renton

Brexit is a process not an event, and it's important to note that the further the process has taken us, the higher the Indy vote has gotten.

I definitely agree in terms of policy review. There needs to be a holistic view taken of where the SNP want to be in terms of domestic policy, rather than a laundry list of policies put forward by departments. Some kind of over arching strategy is needed to stop drift and to try and scale up some ambition in terms of policy goals. I think they've done OK on income taxation (having basically half inched the Greens policy on this) and the National Investment Bank, but more innovative public infrastructure is needed and a replacement for Council tax is well overdue. I've voted Greens on the list the last two times and probably will again tbh. Swinney is absolutely not the right guy for education either.

Still the Only Show in Town?

Fucking hell, our centre back partnership this year is likely gonna be Frankie and Bene...

It's not just that the two guys are individually gambles, it's the fragility of the squad to absorb any failures from the new guys that makes it a true gamble. If Musonda is a dud, then we are relying on Davidson being able to pull another full season out of his arse when he isn't getting any faster, or more disciplined in terms of card counts. If Duku is a dud, then how much weight falls onto the shoulders of Lewis Vaughan who's knees manifestly can't carry that much weight on a good day. Granted there is meant to be another striker incoming. Still, I get why McGlynn is looking farther afield for new players, and if it comes off it'll be great. However, he's not faultless in his signing record, but generally he's had a solid enough core to absorb any missteps, up until the start of the 2011/12 season, anyway.

I dunno, Barry Smith did bring us Euan Murray from the same English tiers, and of course Locke gave us Thornsen, Osei and Coustrain. Complete unknowns, and all shite. Can only hope McGlynn knows what he's doing.

Well, I suppose Euan Murray came to us from that tier of Engliah football, and he was passable.

Ummm....

Probably for the best, just chucks it to the Unis and employers to decide how inflated they feel the grades are I guess.

Ah, yeah that was when I was working in a clean room rather than driving physics simulations.

That's part of it, but some of it comes from the personalities involved. Like the P1 testing. I didnt agree with it, even as I could see the rationale: Clearly the work of a conservative mind, taking a short term solution to a problem rather than a holistic view. A type of solution that just seemed entirely at odds with the kind of system the CfE was meant to be getting away from. Partly the problem I guess is that beyond tax and spend, there are any number of departments that require long term solutions that have scant political capital for incumbents and therefore less incentive to put in place something that might not bear fruit for sometime in lieu of sticking plaster solutions in the name of being seen to have done something. That's an age old issue with all democracies though , I guess.

Swinney is probably a dour, able technician of a politician, but seems to lack the foresight and imagination to really game out in his head how these things are gonna go. I wonder if he might find himself contemplating retirement at some point soon. The first thing you would've done in this situation is surely to have asked the SQA what they were planning on doing, then get them to run their algorithm using a representative sample of predicted grades only from previous years (they surely keep records). Then they could have started to make a decision as to how and where the system required tweaking to give the correct focus between not fucking over individuals and maintaining the system credibility.

Which, in fairness, they weren't exactly wrong. It was clear the board were unconvinced by him but at the same time couldn't rationalise getting rid of him based on how close he'd gotten to the championship previously

Haven't watched the briefing, what has she said?

What is the protocol around players socialisng between games?