skifreak

A chimpanzee smoking crack would have more intelligence than anything you've ever posted.

If that proves to be the case then jibes similar to that aimed at Labour's 'feeble 50' far from sticking will simply highlight the SNPs core point. Scotland only gets the government it votes for and the influence over all aspects of policy that goes with that with Independence.

The crossing outside Mcdonalds and the one outside the Townhouse are basically one, the townhouse crossing is just a repeater of the Mcdonalds crossing - good for pedestrians that actually observe what is going on because once the traffic is stopped you can cross anywhere between the two! Yet the timing is such you will never get stopped at both (unless the traffic is stationary for some other reason). Anyway most of your rant is nothing to do with the Scottish Government and if you want to rant about the SNP SG and the A9 and A96 - where was the action in the previous 8 years when Labour and the Lib Dems were in charge?

You clearly don't venture to the far end of the A96 very often!!

We are seven months away from potentially the most unpredictable of UK general elections, but one in which there is at least the possibility of the SNP coming out as the third biggest party in the House of Commons. Even if that doesn't happen if a fair number of both Labour and Lib Dem Scottish seats are lost to the SNP, then it is unlikely the Lib Dems will dominate the make up of the 'smaller' parties in the Commons next May as they did in 2010. A 2 party lib-lab or con-lab coalition would unlikely reach the 326 seats needed for a majority. So the SNP could end up holding the balance of power! EVEL will be unacceptable unless Scotland has full fiscal autonomy, otherwise English votes would continue to set Scottish budgets through Barnett Consequentials with no democratic accountability either at Holyrood or Westminster. How do you see the constitutional conundrums being resolved? I haven't seen anything in my adult life that suggests to me the UK state is capable of the radical reform required at the centre to deliver the change required to solve these issues in a manor that could give rise to anything approaching a stable constitutional settlement.

Perhaps I was giving Labour too much credit for having thought their plans through! The proposals don't allow tax cuts, only rises, all bands must move together and doesn't allow for changes to the banding, while as with the impending changes from the 2012 Scotland Act, the SG will have to pay HMRC a large chunk of cash to administer it. In other words it doesn't transfer meaningful useable powers to Holyrood, it instead is just a way of diverting chunks of the block grant back to the Treasury without headline changes to Barnett Consequentials. Unless the taxes which the Scottish Parliament are given some degree of power over are collected by Revenue Scotland, then the fiscal consequences be they good or bad would continue to accrue to the Westminster Treasury so there is no increase if fiscal accountability (quite the opposite in fact). It's not just tax rates that have this problem in the current set-up. The Child Care proposals in the Indy White Paper could in theory be implemented now, but fiscally they can not because rather than been self funding over the longer term if tax receipts were retained in Scotland, such a policy under the present fiscal regime would simply transfer a large chunk of the Scottish Government's funding back to the Treasury through increased working taxes and NI payments.

That's a matter of some debate, the poll tax was introduced here by Scottish Ministers - who happened to be Tory, while the preceding general election result returned the following in Scotland: Lab 50 Con 10 All 9 SNP 3 I wasn't quite old enough to vote in the 1992 General Election, but through the period of the Poll Tax when the Scottish Grand Committee sat in the parliamentary chamber of the Old Royal High School I new there was something fundamentally wrong as far as democracy goes when nearly all the elected representatives are on the opposition benches, and it was not possible for Scotland to democratically remove the Scottish Ministers from post - their party was rejected at General Election after General Election but they remained in post accountable to no-one. People seem to forget that even before the Scottish Parliament Scottish Ministers wielded huge power - that was an enormous democratic deficit.

Yes it's very possible, but for the opposite reason which you argue - Labour's proposed devo-nano on the face of it seems halfbaked, look a bit deeper though and what you see is a series of fiscal traps Labour wants to set for the Scottish Government. Damaging Scotland in the hope the SNP gets the blame seems to be the game in town for Labour, I do think though that balance of where this commission on new powers goes will depend which side the Lib Dems come down on, standing behind their long standing policy and principles which would see them back the SNP and Greens for very substantial constitutional change, or keep together with their Better Together buddies.

Increased membership 3 fold in 2 weeks, even at the lowest possible membership subscription that's an extra £600,000 in the kitty and at the recommended subscription rate £1.8m and many new members will no doubt have put in more than the minimum or recommended subs. Still weighing up whether to join the SNP or Greens, leaning towards the SNP - must decide soon! Was a much easier decision on Sept 18th.

Health is devolved, setting Scottish Government budgets is not - and that is the longer term issue. Did anyone see £9000 tuition fees coming in England pre May 2010? Any future changes not yet envisaged could drastically reduce Scottish Government funding in direct response to policy decisions taken for England for the same reason via negative Barnett Consequentials. In that regard the Scottish Parliament can only act as a drag on policy implemented at UK level, because the Scottish Government can not go on mitigating the policies of the UK government from a Block Grant that is being diminished by those very policies. Health provision will only be the full responsibility of the Scottish Parliament, if Holyrood controls both sides of the budget, not just the spending.

Personally speaking, the Northern Meeting Park would be good!

Stadium relocation would be huge bucks for perhaps not that much difference, but some small things within the stadium would help. In a premier league ground you really shouldn't require welly boots to go to the toilet or queue for a pie - the state of the area behind the West Terrace is an embarrassment and it's getting steadily worse. Surely it's not beyond the means of the club to at least put some chips down on the non-concrete bits to improve the surface at least somewhat as a short term fix.

Do you consider regressing 18months + in 5 games a success then?

You can't blame Butcher for the slump, we were doing ok without a manager… it takes someone 'special' to destroy a team in under 2 weeks. Taxi for Yogi! How did the board get sucked in by this clown?

ScotRail App shows the 22.09 train back from Dingwall, it starts there.