European Political News

The state visit of French President Nicholas Sarkozy and his eminently suitable (ahem) wife added a certain je ne sais quios to the usual humdrum of Westminster but, as is often the way with these things, below the glittering surface the grubby underbelly of politics continued to undulate. The Speaker's increasingly desperate attempts to keep the furniture-related spending habits of MPs a secret has elicited criticism from those brave crusaders after truth in the fourth estate, whilst the row over the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill has led to a somewhat embarrassing climbdown on the part of the Government. In other news, the Conservatives blame Labour for falling marriage rates, and Alistair Darling's ability to enjoy a pint of mild and bitter in the boozer after work has been cutailed by those most feared crusaders for justice and DA TROOF: bloggers.

Miss Wagstaff has been busy, so the Senedd Circular will be out on Friday morning.

With the Parliamentary spectacle of the Budget behind us, this week politics descended into navel gazing and - occasionally - farce. An outbreak of jealous bitchslapping at Downing Street in the wake of the departure of former Brown aide Spencer Livermore coincided with a sharp dip in the polls for the comrades. Smooth. Meanwhile, details of the Liberal Democrats preparedness for Government leaked out causing speculation on the blogosphere of an alternative SNP-Conservative Unholy Alliance after the next general election, the Gord got down with Doctor Who, and a Conservative Opposition Day Motion on Post Office closures came close to causing red faces on the Labour benches. (more…)

Welcome to the second Holyrood Herald. This week: Plans to give different MSPs different expense rules cause a stooshie The SNP is still being nice to Councillors Why Alex Salmond has a better figure than Wendy Alexander And what have MSPs done to annoy Jack Vettriano? More on Holyrood expense rules Last week, the Holyrood Herald flagged up the rule on Holyrood expense rules, and proposals to change them. The most controversial aspect of the plan involved giving Constituency MSPs more money to hire staff than their Regional counterparts. Former Tory MSP James Douglas-Hamilton, who took part in the review, has dissented from the proposals, arguing that too little evidence was collected beforehand and that this would widen an already unfortunate gap between the 73 MSPs elected by First Past the Post and the 56 elected on Regional lists. SNP MSP Christine Grahame agrees, arguing that it was unfair to measure a Regional MSP (in a region where his party only got 15% of the vote) who had only been elected in May against one constituency MSP who had been in her post since 1999, along with another who’d held the Holyrood seat since then AND been a Westminster MP from 1987 to 2001, after having been one of the SNP’s ‘First Eleven’ MPs in the 1970s. To really stir things up, Parliamentary researchers have themselves intervened, with staffers from all parties (and one working for an Independent MSP) have joined together in protest at the plans. The Council-Government love-in continues Elsewhere, the Government has announced its intention to give local Councillors (who, as we noticed last week, are getting friendly with the SNP) an extra year in office. This comes as part of plans to ‘de-couple’ the Scottish and Local Elections, whose combined polling day caused a lot of organisational headaches in last year’s vote. After the combination of a new-look ballot paper for Holyrood and a new voting system for Councillors conspired with other factors to cause chaos on Election night, the SNP announced that they intended to separate the two polls, and Parliamentary Business Minister Bruce Crawford confirmed the Government’s intentions on Sunday. Councillors will, if the plan goes ahead, not face the electorate until 2012. Wendy Alexander has a rubbish figure Meanwhile an opinion poll gives Alex Salmond an approval rating of +53%, while Wendy Alexander is saddled with a score of -22%. The forthcoming Scottish Labour Conference at Aviemore won’t be a barrel of laughs, I suspect. Antagonising artists And finally, artist Jack Vettriano has taken the huff at suggestions that MSPs might want to borrow his paintings. He wants them to buy his works instead. Clearly neither side in this argument has heard of that stereotype of the Scots at a tight-fisted people. If they have, they’re trying to live down to it. (more…)

Today “Parliamentary Roundup Thursday” gains another report. In addition to Sadie’s “Westminster Watch” report, today Will Patterson - who writes the J Arthur MacNumpty blog and contributes to the Scottish Roundup - has done the first weekly roundup with news from the Holyrood Parliament. For now I’m calling the column “Holyrood Herald“, but we may come up with a better name (suggestions are welcome). Over the next several weeks a roundup from the Welsh Parliament (”Senedd Scan“?) will be added, and I’m working on similar roundups from Stormont and Brussels/Strasburg. The Roundup of the Papers will be out in the early evening today, and will be - shall we say - idiosyncratic. As a final note, I have added mobile websites to the Scottish Politics and Welsh Politics blog aggregators, and to the Comment from the Senedd Welsh Assembly AM Comment “blaggregator”. The links are, respectively, http://m.politics-scotland.co.uk/ http://m.politics-wales.co.uk/ http://m.senedd.me.uk/ These are experimental at this stage, so there may be some glitches - and I welcome comments. Tags: daily roundup, holyrood herald, will patterson, mobile phone political feeds, scotland, wales

Roll up, roll up! See the Eighth Wonder of the Parliamentary Estate: the amazing Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling ventriloquism act. SEE! Alistair deliver his first Budget as Chancellor! GASP! At the way that way his lips move so convincingly as he mouths stuff about “stability” and more tax on The Booze (cries of “shame” from students everywhere)! MARVEL! At the…yeah, that’s enough. Yep, it’s Budget time people, and frankly after the incident and romance surrounding the culmination of the Lisbon Treaty in the Commons last week, I’m surprised we can all cope with the excitement. Elsewhere, wee Nicky Clegg delivered his first address to the assembled Liberal Democrat masses at their spring Conference, the Speaker was on the receiving end of a bout of happy-slapping from a former member of staff, the polls indicate that the Tories shouldn’t start getting complacent yet, and a Conservative MP threw a hissy fit and resigned the whip. (more…)

This week it’s all about the Lisbon Treaty, folks. I know, I know, but before I precipitate the kind of mass exodus that can only be engendered by the words “long debate on Europe,” consider this: nothing in politics reignites flagging interest like a good ol’ fashioned split and, this time it’s not the Tories. We’re through the looking glass here, people. In other news, the theme of “booze Britain” was given a new lease of life with the release of the interim report on the new licensing laws, Margaret Hodge’s comments on the Proms allowed hacks everywhere to crank out the phrase “political correctness gawn maaaaaaad” or variants thereof, David Cameron and his Merry Men got all chain gang on the Government in terms of prison policy, and a Labour backbencher attempted to hold John Humphrys to account over his questioning of Opposition spokesmen. Good luck with that one, love. (more…)