Monthly Archives: March 2011

43: Purdah, She Wrote

Posted on March 23, 2011 by davidsberry

Well that’s the official start gun for the so-called ‘short’ campaign, launched with the dissolution of wur Pairlimunt when our MSPs clean out their think pods and Eck desists from virtuoso demos on how FMQs should be done. He even managed … Continue reading →

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44: This Is Leadership?

Posted on March 22, 2011 by davidsberry

In the course of their one-day conference, my opponent (who happens to be Labour’s Leader) stood up before those assembled. As his boss Ed Milliband had rather ignored Scotland in his own speech, someone needed to bring the focus back … Continue reading →

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45: None So Blind

Posted on March 21, 2011 by davidsberry

Not content with vampire tapping into Scotland’s oil revenues since the mid 1970’s, a little-known grab by the UK government of 6,ooo square miles of Scotland’s North Sea in 1999 added insult to injury and ensured that several key oilfields would … Continue reading →

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46: Full Moon Equinox

Posted on March 20, 2011 by davidsberry

Funny how things do seem to come together naturally—like the Labour conference and Magners Comedy Festival being together in Glasgow this weekend. It was a fabulous full moon tonight, right on the gateway to Spring. Clear sky, still sea and … Continue reading →

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47: Getting It Together

Posted on March 19, 2011 by davidsberry

Dealing with rubbish was the most popular blog for the last month (see below) so this week I visited ELC’s Kinwegar waste facility. Primarily this was to say ‘thanks’ to the eighty-odd members of the lorry crews for a winter … Continue reading →

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The blog articles receiving the greatest number of hits since mid-February were: 57: Load of Rubbish 63: Stop Digging 60 Days to Go 62: Genteel Revolutionaries 71: Parliamo Politico III 64: Uplifting 58: Round One (ding!) 65: Dodgy Defence 67: … Continue reading →

Posted on March 19, 2011 by davidsberry | Leave a comment

48: Cause or Effect?

Posted on March 17, 2011 by davidsberry

An interesting set of statistics surfaced yesterday. Amidst a great deal of BBC and UK-level handwringing over worsening employment statistics, (England’s rising to 2.53m people out of work) Scotland bucked the trend, dropping 16,000 to 218,000 or 8.1%. And that … Continue reading →

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Posted on March 17, 2011 by davidsberry | 1 Comment

49: Parliamo Politico VI

Posted on March 17, 2011 by davidsberry

Let’s Talk Pencil-Pusher: Lesson VI—Scrutiny (Sixth of a series, translating bureaucrat-speak into what it means for folk in East Lothian on St Paddy’s Day) Our council operates what is called a ‘scrutiny’ or self-evaluation mechanism. This consists of a Customer … Continue reading →

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50 Days to Go

Posted on March 16, 2011 by davidsberry

At the halfway point to May’s election, ELC’s Education Committee has tabled a paper on destinations for its school leavers. It highlighted a 2% year-on-year improvement in positive destinations (F.E. colleges, universities, training and jobs), despite a huge 40% ‘bulge’ in … Continue reading →

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