DoofersDad

Much as I want Raven to stay, I think the focus on Sunday must be to give full support to those on the park and not those off it. This is a crucial game. Win and we are virtually assured of staying up. Lose and it is squeaky bum time. The team is bigger than one individual and we cannot afford to have distractions. Of course, should David feature in the match day squad or if we are getting humped, then that's a different matter!

I would have thought that if it was niggling injuries which meant he was not fit to play here then he was not fit to play anywhere on a full time basis. If so, I would expect a statement along those lines in due course.

Now that the SNP has finally published their manifesto I have downloaded it and skimmed through it. It's a well presented and lengthy document which contains lots of things that I am sure we would all like to see them deliver on. Who could say "no" to an extra £2bn for the NHS or 100% coverage for super-fast broadband by the end of the next term of office? But where is the money to pay for all this coming from? The manifesto, in truth, is a glossy wish list to bribe the people. It is full of commitments for new investment across the board, but there is not a cat in hell's chance of delivering them all. I promise to vote SNP next time if they do! I think the reality is that the SNP recognise that if they can't build a case for independence in the next parliamentary term, then it really will be no further referendum for a generation at least. This is the last chance saloon, and with support for independence continuing to lag behind opposition to independence, the SNP are desperate to do all they can to win people over. Hence the detailed wish list and a lack of detail of where the money is coming from. On taxation their position is as previously stated. Despite the fact that no taxes are going up but some tax thresholds will increase (thereby reducing tax), the manifesto claims this will raise £1.2bn! Can somebody please explain that? Even if the SNP's modest tax cuts did actually raise £1.2bn, that would only pay for slightly more than half of what is pledged for the NHS. Where is the rest of the money for the NHS and all the money for everything else going to come from? One area where there will be more money is, of course through the Barnet formula and the continuing subsidy that the UK gives to the Scottish economy. If the next SNP Government cannot use that subsidy and the new devolved powers to increase economic activity in Scotland and to significantly reduce the Scottish budget deficit, then the arguments for remaining in the UK should finally be clear to most of the minority of Scots who voted to leave the UK.

Thanks for that, Kingsmills. We may have differing views on politics but we share a view on this. I see you have also been hit with the curse for your troubles! I take the view that when people are expressing their views in a reasonable manner, a red dot simply signifies that the anonymous dotter doesn't like what is said but is unable to argue against it.

Thanks for the clarification. By the way, who on earth gave you a red dot? You are the bringer of the bad news, not the cause of it! Red dots to John Hughes on this one, I think.

Any reason given? On the face of it that is a shocking decision. He's been a great player for us.

You make my point very well! Your answer ridicules and attacks UKIP but completely fails to address the central inconsistency in the SNP's position. What unites UKIP and the SNP are that they are both nationalist parties. The SNP's raison d'etre is to take Scotland out of the UK Union whilst UKIP's is to take the UK out of the European Union. That is the prime policy driver and the rest of the policies are developed to get as many of the electorate on their side as possible. The electorate in Scotland is a little left of the electorate in England and the policies of the two parties reflect that. This means some policies are different but equally, many are broadly the same. Interestingly you state that their views on taxation are poles apart but yet the UKIP election leaflet that dropped through my letterbox this morning states that UKIP will "Keep Scottish taxes in line with the UK". That seems to be broadly what the SNP are doing! It's the same tactic Sturgeon used in the UK election, laying into Farage at one of the leaders' debates for blaming immigrants for the housing crisis (which, incidentally, he didn't) and then later the same day, on a different programme, stating that a major factor in the housing problems in her constituency was the numbers of immigrants who also need to be housed (which is what Farage actually said in the debate!) I quite accept that there are some nutters in UKIP but that should not detract from the core fundamental similarities of the two parties. The SNP is an older and more mature party and has evolved from a different background. The SNP has emerged from a rather more disciplined intellectual movement and whilst there have been some pretty unsavoury individuals emerging, the SNP has been far more disciplined in weeding these folk out. On the other hand, UKIP has emerged following the demise of rather more right wing and racist parties like the National Front and the British Nationalist Party and has had to face the problem of former members of those parties trying to find a home with UKIP. The SNP (and others) like to demonise UKIP as xenophobic and racist, but a proper read of their literature will make it clear to any fair minded individual that they are neither. Indeed, they have many in their ranks, including councillors, who are from different ethnic backgrounds. Of course there are also xenophobic and racist individuals in their ranks, but then there are xenophobic and anglophobic individuals in the SNP's ranks and that doesn't make the party xenophobic and anglophobic. The differences between UKIP and the SNP are therefore essentially cosmetic reflecting the different backgrounds, the maturity of the 2 parties and the different political environment either side of the border. In terms of the prime political objective (separation from a union) and the strategy for achieving that objective (see what the people want and then reflect that in the policy), they are like two peas in the same political pod.

I think the only manager currently managing in Scotland that Celtic would be remotely interested in is Warburton. Somehow I don't think he is available. Celtic are a big club and just about guaranteed Champions league football every year. There will lots of quality managers home and abroad who will be interested in the vacancy.

In other words, it is the inconsistency of their position which is consistent. All the nonsense which so stirred up the electorate in the Indy referendum about the right to control one's own destiny and being governed by a government elected by the people of Scotland is precisely what the leave campaign is stirring up the electorate with now. The big difference is that it is UK nationalism rather than Scottish nationalism. In essence, the SNP and UKIP are broadly similar. The reason why the SNP dislike UKIP so much is that UKIP keep pointing out the inconsistency in the SNP position. If people want the kind of self determination called for in the Independence referendum, then UKIP point out that you will not get that by remaining a part of the EU. The SNP have consistently failed to reconcile this truth so instead have a policy of ridiculing and attacking UKIP rather than arguing with them.

I don't think they will be indignant at all. The will just quietly ignore it. The Nats don't care one jot about the utter hypocrisy of their position and using the same arguments to remain in the EU as their opponents in the Indy referendum used for staying as part of the UK. Their thinking is that Scotland voting to stay and the UK voting to leave will be the best outcome to fuel the case for independence. Political activity in Scotland is quite rightly focussed on the Holyrood election at the moment, but I rather doubt whether the SNP will campaign too much for the EU referendum after the election - unless it looks as though Scotland just might vote to leave.

Rather than a thread on the Hearts game, this seems to have morphed into a bleeding hearts thread with posters lining up to say how they are being poorly treated by others who disagree with them. I hope nobody stops posting on here, because a forum is nothing if there are not differing points of view. But please accept that there will be differing points of view and as long as folk are not being offensive, they are perfectly entitled to voice them. By the way, I can't see anything nasty in the reply FoolPhysio refers to - methinks you were just being over-sensitive to a change in viewpoint being highlighted! And wynthank15 must realise that posting something so out of line of conventional wisdom on a sensitive subjects is going to get a reaction and can hardly complain when the reaction comes. Back to the game. After all, it was an objection to critical comments which led to this off-topic diversion. I wasn't able to get to the game, but having seen the highlights and read several reports and comments, it does appear that it was one of those games where the 0-0 scoreline made the game sound more exciting than it actually was. It is not surprising therefore that there were some critical comments. People should be free to make those comments. If you don't agree then that's fine. But if you don't agree, then please say why rather than simply objecting to people saying something you don't like.

They were certainly rank on the pitch but that would have been related to the level of debt they had and the club beginning to take measures to address that. In 2012/13 they had a debt of around £8m. Clearly there has been nothing like the scandal at Ibrox but the level of debt they had was a reflection poor financial management in the past. Nevertheless, last year they reported an operating loss of just under a million but have been able to reduce the level of debt through share issues etc.

Good to know you are enthusiastic and raring to go. It is exciting, isn't it? For years Scots have been complaining about austerity and cuts to public services, but now Holyrood has tax raising powers which will allow our politicians to raise more revenue for protecting and developing our public services. I trust you are voting for one of the parties that is keen to use these new powers and invest in education and the Health service etc. It would be such a shame to waste your votes and carry on with the same old programme of austerity with the Tories and the SNP.

Can't say I want either of them to win it. Two clubs who are not in the Premiership due to financial mismanagement in the past and who are now buying their way to cup success and the top flight by running at an operating loss. It is not good to have the premier cup competition won by a club in debt, so perhaps the SFA should declare the competition nul and void this year and just let us hold onto the trophy for another year.

Through the entire competition there have been 9 ties between Premiership and Championship sides with Premiership sides winning on only 3 occasions. The Rangers and Hibs have both beaten 3 Premiership sides. On top of that, County needed a replay to see off a league 1 side, we needed a replay to see off a league 2 side and Hamilton memorably got well beaten by a league 2 side. That's 7 of the 12 Premiership sides getting knocked out by lower league opposition. This is all evidence that the top flight is a pretty weak league at the moment.

The election is getting ever closer so perhaps we can get back to the real issues. It is a very lack lustre debate which is a worry for a number of reasons. There seems to be an assumption that the SNP will win, but whilst I would be very surprised if they did not, the other parties really should be taking the SNP to task rather more and aiming to at least stop the SNP having an overall majority. After all the election is fought on PR lines and it wouldn't actually take too much of a swing to stop the SNP forming another majority Government. One of the issues of concern is the delay in getting manifestos out. Polling day is less than 3 weeks to go and yet the party of Government has still not got its manifesto out. How on earth is one supposed to have a debate when you don't know what is in their manifesto? To be fair, the Labour party are even worse in that respect. The SNP's will finally be released this week but we will have to wait until just a few days before the election before Labour launch theirs. If there is a recognised day for the start of the campaign, then surely there should be a requirement that all manifestos are published within a week. It is also disappointing how inept the broadcast media have become in their reporting. There is really no meaningful analysis by the BBC who seem scared to broadcast anything that the SNP might interpret as bias. Take this week's reporting of the left leaning Institute for Public Policy Research Scotland's report of the impact of the Parties' tax proposal as an example. In March the IPPR published a report identifying that the next Government would have to face an annual spending gap of £2bn by 2020. The question posed therefore is what are the parties proposing to bridge this gap. The latest report identifies that the SNP income tax proposals will raise £300m compared with if they had just followed the UK Government plans. But as the UK Government is cutting taxes, the SNP proposals are actually not going to raise a penny more! When asked to comment on the the report, Swinney said "This report shows that it is only the SNP that are putting forward balanced, reasonable and fair tax proposals that will support public services like our NHS whilst protecting households budgets." Er, no John. It shows nothing of the sort. What it shows is that the SNP is refusing to use the recently devolved powers they have been bleating on about for so long, to raise the necessary revenue to protect essential services. But the BBC just reports the bland facts and Swinney's comments without in any way making any analysis how untrue his comments actually are. The SNP's strategy is clear. They know that tax rises, (however necessary) are unpopular and they hope that by not putting taxes up they will maximise their vote. This will allow them to claim a mandate for a further referendum within their term of office. And they know it has to be soon or never because their level of popularity will not last beyond this next term. In the meantime they will not be particularly bothered if public services suffer because in the short term at least, they will probably still get away with blaming their underfunding of public services on the Tories.

Is there any footage which shows the highlights?

It would appear so. It is a shame you can no longer see who gives the green and red dots. I will give green dots to posts I agree with or which make me laugh. I only rarely give red dots and only to posts which I disagree strongly with and/or which are offensive. When I give a red dot to a post I disagree with I will always post an alternative point of view. It seems some people don't understand the purpose of red dots are using them to say whether they like or dislike news that others post, If you agree with IHE and are sad to see the end of the famous Killie Pie, then it's green dots please! Red dots would seem to be completely uncalled for on this occasion.

Of course the OF distort the figures, but just leaving them out of it makes interesting reading. If you look at Germany who are 13th in the list, the current World Cup champions and who have a superb top flight league, the % watching is listed as 1.63%. Now if you divide the Highlands in 2 and say the potential fan base of ICT and County was 100,000 each, then at German levels of attendance we could expect home gates of 1,630. For all the moaning we do about how poorly the Inverness public support the club, this would suggest that compared to international levels, our level of support is pretty good. The down side of this is that one might therefore expect the support to drop significantly in line with support elsewhere rather than rise. Incidentally, I note that the number of divisions counted in preparing the table is listed as 5! Does this include the Highland League, I wonder? If so, then add in Wick, Brora, Clach, Nairn, Strathspey and Fort William onto the figures for ICT and County, and Highland clubs probably have a higher percentage of the population watching live football than Scotland as a whole - OF included.

A proper development team too and not one full of fringe players. Very encouraging.

No it's not just you. Either the Ness is flowing uphill to the sea or that couple are about to get engulfed by a tsunami.

With respect, Bughtmaster, there is every reason for you to explain yourself. This is a forum which exists to allow people to share and discuss various viewpoints. But when folk express views which are critical of the manager you come on here and criticise them for voicing those views. You don't address the particular points folk raise, you just say they shouldn't be expressing them. That is really rather discourteous. You are also highly inconsistent in what you say. Your gripe about Barry Wilson seems to be that his reports on matches (even when completely objective) will not encourage new people to attend games. But then when others express the view that the football on display is not very entertaining and make suggestions for a more attacking style which might attract folk through the gates, you criticise them for voicing those views. Of course, it may be that you feel the fare on offer has been thoroughly entertaining. You are, of course, entitled to your view. But if that is your view then kindly either explain what it is about it that you find entertaining, or refrain from having a pop at those with different views.. On that front, I asked you a question about Tuesday's game which gives you an opportunity to justify your criticism of others but you chose not to answer it.

Might I remind you that it was you who criticised others for having their say and not the other way round. Of course you are welcome to have your say, but rather than simply having a pop at others for making critical comments, it would be far more positive to enter into some kind of debate and respond constructively to the points they make. For instance, RiG asked you a specific question which you have chosen to ignore. And others on this thread have criticised the manager for taking Storey and Mutombo off and replacing them with Williams and Vincent. Perhaps you would care to explain how taking off our 2 most attack minded players and replacing them with midfielders when we have yet to score is going to encourage folk to come and watch the team?

Barry Wilson is employed by the BBC to comment on games as he sees it. If he thinks the game is awful then of course it is right that he says so. Are you seriously suggesting that because he used to be employed by ICT he should lie about the games and say how wonderful ICT were when they were poor? If you think his comments are not an adequate reflection of the game then complain to the BBC. And what on earth gives you the right to imply that just because some posters are critical of the certain aspects of the club that they are not supporting the club through thick and thin? The reality is that because they do care passionately about the club, they are anxious that problems get addressed. and therefore voice their concerns. You accuse Kingsmills of attacking you and then in last comment you make an inappropriately snide comment about him. Far from displaying your level of understanding, your comment displays a lack of understanding of the importance of constructive criticism in improving performance. An increasing number of folk who support the team week in and week out are getting very concerned about the way things are going and particularly about the level of entertainment being provided. We are the ones who pay Yogi's salary and we will continue to plough money into the club long after he's gone. We therefore have every right to voice our concerns.. And please don't continue with your nonsense of equating criticism with negativity. It is, after all, the negativity of the style of play that people are criticising.

I don't suppose we will hear from "Professor" again. It bears all the hallmarks of someone who wants to post his or her views on as many forums as possible and places the same post on each before moving on to the next one. Reference to the "Doctor's strike" suggests this comes from England with just token editing for a Scottish audience. Incidentally, I wonder if he/she could let us know which doctor it is that is striking? The funny thing here is that if someone is going to bother to sign up to various forums to post their message of perceived wisdom, why would you not first make sure that opinions expressed are based on fact rather than post this drivel? I don't think "Professor" is Nigel in disguise. To be fair to Farage, I am sure he would cringe at what "Professor" has written. As with many causes, it is the outspoken zealots spouting ill informed nonsense who actually do so much to discredit the causes they are trying to promote! There may be a case for leaving the EU - but this isn't it.