Saturday 25 August 2007

Fantasy Football League Table Week 4

Here is the table for the fantasy football league at Our Scotland after week 4. Why not come over and try it out?


Name

SLG
DanaBC
azzuri
Reluctant Hero
macnumpty
Rinty
Scott2006

Pld
4
4
4
4
4
3
1

Avg
7.00
6.50
4.75
4.75
3.75
4.00
2.00

Pos
1
2
3
3
5
6
7

High
1
1
2
3
3
1
3

3pts
6
5
2
3
1
1
0

1pts
10
11
13
10
12
9
2

Score
28
26
19
19
15
12
2

Week_Score
7
9
4
6
4
6
0

Friday 24 August 2007

100 Not Out

Doesn’t 100 days just pass as quick as a flash?

Barely have we recovered from the excitement/trauma (delete as appropriate) of the election, than Alex Salmond is celebrating his 100th day in office.

Of course the SNP had set out what they were going to achieve in their first 100 days a way back in March. This amounted to 49 pledges ranging from scrapping tuition fees to a white paper on independence.

Not to be outdone, Labour also counted the number of pledges in the SNP document released at their spring conference and confounding critics who say arithmetic is getting better, they came up with over 60 pledges. Of these 60 plus pledges, Labour claim only 20 have been delivered and 10 partly delivered.

Two things struck me about this.

Firstly, has Labour not learned anything from the election? Negative politics doesn’t work anymore. They should concentrate on what they would do, how they would do things different and not take cheap shots at their opposition parties. That is how the SNP won the election.
The second thing is that no-one expects a party to implement the majority of policies they laid out before the election, within the first 100 days, no matter what the party says. The important thing is to see if the party is committed to delivering the majority of their policies within the four years period or if they were just electioneering.

From where I am sitting, it would appear that the SNP are committed to delivering the majority of the election promises. Throw in the way Salmond handled the recent foot and mouth crisis and the first suicide attack on Scotland, then I have been satisfied that the Scottish electorate indirectly chose the best candidate to be First Minister.

The Labour party did actually comment on the SNP’s plans for their first 100 days in office back in March. Then First Minister, Jack McConnell, said the SNP were planning chaos and turmoil. Well they can’t have it both ways. They complain that the SNP’s plans would be disastrous, then they complain that they haven’t delivered them!

Labour should concentrate less on the SNP and more on themselves. They need to change. Is Wendy Alexander the person to deliver this change? Or is the Labour Party destined to become the Tory Party Mk II. A party that thinks it has a divine right to be in power but faces a lengthy spell on the sidelines.

Time will tell !

Sunday 19 August 2007

Our Scotland Fantasy Football League Table - Week 3

Here is the table for the fantasy football league at Our Scotland after week 3. Why not come over and try it out?



Name
SLG
DanaBC
azzuri
Reluctant Hero
macnumpty
Rinty
Scott2006


Pld
3
3
3
3
3
2
1


Avg
7.00
5.67
5.00
4.33
3.67
3.00
2.00


Pos
1
2
3
4
5
6
7


High
1
1
2
3
3
1
3


3pts
5
3
2
2
1
0
0


1pts
6
8
9
7
8
6
2


Score
21
17
15
13
11
6
2


Week_Score
8
7
3
4
2
3
0

Friday 10 August 2007

Poll Axed

Poll Axed

The latest opinion poll for the Daily Mail was published today and it could not have been better news for the SNP. Support for the party has reached an unprecedented 48% with Labour lagging way behind on 32%. The Lib Dems and Tories are not even in the picture with 8% each.

Labour is still in limbo until they get rid of McConnell and elect a new leader. Who is that leader going to be? Well, the hot favourite in the press is Wendy Alexander. Would this be a step forward for Labour or a step back? Well only time will tell, but what I am interested in at this stage is whether there is going to be an actual leadership contest or will it be yet another coronation?

The Lib Dems must be severely regretting the fact that they did not enter the coalition discussions. For if they had, they may have benefited from this upsurge in support for the SNP and who knows, may even be challenging Labour for second place.

Those are the decisions you live and die by. I just wonder how long Nicol Stephen will remain in his post?

Alex Salmond seems to be making all the right decisions at the moment. Demanding a Scottish Six, visiting flooded areas of Scotland, hosting a function for people responding to the attempted suicide attack on Glasgow Airport, overturning A&E closure decisions and much more.

Even when the SNP were defeated over its transport policy and were forced to support the Edinburgh tram plans, they managed to turn this into a victory of sorts, capping the expenditure budget at £600m.

There are no doubt going to be numerous other challenging moments over the next 3.75 years the SNP have left in government, not least the potential impending recession. However, if Salmond continues in the same manner as he has over the last three months or so, then he will have nothing to fear from Alexander or whoever Labour elect as their next leader.

Over at Our Scotland, there are numerous political and other topics up for debate. Not only that there is a chance to play Fantasy Football, predicting the scores of the SPL every week. We have teamed up with two other messageboards to have an inter-forum league. Why not check it out?