Petulance and Excrement

I was listening to the radio and heard the BBC interview with Stewart Maxwell - the SNP minister for sport, who much to the chagrine of Labour, has declareed that he thinks that Scotland should have its own Olympic team. Given that he also thinks Scotland and Scots are grown up enough to look after their own affairs and make the right decisions regarding the nurturing of our assett-rich little corner of the globe, this really shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone. In answering the obvious question about what he would say to those athletes who prefer to represent Britain, he reasonably opinined that Scotland was an appropriate level of representation for international competition, as anyone who regularly attends Hampden or Murrayfield will testify (unless we're playing the All Blacks of course - population of NZ anyone? Should NZ join Australia to form a trans-tasman federation?)

Mr Maxwell replied: "What I would say to them, do Irish athletes want to rejoin the UK and be part of the UK team?

"Do we want to get rid of the GB team and have a European team because a European team would sweep the board?

"So I think you have to think about whether or not it's appropriate in the level you represent your own country in. I think it's quite right you represent your own country."

I make the point though that in his interview Stewart Maxwell was the model of diplomacy. Courteous and reasoned.

Kezia Dugdale describes it as : in one petulant, beligerent outburst,the Nats have lost the rag and demanded a separate Olympic team once again.

Hardly!

Meanwhile over in Paisley, home-owner (** removed **) Terry Kelly tells us that Alex Salmond's interview with Ian Dale,

The SNP has a strong social conscience, which is very Scottish in itself. One of the reasons Scotland didn't take to Lady Thatcher was because of that. We didn't mind the economic side so much. But we didn't like the social side at all.

in which he opines that Scots found the Social aspect of Thatcherism much more distasteful than her economic policies directly, was unpardonable folly.

Execrable indeed, Terence!

They do seem a very excitable bunch don't they...

** Terry informs me that he did not buy a former council house