The whole issue of UK / GB / GB and NI / home nations is a fine example of the constitutional confusion which is the UK.

“Another tidbit is that the SNP are actually doing better among women than men!”

There are women ministers in Health and in Education. These are the topics that interest women more than men.

Many years ago, I was canvassing with an elderly Labour party member on the last street of council houses to be canvassed before the poll. Although it was past the time we were due to finish, we decided to complete the task and canvass the last house in the street. My colleague said there would be little point, because this house, which was also part of the street at right angles, was an older, good quality, owner occupied property.

The woman who opened the door, gave us such a critique of how the Conservative government had failed that we realised she would have done the canvassing much better than we had done and that we had failed too.

Now the mistake was to classify her as “Homeowner” when what dominated her life was her two lively pre-school girls. Any classification or classification system obscures the potential of any other classification.

Adam Smith was wrong. The strongest human instinct is not the acquisition of resources and power. That is a male strategy for getting your genes into the next generation.

The half of the population that sits down to pee has a different strategy. It’s called the maternal instinct.

Scottish mothers can see that Fiona Hyslop is the sort of person who will be effective. I’ve met her for about five minutes and if I were a political opponent or civil servant, I wouldn’t dream of obstructing her.

You have heard about “picking fights with Westminster”?

Which Scottish Minister tacitly accepted a rebuff on a proposal for an asylum amnesty?

Which Scottish Minister negotiated an end to dawn raids where agents of the state took Scottish schoolchildren out of their beds in the middle of the night to take them to a jail before deporting them?

Which Scottish Minister gave the same kids the right to free university education?

Then there are initiatives in child health and nutrition including school meals.

So if Scottish mothers and grandmothers are moving to support the SNP, there is no surprise there. I’d be astonished if it were otherwise.

You could call it biological warfare.

http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Breaking-news-Hospital-car-park.4448375.jp

After independence there will be an opportunity for not having WMD and not participating in USA’s wars.

Wouldn’t you agree that would be the upscaling the not-doing which I am predicting?

The SNP needs no other policy than not-doing whatever flavour-of-the-month gimmickry and party dogma comes out of Westminster, whichever party is in power. New opportunities will be presented by a London focused Conservative government with a fresh set of policies risibly inappropriate for the highlands.

It certainly isn’t a sudden flush of enthusiasm for independence that accounts for the SNP’s recent increase in popularity, but not doing is such a rich seam to be digging in you may well be trusted with independence.

You demurred when I said that the SNP had done nothing, and with more experience in office would do more nothing, and do it better.

Now you say:

“in effect they gave a standing ovation to what we are not planning to do as opposed to what we are.”

and “Where Nicola scored with the BMA was in saying that the SNP rejects foundation hospitals, more use of the private sector, PFI/PPP and “megaclinics” ”

Doing nothing doesn’t get any better than that.

Somehow or other your party got on the wrong side of all this and failed to realise that many Scots including the likes of Chris Hoy take exactly the same view about sporting events at GB level as the rest of the country. Yes of course if for example no Scots players appear in a particular Lions rugby team then Scots won’t feel so supportive but having for years watched Lions matches et al in the bar of a boisterous sports club I can assure you that the remarks hurled at the screen when the opposition especially the Aussies commit a foul FAR exceed the comments you’ll hear around Twickenham!!
Stop digging a hole for yourself Peter and retire gracefully from this subject!!
Nick

Competitive rivalry is vital for the relevance of any event, and generalising trends imposes the opinion of the spectator and exposes one’s own political prejudices. In the Olympics there were many cases of individual as well as national rivalries both between and inside teams – TeamGB cycling success spurred on sailing success.

Competition is the means to raising standards, but losers only taste sour grapes.

The issue isn’t the banter, but the assumption by British journalists that the rivalry between Australia and England extends to the whole UK, when I suspect that for most Scots, Irish and Welsh it really isn’t an issue.

Journalsts covering a UK event for the UK ( and especially when it’s at the expense of Uk tax payers) should represent the views of the UK, not just one part of it.

Yet again this Olympics there were comments at in the scottish press about Scottih athletes not being able to fly the Saltire.

For me it’s right that they shouldn’t because the rules are that only the lags of competing nations my be carried by athletes and Scotland isn’t a competeing nation. That’s a case of the Scottish media taking a scots perspective on a UK event which in it’s own way is just as bad as the GB v OZ story.

Peter.

Peter.

Who stole your gee gee?
The banter between Aussie and British journalists over the Olympics is just that..banter and if for just once Team GB has come up trumps at the games well just chill out and enjoy rather than nit pick.

Nick

I note Australia has a 1/3rd the population of GB, as such, to beat Australia GB would have needed to score something like 3 times the amount of medals of Australia, say 45+ gold medals….

It would be great if it was true but what we have actually done is stop the closure of two accident and emergency and one maternity unit, not full hospitals. Still the act is that Labour said they must close and we have kept them open and so far it seems that we are still balancing the books.

Our opponents are saying that it will all come home to roost, but so far the public view seems to be that we are just better at running things that Labour was.

As Alex salmond said after the election, There will be Labour Governments in the future but it will never be the same again. What I think has helped the SNP and made things a lot more difficult that before for Labour is that May last year represented the death of “tina” in that up until then a majority of Scots felt that “there was no alternative” to Labour.

Where Nicola scored with the BMA was in saying that the SNP rejects foundation hospitals, more use of the private sector, PFI/PPP and “megaclinics”. in effect they gave a standing ovation to what we are not planning to do as opposed to what we are.

Peter.