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This is incredible. We need to do all we can to get people a shot in the arm and end this nightmare for good.

Well, when I look at Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland, for starters, I think I see countries that are more responsive to the needs of their economies. The UK government is responsive to the needs of the UK economy, which is naturally heavily skewed to the south-east. SG has very little control over the economy. They have no powers over corporation tax or capital gains tax, for starters, and no real funding for investment. The examples you give are mostly pretty small potatoes, but we hear a lot about them because failures are news while successes aren't and because our journalists are shite. We're doing well in biosciences, space, food and drink, tourism and financial services. Oil and gas is now firmly on the way out but there's a bit more to be made from it yet. Our major infrastructure spending has been incredibly effective. Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen are in the top 10 in the UK for foreign investment. Unemployment is generally no worse than the UK level despite more entrenched poverty and we've got world class universities. That can all be argued over, of course. I think if we had to ring our own till then we'd pay a lot more attention to the economy than we do now, though. I just can't see a way of looking at Scotland and saying it would be worse off independent while every comparable country is doing better than the UK. What's uniquely shit about us? Bottom line for me is that I don't know if we'd be better or worse off independent but I'm very confident we're facing decades of decline if we stay. The government that England elects habitually follow paths that our neighbours have shown us are the wrong way to go, and that's not going to change any time soon. I'm 45 years old and in my lifetime the only Labour leader England has elected is Tony Blair, who was hardly a Scandi social democrat. They've gone further and further right and the only people that ever helps are the rich - but a strong economy needs to use the talents of all the people, and not have the massive social drag of an underclass.

I’m not 100% but will just put this out there.... ’not Italy’

The missus just called me a sex machine. Well, "fucking tool" was her exact wording, but I knew what she meant.

It's always nice to have someone to look down on, though, isn't it? To elect successive Governments who treat the socially and economically disadvantaged like animals is one thing. To then act surprised when they react like animals* is , frankly, reprehensible. Unless we have some Landed Gentry among us (which I doubt), every single poster on here has more in common with the jakey begging next to the ATM than they will ever have to the cúnts running the country. * By which I mean, for the vast, vast majority of your bogeyman "underclass", simply trying to survive in a society that has not only abandoned them, but blames them for the slightest inconvenience in the lives of those lucky enough not to be in their position.

This is the journalistic equivalent of 'Am no a VL a got aff wae a lassie at ma grans bit, you wouldny know her'.

Can't beleive that Raith are having such a successful season and yet have an average attendance of 0, disgusting. Sack the board.

Drew can be a bit of a dick at times but that's way OTT.

In the incredibly unlikely scenario Lionel Ainsworth finds this thread. Lionel, I love you.

Apart from the entirely accurate description of Lockdown One as "the middle classes hid from the virus at home and paid the working class to bring them stuff", a couple of points: 1. Zero hours contract? Zero pay if you're not at work then. 2. Can't afford a car? Get stuffed into this metal tube with a load of strangers twice a day then. 3. WFH? As a labourer? Aye, right. Those who are "less well off", i.e. living from pay to pay*, have had to make the choice between complying with precautions or feeding their kids. Not Hyperbole - the UKG is trumpeting their compassion at throwing the poor luxurious hampers to make up for free school meals not happening. Without a sytem which does not financially penalise those who take the advised precautions, people will continue to have to make this choice. And as it's between the possibility of contracting Covid and the fucking certainty of your kids going hungry, it's not really a choice, is it? *i.e. the vast, vast majority of the UK population.

Do you like Paneer?

Sadly a portion of society struggles to manage in normal times so to expect them to somehow follow rules during this clusterfuck is naive in the extreme. Generations of kids have been brought up in squalor and a lack of emotional support and guidance which continues on relentlessly. Apportioning blame to them is unfair and utterly pointless. I don’t have a clue how you begin to even attempt to fix it.

Rees-Mogg was mistaken; this is not a happy Fish.

Genuinely should be illegal for c***s to spew stuff like that without proper sources etc., that'll go along the grapevine regardless of whether it's true or not and put the fear of god into pensioners getting their AZ jab. Pathetic stuff from this German mob.

It’s a fixed penalty notice, so it wouldn’t. Not that we should be criminalising people either. Again, achieves nothing, other than being destructive to more people’s lives. The vast majority of people are following the guidelines, we don’t need more punitive actions. Likes of Johnson blaming the public leads to this, when in reality the issue is theirs and all about trying to pass blame.

We're playing them in the next 2 games after we've played the runners up. One game at a time. What do you reckon the score will be on Wednesday?

Always baffles me people referring to "vermin", "scum", "tinks" etc being in the same places as they are. What does that make you then if you're in exactly the same place?

Baa

He heard he has to go to Dundee tomorrow night.

A Brexiteer demanding concrete sources and answers prior to a vote is like Jimmy Savile demanding that hospital porters undergo rigorous background checks before being left alone in the mortuary.

Wife got her letter inviting her in for the vaccination on the 11th - yay!

In fairness any bonus wedge we get from the Hendry sale should really be going to those who've taken pay cuts. That and I wouldn't trust McPake with it anyway.

I think I'm right in saying that Seedorf has had more minutes that Hastie so far under GA and that might tell it's own story about where Hastie is. The period where Hastie was on good form along with DT was a brilliant time to watch us and I had hoped that we could get him going again - but it simply hasn't happened. My biggest concern at the moment is that this is going to be the hardest January window since it was introduced. Players are always reluctant to move up from England and when all we have to offer them is playing in empty grounds, training and staring at the walls of a flat in an unfamiliar town - it makes it considerably harder. I seriously doubt that we will see a huge deadline day influx like we did under Barraclough (although it would be fun) - my expectation is that we will be going to the end of the season with not much more than started on Saturday.

Have to say credit to the St Mirren fans, players and manager who have shown a touch of class today. From the St Mirren fans congratulations, the players showing great respect at the end and to Jim Goodwin wishing good luck to both ourselves and St Johnstone in his post match which I’m sure must’ve been gut wrenching, a real touch of class and I wish you the best of luck for the rest of the season.

Isn't that the ones that took you up behind the goals? Pie stall on the left of the photogrpaher

I mean you fucking jest but...

I, for one, am furious that Super Agent Ainsley Harriott was incorrect.

The arguments you're making about why Scotland would be poorer if it were independent. Well, Finland is independent, on the face of it has a lot less going for it than us, and Finland is very considerably better off than the UK. I'm wondering if your criteria for what makes a country likely to have a strong economy are right, because in my lifetime I've watched Finland come racing past us, along with literally all of our neighbours, despite them speaking a language only understood by Kilngons, having 6 months of darkness and bugger all natural resources apart from wood, no high achieving universities and being east of Istanbul and north of... everything.

Todays summary No Neighbourhoods in Scotland now above 1000 cases per 100K Now accessed the other home nations for the cases per 100K latest and will document their daily progress. These are a little behind the Scottish cases. England 453.6 to 437.8, Wales 279.1 to 262.6, Northern Ireland 335.0 to 322.4, all 3 dropping and now roughly in line with Scotland's drop rate. For interest Portugal 725, Spain 502, Czech 500 are the big hitters. These will hopefully update by tomorrow as out of date. Scotland peaked at 301.9 for figures 29th Dec to 4th Jan From 15th to 21st January we were down to 183.3 Todays figure for 16th Jan to 22nd Jan is 177.3 Another great single Day drop of 3.27%. Infections have dropped every day (now 18 days in a row) since the aforementioned peak. Total drop is now 41.27% There are now only 10 Councils with cases over 200 per 100K which is excellent progress for those that have got there. The single day progress particularly stands out in all Ayrshire councils. Not a single council in the East or North is above the Scottish Average. Click cases by neighbourhood to see the spread on the geographical map. https://public.tableau.com/profile/phs.covid.19#!/vizhome/COVID-19DailyDashboard_15960160643010/Overview North Lanarkshire 297.6 to 284.1 Hopefully some prolonged movement at last. Glasgow City 276.1 to 266.6 Renfrewshire 260.7 to 252.4 South Lanarkshire 233.7 to 234.6 East Dunbartonshire 239.3 to 231.0 East Ayrshire 243.4 to 228.7 Another big drop 2 days in a row. Clackmannanshire 238.6 to 223.1 Inverclyde 217.2 to 221.1 North Ayrshire 233.0 to 219.7 Good day again. West Dunbartonshire 222.6 to 219.3 Falkirk 203.2 to 197.7 Dumfries & Galloway 206.2 to 184.1 South Ayrshire 197.1 to 178.5 10% Reduction great day Dundee City 182.2 to 176.8 East Renfrewshire 164.3 to 167.5 Aberdeen City 164.0 to 154.4 Another excellent day for a big city. Angus 155.8 to 151.5 Perth & Kinross 147.4 to 138.9 Moray 125.2 to 138.8 The inhabitants of Buckie do seem to be hindering this areas progress. Scottish Borders 133.3 to 138.5 2 Daily rises in a row. Nothing obvious. West Lothian 135.4 to 136.5 2 Daily rises in a row. Nothing obvious. Stirling 134.8 to 134.8 Midlothian 116.8 to 129.8 Bonnyrigg culprit this time around. What taking Dundee to extra time probably caused Fife 128.2 to 117.8 Hurtling downwards. Large areas of North & East Fife Covid free. Only Ballingry & lochore hotspots. Aberdeenshire 117.5 to 112.2 City Of Edinburgh 110.3 to 111.3 Western Isles 108.5 to 104.8 Barra and South Uist reacted and dropping like a stone. Be down to feck all in a few days. East Lothian 103.7 to 97.1 Hits the sub 100 milestone. Highlands 81.8 to 79.7 Shetland Islands 74.2 to 65.4 Argyll & Bute 64.1 to 60.6 Orkney Island 44.9 to 35.9

Lewis Ferguson: "You? Got signed by Rangers? You?" Scott Wright: "Sure. You've never had an offer?"

Yup! People desperate to blame poor people not following the rules for rates being potentially higher among those groups when in reality it would be because they are more likely to be in low paid jobs out working, and living in cramped accommodation.

Going with “dregs of society” seems like a big classist dog whistle way to frame this. I haven’t a clue about the rates of infection but is it more prevalent in poorer sections of the population and is a lack of following the rules the most effective explainer for this? I had the impression that big spikes were coming from specific workplaces which suggests a problem with workplace regulations. Even where I work there’s been two separate out breaks in other offices which either means our regulations are shite or everyone is off gallivanting and we’re being more sensible.

I've never ran a marathon, but at least you know where the finish line is. With this it feels like the government are constantly waiting until the finish line is in sight in the distance, then moving it further away.

Ross County are an excellent football team and there's no shame in losing to them.

Tick Tock can f**k off in general

Don’t worry. You can go upstairs now and tell your mum that’s you’ve won the internet again.

Boris Johnson says he is 'looking at the potential of relaxing some measures' before mid-February - but Number 10 immediately clarifies this is not what he meant ! Above from Sky under a headline that the average age of hospital admissions is now 59 as if that's a bad thing. Surely that means fewer of the most vulnerable are now being hospitalised thus reducing the average age ?

Haggis in space!

It was academia who told me, back when I studied international relations. It's first year stuff. Do you subscribe to Fukuyama's End of History theory as well? Nobody needs to scrabble to prove you wrong, you drag your arse across this forum making a tit of yourself on a daily basis.

I don't condone abuse generally, but there are traditions to uphold. If the club announced that he'd murdered his own mother you wouldn't wish him well, would you? And this is basically on a par with that.

And yet, arguably, that finish line feels further away than when we didn't.

I think we'd all take McGlynn over any manager right now because of what's he's achieved. But let's not forget the massive contribution Paul Smith has made too.

10 for Monday. Educated guess for the maths question, and a total guess for the brain question. Knew the rest. Had Thor Ragnarok to thank for the Norse mythology question.

I thought it was Celtic who were more likely to favour roaming caffeine licks

If the ARBITRATION ABBERATION of a few months ago did not convince you, it is now PATENTLY OBVIOUS that a CONSPIRACY against the TYNECASTLE TITANS is afoot. Not only have BOUGHT AND PAID FOR referees taken to awarding a STATISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE two penalties a game against The Gorgie, it now appears that the DEEP STATE has reached its HENTAI-ESQUE TENTACLES into the HMFC dressing room, and NOBBLED NEILSON. How else, FOLLOWERS, can one explain the PATHETIC management and recruitment that has led to a mere six point (or, as the French would say, SIX POINT) lead for the Capital Colossus in this WOEFUL league? Despite the lack of STYLE AND BOTTLE, I am more confident than ever* that JUSTICE will prevail and the juggernaut will recover from this brief stall to FLATTEN the competition. *because Berra is hopefully out injured for a while

You are arguing with a Medical Professional, stop pretending you know everything there is to know about everything that has ever been because you spent a few years at Uni studying fucking History.