Nothing to see here

ntr has disappeared for the last week or so, not due to some overwhelming series of events preventing posting, nor the beginnings of the NewLabour crackdown on samzidat writing, but merely because there wasn't much to be writing about, and frankly I couldn't be arsed. Just like John Pilger and Carl Bernstein in fact.

Despite all the pieces in the public prints, not a lot is really happening politically at the mo. A fair bit of setting out stalls and drawing lines in the sand etc etc. Today's non-story in NorthBritain on Sunday is a perfect example of political posturing. Michael Connarty and Anne Moffat calling for transfers of power back down to Westminster is really just a way of working their keep regarding the quarter-million quid the nuclear industry pumps into their "all-party" group. No-one outside the more Brit-paranoid parts of the Labour party is gonna want to support a highly symbolic and politically suicidal re-centralisation of power back to Westminster.

The phoney war will gradually fade, replaced by the real battle that the FM & Co. will face on a number of fronts - media, political and economic. Which is when, obviously, life will get very, very interesting. A good time to be alive in Scotland, I feel.

ntr has also been reading The Digger, and quotes this story from the 'Crime Stocks' section completely unedited:

"James McCallum, 45, from Collina Street in Maryhill, has been charged with assaulting Charles Dolan and Rebecca Benson on Dumbarton Road last July. He is also charged with resisting arrest and with assaulting PC Tracy Munro by licking her arm on the same date."

Worth the 50p cover price by itself.