHS in Scotland would have been had we voted for Independence. Crippled by debt repayments from the massive borrowing required for measures used to bribe the electorate and with the promised massive oil revenues failing to materialise, the Holyrood Government would have been forced to cut spending to the NHS. I sense that many people who voted "yes" are just beginning to wake up to the fact that they were well and truly duped by the SNP. Fortunately, enough of us voted "No" and as a result, the NHS in the UK is safe. If will be safer still if we can get a change of Government at Holyrood in the spring.

HT 0 - 0 FT 2 - 0 ICT Warren Hearts Delgardo Lloria Time 67

HT 0 - 1 FT 0 - 3 ICT Tansey Opp Griffiths Time 36 mins

Whilst it is frustrating to lose a goal at the death again, we shouldn't loose sight of the fact that the real problem this season is our failure to score. 16 goals in 15 games is not top 6 form. There is no doubt that there is some truth in what Bughtmaster says but for me, I think the greatest loss to the team through injury has been Aaron Doran. In the previous 2 seasons he has been involved in so much of our best creative football and he gives a sense of urgency to our attack. Does anyone know how close to a return he is?

If you define "success" or "best" as a percentage of games won, then Patterson, Robertson and Butcher are all ahead of Hughes.

In the same way that the All Blacks do the Hakka before a game could the Scottish team maybe do a Gay Gordons? That, in conjunction with the kits should make sure that the opposition don't get too close.

You really shouldn't be surprised, Charles. Feudal system it may be, but it is Scotland's feudal system and that makes it OK. Remember how in the referendum the pro independence lobby were bleating about how the Scottish nation was being oppressed by a Westminster government and how Scotland could only progress as a nation if it could win back its "freedom". The "freedom" they yearn for was when, rather than feeling oppressed by all the rights and freedoms that a representative democracy provides, the average Scot was living in dire conditions and obliged to do the bidding of which ever unelected, coat of arms bearing, clan chief owned the land they existed upon.

Its all gone very quiet again. This needs sorted out so that players can consider what they want to do in the knowledge of whether or not Yogi will be the manager next year.