Scottish Political Blog Roundup # 2

Hello there. It is Stuart here this week.

Our inaugural roundup (by Garry Smith) received a very positive welcome, if my quick Technorati search is anything to go by. New Scot Akatsuki ("My new colleagues consider me Scottish, even though I explained that I wasn't born in Scotland, nor have any Scottish ancestry.") was the only one to indicate mild disappointment - "Just linking to others for now. No cogitation going on up there." - but she later clarified that she had actually been referring to her own lack of writing, and not Garry's roundup. I'm glad that that was cleared up, because it had weighed on my mind a bit when I first read it. It was me that had suggested the minimalist approach to Garry, à la Tim Worstall, so mea culpa. I'm sure we rounduppers will evolve our own style if this service proves popular, so let's just see how it goes. However, I would like the emphasis to be on the noteworthy blog posts themselves, and not the roundup per se - don't take our word for it: go visit them yourself.

First up, a little trip to England. "Eh?" you may reasonably exclaim. Well, I think that it is entirely sensible to highlight good blog posts by non-Scottish bloggers, if they deal with politics + Scotland. And two of England's best have had Scots very much on their minds.

Mike Smithton of politicalbetting.com must surely be considered one of his country's top political bloggers - just witness the breadth and depth of the amazing comments section, which rivals the (often confusing) strand layering you see in big US blogs. Well, he seems to have developed a passion for questioning the might of Scotland's most powerful politician (*1) - Gordon Brown - with a series of posts in recent months casting doubt on Brown's assumed inheritance of Blair's crown. His latest offering is If it’s not Gordon Brown - then who is in contention?

Gareth of the Campaign for an English Parliament News Blog nearly always has Scots on his mind, the lucky chap. This week, he considers that a Scotland Olympic Team (and in consequence an England Olympic Team) is not only desirable, but is actually catered for by the International Olympic Committee rules. Then, on his personal blog, he launches his campaign to oppose the creation of a Great Britain U23 soccer team for the purposes of said Olympics: "We the undersigned refuse to support a British football team at the Olympics, or in any tournament... "

Back to Scotland now (well, France actually). A good candidate for blog post du semaine comes from Paris-based Scot Katie Bartleby, at group blog The Sharpener (*2). She has published extracts from The Future Dictionary of Great Britain. I really like the entry for "Centrist 1. n. A person sharing the opinions of the word’s user. Antonym: Fascist". (Gossip: a wee bird tells me that The Sharpener is going to be archived by the British Library for posterity. Now that is surely a fine piece of blogupmanship.)

The rather all-encompassingly-named newcomer - Scottish Politics - writes An open letter to the "mainstream" Scottish media. Apparently, not a single newspaper supports Scotland's second-largest political party - the NSP. I think you have a wee typo there Scottish Political Junkie, but we'll overlook it just this once.

A Hack's Life really likes to pack a lot of stuff into each post. This one deals with the London shooting, a cheeky pop at Galloway (always a winner), a story from an Indian restaurant, and the amazing news that Dundee council is complaint free.

The final demise of a wee county - Nairnshire - weighs heavily on the thoughts of The Gurn from said burgh.

Neil Craig just loves getting a letter published in The Herman (*3), and when the buggers refuse to print it, he bungs it up on his blog instead. He is a writer who (probably wisely) remains very focused on a select range of topics, and one of his specialities is all things nuclear.

There is nothing that Right for Scotland likes more than sticking his boot into the serried ranks of The Left. His offering this week is an old-fashioned rant of the sort which gives satisfying relief to bloggers the planet over. Ah... that's better.

If you did not know what a mimosophant or a Mahometan was, you do now, courtesy of Calatrian. And Paul Coletti bemoans a victim culture in Araby. (Correct me if I'm wrong Paul, but you seem to lack permanent links.)

And to wrap it up for this week, The Aardvark Blog is a proud bastion of truly Old Labour values, but that Jobseekers course seems to have finally frazzled poor Helen's mind.

If you read (or write) a good political post by a Scottish blogger, or a blogger living in Scotland, then please tell us at - spbreview AT gmail DOT com - and since I have set the precedent, please tell us of any non-Scottish bloggers who may happen to post on affairs Scottish.
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Notes:

*1 - No, it is not Jack McConnell.
*2 - Declaration of interest: I contribute (all too infrequently) to that group blog too. Although Katie kindly credits me as having contributed to her dictionary, she actually managed to leave out every single one of my many suggestions! Admittedly, they were all a bit crap.
*3 - The Herman = The Herald + The Scotsman. I just made that up, and I am rather proud of it.