Taking stock

Hello there! With the festive season in full swing this week, there have been fewer bloggers blogging and even fewer news stories to blog about. So the roundup is taking a week off, and there’ll be a two-week special next week.

For this post, though, I thought I would take a look at what Scottish Blogging Roundup has achieved so far, and what it still has to do.

Aptly enough, there happened to be a report about the state of Scottish blogging on Radio Scotland this week, which you can listen to here. It’s generated a bit of discussion. For instance, here is Will Paterson, who was interviewed for the piece. There is CuriousHamster. Mr Eugenides also threw his hat into the ring in an interesting post at Scottish Political News. Oh, and here are my thoughts on it aswell.

One of the main reasons that I wanted to re-start the Scottish Blogging Roundup that Stuart Dickson began last year was that I thought Scottish bloggers could and should be doing better. Why are there no real big guns in the Scottish blogosphere? And the ones that do attract attention usually aren’t writing about Scottish politics!

More than a few people have suggested that it is partly to do with the “local council” mentality of the politicians in the “wee pretendy parliament”. Maybe so. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t shine a spotlight on them. In fact, maybe it is all the more reason to shine a spotlight. I once attended a talk by Jamie Stone MSP. He told us that the Scottish Parliament makes 70% of the legislation that affects Scottish people.

Despite all the doom and gloom, there is reason to be optimistic about Scottish blogging. Although it feels as though there are only a few Scottish blogs, there are actually loads waiting to be discovered. I decided to have a look at the blogs that we have linked to on the roundup. To my surprise, I found that in those twelve roundups we have managed to fit in fifty-six different blogs. Not all of them are Scottish (i.e. they are other blogs writing about Scottish politics), but almost all of them are. And with the Scottish Parliament and local elections coming up in May, more are bound to join.

For the fun of it, here are the ten most frequently cited blogs of the roundup so far:

1. Holyrood Chronicles (14)
2. Freedom and Whisky (12)
3. Shuggy’s Blog (12)
4. Scottish Political News (11)
5. Rhetorically Speaking.. (11)
6. The Devil’s Kitchen (11) — no longer eligible because he’s moved back down to England?
7. J. Arthur MacNumpty (10)
8. Musings of a Reactionary Snob (9)
9. Mr Eugenides (8) — Mr. Eugenides is also resposible for some of linked posts from Scottish Political News and The Devil’s Kitchen
10. A Place To Stand (7)

As you can see, despite the relatively large number of blogs that we’ve linked to, the same few can crop up week after week. Holyrood Chronicles averages more than one link per week! While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it would be nice to get a bit more variety in the blogs that we cover.

As always, your submissions can help. Nominate a blog or a post that you’ve particularly enjoyed by emailing us at scottishroundup [at] gmail [dot] com. Also, if you use Delicious, it is dead easy to bring our attention to something. Simply bookmark a page as normal, but tag it as for:scottishroundup and we’ll get it. If you have a Delicious account, this is much easier than going to the hassle of using email.

But that’s old news. But there’ll be a couple of changes around here as well. In addition to me and Garry taking turns to post roundups, we will be bringing some guestbloggers on board in the run up to the elections. One per month sounds good to me — we can fit in five guestbloggers before the election. It will be much better to have a variety of perspectives on the Scottish blogosphere. I know I always discover something new when I read Garry’s roundups. Hopefully this will prevent the same old blogs appearing week after week.

Garry will be back on Sunday for next week’s roundup. Then I think we will bring in our first guestblogger, but there’ll be more on that when the time comes. In the meantime, I’ll just say thanks for reading and wish you all a Happy New Year!

SBR12: Trident (again), and Labour’s relationship with bloggers

Hello, hello! It’s roundup time again. I know Christmas is just around the corner, but you know what that means — more time for us lot to get blogging. So the normal weekly service will probably continue through the holiday season.

The big news of the week has been Malcolm Chisholm’s resignation from the Scottish Executive over Trident. Davie Hutchison has a few notes about his opponent in next year’s Edinburgh North and Leith Scottish Parliament election.

Scottish Political News makes the point that the whole Trident issue is a reserved matter. So why did Chisholm have to resign? His views had nothing to do with Scottish Executive policy.

I thought the whole purpose of devolution was to allow thinking in Scotland free of the London government? Clearly not.

Meanwhile, Caron takes a look at the Trident issue itself.

Elsewhere, David Farrer has an excellent post pondering the age-old question of why the Scottish independence movement is in favour of EU membership. If you ask me, it is no real contradiction to support being a member of the EU while advocating an exit from the UK. The EU is not a fraction as influential as its opponents seem to think it is, while the influence of Westminster can hardly be denied.

But David Farrer makes an excellent point — that the SNP should really stand for the ‘Scottish Normalcy Party’. And because EU membership is the normal thing for states to do these days, of course Scotland would want to be a member of it. After all, how often do you hear advocates of independence talk about how it would increase Scotland’s influence on the world stage. They talk about votes in the EU Council of Ministers and seats in the UN. That’s what ‘independence’ is about for the nationalist movement.

Bloggers tend to be rather tolerant of other people’s views. After all, what would be the point of blogging if you didn’t want to have a discussion? Debate can be robust, but there is always an underlying respect for fellow bloggers, even when they hold totally opposite views. But there is one blogger who has been pretty much universally criticised by Scottish bloggers.

Councillor Terry Kelly has been condemned by David Farrer, The Devil’s Kitchen and Mr Eugenides in the past. This week it was Will P’s turn. Will P has revealed that he is an SNP supporter — news to me.

It seems as though Councillor Terry Kelly either deletes comments or places them in a moderation queue and doesn’t accept some. Will P isn’t the first one to accuse him of this. It is a pretty big no-no in the blogosphere. Comments by people who hold differing viewpoints should be welcomed, unless they are abusive or spam or suchlike. The only reason why you would delete comments would be to stifle debate. It is bad form to delete comments, but Terry Kelly seems to be a serial offender. As I said, why come into the blogosphere if you don’t want a discussion?

You’ll have noticed that we have never linked to Councillor Terry Kelly’s blog in this roundup before, apart from on the ‘newly discovered’ linklog. That is because this roundup is meant to showcase the quality blogging going on. Councillor Terry Kelly’s blog is nothing more than a collection of badly written, foaming-at-the-mouth rants. Or, worse, just a bunch of slogans strung together by some sentences.

Some parts of Scotland are little more than Labour rotten boroughs. Clearly, many of Labour’s politicians could be doing with their brains sharpened and their minds focussed. It’s just as well the Single Transferable Vote system is coming in.

Meanwhile, our very own CuriousHamster takes a look at government deception, while Mr Eugenides considers sources of ill-feeling towards the government. Are bloggers really to “blame”?

Meanwhile, Holyrood Watcher says, “It is almost impossible to keep track of the mendacity of this government,” but he tries anyway. The Reactionary Snob is just glad that the government is facing a legal challenge over its outrageous decision to step into a corruption inquiry.

Shuggy has come across some interesting research that suggests that the shape of politicians’ faces affect the outcome of an election. The implication being that handsome politicians are more likely to be voted in. So does that make the Scottish Parliament an outlier?

If you don’t mind the sight of politicians’ faces, Cassilis takes a look at a video made by Alex Salmond and Osama Saeed, Scottish spokesperson for the Muslim Association of Britain, and blogger. Cassilis despairs at the prospect of an SNP administration being in control come May. What do you think?

Osama Saeed himself wonders why Artur Boruc blessing himself should cause such offense to anyone.

What is there to get all hot and bothered about with a Catholic performing a very common ritual? Me feels it just confirms a stereotype – which other fans in the world would care if a player did this?

Andrew at Definition Britain advocates the legalisation for prostitution.

Leyton wonders about Scottish banknotes. Just who is Mary Slessor? You must see her every day, but the chances are you don’t know who she is.

Neil Craig observes those calling for a tunnel to be built under the Forth rather than another bridge across it. He reacts very favourably the the idea. In face-to-face conversations here, people also seem to be rather keen on the idea of a tunnel, particularly to take heavy vehicles off the bridge.

Finally, Davo the Bawbag has made a welcome return. This week he writes about all of the fog they’ve been suffering from down south. We haven’t seen a wisp of it in Scotland though!

Right, that’s your lot for another week. The next roundup will be at the usual place, next Sunday morning. But I’ll be popping up again mid-week for a little look back at our roundups so far, because we have been going for a quarter of a year now. Not a grand milestone, I know, but better than nothing. Remember, get your suggestions in by emailing scottishroundup [at] gmail [dot] com. Seeya later, and Merry Christmas!

SBR11: How not to bury bad news, and pre-election promises

It seems as though Garry is busy again this week, so I’m doing the roundup again.

If Thursday was a good day to bury bad news, the government clearly needs to invest in some more effective spades because they did a shoddy job of it. Mark McDonald laments the press for concentrating on the shock news that Princess Diana died in a car accident.

Meanwhile, Reactionary Snob is disgusted at the government’s decision to halt an investigation into corruption. It beggars belief! What kind of place is Blair turning the country into?!

Will P says that Nicol Stephen faces a tricky decision after May if he wants to be in the Scottish Executive. It appears as though a U-turn is on the cards.

Holyrood Watcher has noticed another interesting pre-election promise from another politician though. Alex Salmond has promised that the SNP would not raise taxes in an independent Scotland.

That’s a big commitment to make because Scottish Political News reckons that Scotland is spending more than it earns. And before you nationalists get your knickers in a twist, that’s including oil!

Like last week, Davie Hutchison has taken a look at senior Labour figures’ stances of Trident and the Iraq war. This time he dissects a blog post by Ewan Aitken.

Following the protest outside a convicted paedophile’s house last week, Cassilis takes a look at calls for a “Megan’s Law” in this country.

Fans of electoral systems will have been aware that there has been a bit of a debate about the exact format of the ballot papers for next year’s local elections, to be held under the Single Transferable Vote system. All of the sensible people wanted candidates listed in alphabetical order. But surprise surprise, Labour wanted to try and gain an advantage by having candidates grouped by political party. Labour lost that debate.

Already there are a lot of very unhappy Labour coouncillors who know they are on a shoogly peg. That peg got a lot more shoogly today.

Clairwil collects social statistics for the government. In this post, she tells us that she is forbidden from ticking certain boxes. Is somebody in debt? It couldn’t possibly be due to overspending!

Shuggy wonders about conservatives and marriage.

When there used to be a married man’s allowance, I was married. When the government scrapped them, I got divorced. Coincidence? Of course it is.

Bookdrunk has a post on the recent hoo-ha about British Airways and the cross. If Christian symbols are to be permitted, then other symbols may be permitted as well. This includes New Age crystals. The Daily Mail is not amused. It seems as though it should be one rule for Christians and another for everybody else.

Gordon is ranting’n'raving about the forthcoming improvements to the “clockwork orange”. But “Not by extending the network or doing improvements to stations or rolling stock.” It’s unthinkable in the modern age for people to be disconnected from telecommunications networks. But is that a good thing?

Finally, Mike Power shows us a video that has been viewed 1,093,748 times now, and asks, “why?“

Alright, that’s your lot for this week! You might have noticed that I’ve added some MyBlogLog gubbins to the sidebar. Join the community if you wish.

I don’t know what the Christmas plans for the roundup are going to be. Knowing bloggers, they will still be posting just as much over the festive season, so we might well be sticking to the weekly format! So get those nominations in at scottishroundup [at] gmail [dot] com. Seeya later!

SBR10: John Reid loses his mind over independence

Well hello there! Sorry about last week. The funny thing about Christmas — that thing that’s supposed to be a holiday — is that everybody just seems to get stressed out, and we were all too busy to write a roundup! Never mind, because this week’s roundup is a bumper fortnight edition. And instead of a not-very-strict one link per blogger rule, there will now be a not-very-strict two links per blogger rule. Not that I’ll be sticking to it, you understand.

Looking back through two weeks worth of Scottish blog posts, there has been one dominant subject — independence. Much of this is because of the Labour conference that seemed to talk much more about the SNP than about Labour. Oh well. I keep on meaning to write about my current thoughts on independence on my own blog, but it’s going to be a rambling one, so you’ll just have to wait until I have enough time to ramble that much. In the meantime, here is what everybody else was saying about it.

Undoubtedly the post of the fortnight on this subject was by Mr Eugenides at Scottish Political News. He is worried that — while independence is looking more inevitable by the week — nobody has actually fully digested the potential consequences of independence. It does seem to me as though everybody has just got so used to independence being an issue that nobody actually bothers to tackle the substance or consider the actual consequences.

Otan2 called the comments from Gordon Brown utter bollocks. Otan2 reckons self-interest is at play here. If Scotland were to become independent, Brown couldn’t become PM! Brown said that independence would be bad because there are so many family connections that span across the border. To which Otan2 says:

After all, no other country in the world has foreigners living in it! There are no Swedes married to Norwegians or Turks to Bulgarians. The very thought.

But the biggest howls of pain / laughter were reserved for John Reid. Will Howells takes a look at Reid’s one track mind. Both Holyrood Watcher and Shuggy reckon he’s lost it. It being his damn mind, of course.

Illegal immigrants, we are told, are economic migrants coming into Britain under false pretences. But we don’t get very many up here now, so why would an independent Scotland receive more, when we are also being told separation would completely wreck our economy?

Mark McDonald wonders how Reid determined that an independent Scotland would be at greater risk from a terrorist attack. “Did he get on the phone to Osama Bin Laden and ask what his policy was on Scottish Independence?”

But my favourite post of the week about John Reid was this one by CuriousHamster. There is a lot to agree with there, but you’ll find out more about my views on it when I get round to writing that post.

Angry Steve asks, “Scotland should be independent from what?” Quite. For me, the question is not about why Scotland should be independent. It is about why Scotland should be independent.

Has Reactionary Snob told you how much he loathes the SNP? No? You’d better have a read then. The bit about oil and the SNP’s supposed “green” credentials particularly rings my bell.

Davie Hutchison tries to take the opportunity to claim that Scotland subsidises England with oil money, rather than England subsidising Scotland with tax money. I was reminded of Bagehot’s column last week (not a blog, I know, but quite relevant). It’s subscription only, but if you can get your hands on it…

There was also the small matter of an opinion poll that seemed to show that English people are now more in favour of independence than Scots are! Reading what commentators have to say south of the border, it definitely feels as if the tide has turned. Shuggy asks, “What future for the Union if supposedly conservative commentators aren’t willing to make conservative arguments in its defence?”

Reactionary Snob is most worried about Nicola Sturgeon’s hair. It’s true, and combined with that awful jacket, Nicola Sturgeon is definitely the least telegenic politician in Holyrood — and that’s saying something!

The other big issue of the past week has been Trident. Incidentally, Andrew reckons he has it in a nutshell. Malcolm Chisholm’s comments in particular have aroused interest from SNP members. Here are Mark McDonald’s thoughts. Meanwhile, Chisholm’s opponent in next year’s Edinburgh North & Leith election, Davie Hutchison, reckons Chisholm’s in the wrong party!

There was also a vote on same-sex adoption, and the SNP bloggers have been rather less quiet about Roseanna Cunningham’s involvement in that. Here are Tartan Hero’s thoughts on it. Bookdrunk is reminded why she really hates The Daily Mail.

Clairwil is quite direct.

At the risk of sounding catty the last organisation on God’s earth I would approach for advice about child welfare is the Catholic Church.

Cassilis also wrote about it, once again on Scottish Political News. He is less than enthusiastic about John Deighan’s stance on the issue.

[I]t’s basically a semantic trick that tries to exploit our modern enthusiasm for free speech and a plurality of opinion and suggest that anyone who seeks to advance equality for homosexuals is somehow being ‘intolerant’ of the views of others. This argument is clearly nonsense since it could have been deployed in opposition to any social advance over the last few hundred years (racial equality, extending the franchise, abolition of child labour etc.)

Related to that is the supposed “war on Christmas”. Apparently ‘intolerant’ liberal secularists are determined to distort the true meaning of Christmas (funny, all I can see his the hyper-religious forcing everyone to be Christian for the traditional Pagan festival). Sending a card that says “Seasons Greetings” on it is now a heinous crime that is sure to send you straight to hell. But nobody cares about that because, as bookdrunk points out, secular Christmas cards are so much better than the stuffy old religious ones.

So, David Cameron’s been leader of the Conservatives for a year. Has he done a good job for the Conservatives? Here are two contrasting views. The Devil’s Kitchen thinks not, and points out a particular Polly Toynbee-related tipping point. On the other hand, Conservative Party member Cassilis reckons the Conservatives need to move with the times and embrace Cameron’s more modern direction.

J. Arthur MacNumpty has revealed the nominations for the first annual MacNumpty Awards. Here are the nominations for the Comical Ali award.

On the proposed, nonsensical “voluntary code of conduct” for bloggers, Robert Sharp notes that if you have a complaint about a blog, there is a form of redress — the comments section.

There are complaints aplenty being thrown around by The Devil’s Kitchen and Chad of UKIP Home. All I can say is, well done, Chad, for pissing off one of the blogosphere’s most prominent UKIP supporters. A big sarcastic applause goes out to you.

Alright, I think that will do for this week. Remember, get those nominations in for next week’s roundup (and I promise there will be one!) at the usual address: scottishroundup [at] gmail [dot] com. Seeya later!

Back next week

Sorry, but there will be no roundup this week. That’s because everybody is too busy to write one. On the plus side, that means that everybody is too busy to read one. Get ready for a bumper roundup to appear next weekend!