rhavers

Fast broadband is a very important tool for the development of rural economies. So our Scottish Parliament member John Lamont asks a perfectly reasonable question of the Scottish Executive at Holyrood last week. "How much it would cost to upgrade the (a) Abbey St Bathans, (b) Cappercleugh, (c) Longformacus and (d) Whitsome telephone exchanges to full platform ADSL exchanges." The minister, Jim Mather, replies. "Information on the cost of upgrading the Abbey St Bathans, Cappercleugh... Read Full Story

I've been so busy writing that the blog has not just taken a back seat, it's practically fallen off the bus. Nevertheless, a friend just sent me this. It is brilliant. . . Read Full Story

SNP MSP Jamie Hepburn has tabled a Holyrood motion claiming that Venezuela has been "transformed" by President Hugo Chávez. His motion calls on MSPs to show "solidarity" with Mr Chavez's government and has been backed by the SNP's Bill Kidd, Alasdair Allan and Bill Wilson, as well as Labour's Elaine Smith. Let's just be clear here shall we. This is a country that recently devalued its currency and stands accused of becoming increasingly autocratic by imposing restrictions on the media and... Read Full Story

The Scotsman is no longer worthy of being called a newspaper. It seems to have degenerated into somethingfar less useful. The case of Steven Purcell, the Glasgow council leader, one of the most important jobs in Scottish public life has been covered in far from thorough terms. Take today's rather limp 500 words about decisions he made not being reviewed by the Glasgow council (and why not?). Steven Purcell got 500 words of coverage in the paper today while a story about Baden Powell's 1930's... Read Full Story

Interestingly the circulation of the Scotsman was 46, 976 between July and December last year. That's less than 1 in 100 Scots who are buying the paper. They manage to get their readership figures up to 177,000, meaning around 1 in 30 Scots actually read The Scotsman, making it largely irrelevant . (Note to self, cancel subscription) Read Full Story

No 10 also fiercely denied Conservative claims Mr Brown was using the visit to troops in Afghanistan to divert attention away from the row over his refusal to sign off on equipment. Read Full Story

“Every request that the military commanders made to us for equipment was answered. No request was ever turned down.” Gordon Brown, 5 March 2010, Chilcot Enquiry Read Full Story

I'm obviously missing something here. RBS are paying bonuses worth £1.3 billion to its employees. The Chief Executive of RBS meanwhile is saying, they have lost money because they are not paying big enough bonuses. His rather patronising attitude during interviews on TV show a man who is rather tired of having to answer such petty questions from interviewers, some of who may bank with RBS, daring to ask him what is going on, on behalf of us, the shareholders. But most worrying of all are the... Read Full Story

Good! So that's alright then. We now all know that Mr Brown is not a bully. He's just someone who cares and is determined to build a fairer Britain. In the meantime Mr Darling, arguably the next most important man in government to the PM, has confirmed in an interview with Sky News that two of the Prime Minister's key aides briefed long and hard against the Chancellor when he predicted, back in 2008 that Britain's economy was in for a very rough time. According to Mr Darling, "the forces of... Read Full Story

There are few people in this world who like eating, cooking, talking about food, writing about it (with great passion) and generally waxing lyrical than The Monaco Foody. Mrs H says I live to eat. If that's the case then the Monaco Foody invented living! Read his blog HERE . . .you will come away famished. Read Full Story