Neil, over last five years I only know of four direct cases where friends contacted a politician over an issue they felt strongly about, or effected them directly. I contacted Sir Robert Smith over the Lisbon referendum vote. Another contacted Malcolm Bruce over an issue involving a redundecy problem with a local employer. And the other two, well they contacted Danny Alexander over tax credit issues. I have yet to hear of anyone I know contact their MSP over any issue.

Now, if you want to list the issues or bandwagons that all our politicians local, at Holyrood or Westminster have jumped on, fair enough. Protecting midwifery service at the local cottage hospital springs to mind. Sadly, we often only hear about what devolved powers our MSP’s are responsible for when it comes to stinging criticism or closure of a local amenity. The national and the Scottish media are not that great at differentiating between the two.

Interestingly tonight, BBC Scotland gave a very frank and honest description of the Eric Joyce story where their Westminster counterparts danced around the wooly alledged ‘brawl’ etc. Rather amusingly, they also pointed out the lengthy time he was detained while pointing out that the Scottish legal was very different. And with the inference such an incident would have then been processed far quicker up here. Now, some could have interprated that to mean that we are much more efficient at processing this sort of incident. I couldn’t possible comment.

That would have been fair enough, but for her to turn that into one of her many anti-SNP rants, when that was nothing to do with the point I was making in my post is one of the reasons I post less  here than I used to.

There are intelligent people on here that I enjoy discussing things with, or merely enjoying their erudition.

Knee jerk partisan rants are tiresome.

 Many thanks Neil.

The fact that Seth was frequently wrong, shouldn’t hide the fact that he was a witty contributor to this site, who constructed good arguments, and whose posts were worth reading.

Now that Labour are out of office, there are also fewer posts to go around, so more of them are backbenchers with time on their hands.

To be fair, some of them are conscientious souls who involve themselves with particular causes and do a lot of work in their interests. In my original post, I should probably have said that backbench MPs from Scotland  don’t have much of an essential workload, other than turning up to vote the party line on the governance of England.

 <i."shouldn't hide the fact that he was a witty contributor to this site,
who constructed good arguments, and whose posts were worth reading."

Nor should it hide the fact that his partisan behavior frequently veered into snide personal abuse much like Neil and fitalalss and the rest of the herd.

I simply have no more tolerance for turning the other cheek to such behaviour since the censors brought the hammer down.

When herd partisan behaviour gets responded to robustly it results in squeals of outrage. But the herd, who almost always instigate it, are rarely if ever reprimanded and prefer to characterise such responses as “rude” and “impolite” behaviour. (but not on the part of the instigators of course)

Presumably because they are so used to unquestioning acceptance of their viewpoint on here.

I make points on many issues and they certainly don’t need to be only from an SNP standpoint. It may be unfortunate that I get drawn into the partisanship on here, but like I said, after the ban there’s little point being delicate or aloof around here any more.

I look in on other sites including the likes of UKP on occassion and there is usually a fairly interesting back and forth. Dry but unquestionably illuminating on occasion.

That isn’t here and it never was.
I welcome the fact that there are more SNP posters on here unafraid to speak out as the sterility of herd monothought was becoming far more tedious than inevitable robust exchanges.

‘Knee jerk partisan rants are tiresome (unless they are funny, of course!).’

Oldnat – ‘Of course, he doesn’t need to be anywhere the HoC. Backbenchers from Scotland don’t really have much of a workload, as MSPs handle much of what will fill an English MP’s postbag.’

Not once tonight have you linked to any factual evidence to back up your rather arrogant assertions. Heavy on partisan crap, light on actually evidence. But hey, don’t worry, I won’t ask you to get an intelligence test when it comes to partisan spiv spinning.

Right folks, really off to bed. Absolutely loved the BBC drama Call the Midwife, currently enjoying the books. But don’t tell anyone that I am reading books about a story in London in case I am accused of being anti Scottish because I didn’t find a great story about Glasgow instead!

Precisely what was it that you didn’t understand in my post above -

“Naturally, you contact an MP about a reserved issue, and an MSP about a devolved issue.

If you lived in England, you would contact your MP only. An MP in England has to do the work of both a Scottish MP and the MSP.

The Scottish MP has a lower constituency case load, than an English MP.”

Ah but if the herd were actually perceptive they would realise there are many points of contention between the SNP posters on here which have been quite openly displayed at times even if they soared over the heads of the herd.

There is however no gaping chasm in the SNP like euroscepticism or the Blair Brown feuds which is probably what upsets the English press the most.

Divide and rule simply ain’t going to work and it served the establishment so well in the past. ;^)

Nytol

BBC News is reporting that Kevin Rudd will contest the Labor leadership election on Monday. So Australia’s first female PM could be out of office within about 96 hours or so.

I’m just reporting what has been said on news reports.
He was not grabbed straight away and the plods were reluctant by most accounts with parliamentary privilege being mentioned as their reasoning.

I suspect the plods trying to stop an ongoing barfight may not have known every aspect of Hansard convention or the legal precedents or indeed had the time to look them up.

Well according to the reports their hesitancy was allegedly rewarded by him lashing out even more and doing the very opposite of “going quietly”.

You would think a barman, regardless of venue, would also know his job enough to yell out to reluctant plods what to do.
It’s quite likely he at least did. In very pithy and blunt terms that would never see the light of day in Hansard. ;^)

 kle:
The deficit IS falling, though….
And look just over the Channel for the problems other nations are having.

Compared to them, we’re doing well, and average annual growth rates at ~1% is what we’re going to have to live with for most of the rest of this century.

Slowly, slowly, slowly, that message is penetrating politicians’ brains.
The public realised that many months ago (say, early 2010).

The adenoidal Android is unelectable – period.

“Obviously I’m aware that if Scots bristle at having their hard-won Parliament mentioned in the same breath as City Hall in London, then they’ll be positively apoplectic at it being considered alongside the future guiding forces of, say, Coventry or Wakefield. Still, that’s precisely what I’m about to do. Dinnae shoot me.”

No-one needs to shoot him, because it’s a demonstrably silly comparison.  The Scottish Parliament has primary legislative powers, and the power to vary income tax.  The GLA is essentially a local authority, with a couple of minor tacked-on powers devolved from central government.