2010 Schools Act: solution for recovery from the Wick determination
There are two immediate consequences to Scottish Ministers’ determination of Highland Council’s two proposals to close four schools in Wick.The first is the clear injustice to Hillhead school which is...
View ArticleDavids strike Goliaths in the battle of wind at all costs
A small, perhaps inevitably rural, Scottish Community Council – here in Argyll – has landed a significant strike against the Scottish UK and EU governments under the Aarhus Convention.Loch Avich and...
View ArticleUK Government wrong on changes to testing at GCSE stage
UK Education Secretary, the genuinely interesting Michael Gove, has got some things right and the big one wrong in the announcement today on changes to the testing and certification regime at GCSE...
View ArticleSchool closures: Lady Paton’s appeal opinion in favour of Western Isles Council
Lady Paton’s recent opinion on Scottish Ministers’ Appeal against Lord Brailsford’s June 2012 Judicial Review opinion in favour of Western Isles Councll’s petition on a schools closure call-in...
View ArticleScottish Government gives Raasay crofters a consultation on shooting rights
The crofters of the Isle of Raasay, who managed shooting and fishing rights over the island, found themselves dispossessed by a government which has previously looked generously after their...
View ArticleNATIONHOOD: The For Argyll Referendum Project
Think about Scotland in 2050. What sort of a country do you want it to be by then? Prepare to share that vision.We’re not interested in the ‘now’ or in the vested interests and mantras of either Better...
View ArticleAudit Scotland report: work in progress an oasis of reason
The Audit Scotland report on Argyll and Bute Council, made public yesterday, is an oasis of reason in a desert of the shifting allegiances in the political management of the council – which the report...
View ArticleAccounts Commission findings: Argyll and Bute Council at a crossroads
The Accounts Commission has now published its findings on the Controller of Audit’s Statutory Report on Argyll and Bute Council.The findings make serious reading for the council, for elected members...
View ArticleRural school closures and the COSLA challenge to the Education Secretary
On Monday this week, 18th November, the Scottish Government announced planned changes to the 2010 Schools [Consultation] [Scotland] Act – which governs the process around local authority plans to close...
View ArticleActual Reality Trust reports Councillor Walsh to Commissioner for Ethical...
Dr Christopher Mason, Trustee of Actual Reality, has reported Councillor Dick Walsh to the Ethics watchdog for conduct over a three month period, most of which was at the first three months of this...
View ArticleWalsh briefing to councillors on Castle Toward misleads and manipulates
The overall positioning of the briefing paper that Council Leader Dick Walsh has sent variously to each of his fellow councillors on the Castle Toward affair begins with a strategic misdirection.It...
View ArticleOil, the North Sea and Scottish independence: The Wood Report
This is the fourth in a series of researched articles on the oil and gas industry, the situation in the North Sea and the relation of this overall picture to a potentially independent Scotland.We are...
View ArticleCarmichael correct to avoid auction trap in laying out advantages of the union
In laying out 20 of the ways, some duplicatory, where membership of the union of the United Kingdom is of obvious benefit to Scotland, Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael made the right case and...
View ArticleWhen will Deputy First Minister make known her decision on Gourock-Dunoon...
Three months ago, on 11th October 2013, Highlands and Islands MSP, Jamie McGrigor, lodged a written Parliamentary Question on the Scottish Government’s plans for funding the Gourock Dunoon passenger...
View ArticleLatest move in the challenge to COSLA
Yesterday’s, 14th February, Greenock Telegraph reported that Inverclyde Council – one of the west of Scotland councils known to be gingering up to pose a threat to the Convention of Scottish Local...
View ArticleCOSLA: Inverclyde ‘goes’ to plan
On schedule and to plan, yesterday, 20th February, Labour-led Inverclyde Council gave the necessary 12 months advance notice of intent to leave the Labour-led Convention of Scottish Local Authorities...
View ArticleLaw Society of Scotland paper clarifies the indy landscape
The paper published today, 14th July, by the Law Society of Scotland – on Scotland’s Constitutional Future could not be more useful in mapping out the constitutional landscape of independence.The...
View ArticleIssues of judgment in pro-union television advertisements and in those...
Two feeble pro-union television advertisements have done the pro-union campaign no favours, with the worst the recent insulting presentation of a dimwit indecisive female figure – in a half-assed...
View ArticleTrident: the ‘four submarines, three or none’ question
Like the majority of civilians, we see no point in stockpiling nuclear weapons we cannot ever use other than in an apocalyptic domesday scenario – and even then, their deployment would be supremely...
View ArticleONE VOTE for democracy and the freedom to be different
In Scotland this one General Election of 2015, 21 days away today, is a two-vote contest about three things:protecting the established internal unity of the little United Kingdom;avoiding the...
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