I see the boundary changes are to be in place before the next Westminster election and that some SNP MPs will be fighting for a job. Scotlands only Labour MPs constituency disappears too.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news...-change-plans/

I imagine a couple of them could get McGarrys and Thompson's seats. Hoose will be out of favour after his cheating on the FMs mate as well I think.

Scottish Greens set out their store.

http://stv.tv/news/politics/1370513-...ge-say-greens/

I don't think they will just roll over to have their bellies scratched like a lot of SNP supporters are expecting. Talk of their council tax policies again I see.

The reply from the SNP is the usual stock dismissal and claim they are progressive but the next few months in Holyrood will be interesting.

I agree with the SNP on this one, if these men have only been convicted of being Gay and no other related crimes than remain against the law today then why should they, Like Turing not be pardoned?

http://www.thenational.scot/news/cri...ng-bill.23891?

You'll also agree with the LibDems, who have long campaigned on this subject, and pushed for the pardons to be applied posthumously.

Interesting to see no real changes since the election in May. The 2 independence parties still seem to have a slim majority and UKIP seem to have lost even more ground. Dugdale still seen as an irrelevance.

BMG Poll;

Holyrood seat prediction (BMG Poll Sep 28-Oct 4)
SNP 70(+7)
LAB 19(-5)
LIB 5(=)
CON 25(-6)
UKIP 0(=)
GREEN 10(+4)

The excuse raised was where the conviction was for underage sex. Some people rely on the higher rate of conviction amongst gay men for that offence with others who most would consider adults to provide statistical evidence of a higher rate of paedophilia amongst them. The danger in mentioning that as a reason for rejecting the bill is that some of the rest of the offences also exist in a modified form. That might lead some to believe that a simpler change of wording to something along the lines of a general pardon for actions that would no longer be considered a crime might have covered those concerns.

As I said, if it was for purely being Gay with no other add ons that would still apply under current law then I see no reason not to pardon anyone. I find it wrong that they couldn't bring themselves to do this.

Underage sex would still be a crime and I have no problems with not pardoning those folk.

Did Nicholson introduce an England and Wales only Bill?

The Greens must be even more irrelevant then, got to admire your direction though

I wouldn't get too confident, there were bold predictions of increased majorities and 73 seats in May. If anything the polls seem to overstate SNP support atm.

Nice try at a wind up
Above LDs and UKIP, and forecast for 10 seats in the next Scottish election.
pas a pas on va loin

I thought better of you. Those convicted of "underage" sex because of the difference in age of consent should be pardoned if their partner was above the current age of consent. As I said the use of spurious statistics is valuable to homophobes who want to perpetuate a myth. I'd go further and have those convictions quashed an removed from the records.

To make it clear, where an action would no longer be considered illegal any conviction should be removed. Any excuse that there is no provision in law for quashing convictions of the deceased ignores the blatantly obvious fact that we're talking about politicians who can change the law to make such a thing possible. The only problem with saying pardons was the least they could do is that apparently doing nothing is.

Not getting over confident at all, just thought it was interesting considering the doom mangers who think support for SNP and independence is on the wane. I mean, I treat that with the contempt and laughter it deserves, but it's interesting to see support for independence parties rising if anything, supported by polls.

I never said anything else but it does bring up more problems to look at things this way. I assume all men convicted of under age sex with women would need to be pardoned as well in your scenario.

Taking it further then anything not considered a crime in the past but considered one now would I imagine warrant a retrospective punishment on those carrying It Out?

I am however very much in favour of the proposal as being Gay isn't a crime, but if the whole population had an age limit then being Gay of itself doesn't warrant ignoring this age limit just because we have a lowered one today, unless of course it applies to all sexual orientations and those convicted of breaking the law in the past.

Diversity and inclusion isn't about special treatment for any group.

If you lived here you would notice that a majority of folk are peretty fed up with the daily nonesense.

I don't believe we have reached peak SNP yet but will see that proved in the Council elections. From that point I think we will see a decline to around 40 percent going forward but for at least a decade still the dominant force in Scottish politics.

Not entirely relevant, but I made a tweet earlier about May acting all petulant in Brussels, and someone who is dead against Scottish Indy and the SNP had a go at me for it and saying we're standing up for ourselves.

I'm sorry, but it's an irony I just don't get. They hate it when the SNP act petulant at Westminster, but it's OK when May does it in Brussels? Scottish nationalism is bad, but British nationalism is good? One union's good, another is bad? I don't get how someone can be so against one but so in favour of the other, it's a total contradicting attitude.

There's so many parallels between Leave and Yes, I'm suprised they can't see it! the targets are different, but the underlying attitude is very similar. How is "Britain standing up for itself" hugely different to "Scotland standing up for itself"? And how is "getting away from corrupt Westminster" that different to "getting away from corrupt Brussels"?

In the absence of a poll on a second independence referendum, the big increase in the number of seats for the two parties supporting independence is a good sign.

Well it really is all about sovereignty.

Those on the UK brexit gang convinced enough people that the UK was no longer a sovereign nation.

Of course the very idea is quite ridiculous. I must have missed the EU's veto on the UK heading off to Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya to cause umpteen problems for those countries. Must have missed the EU setting UK tax rates, budget, and foreign policy etc. Must have missed EU ministers telling the UK Government they have no mandate to call a referendum on continuing EU membership...

Now compare that to Scotland's place within the UK.

They are two very different unions.

Not really hard to spot the difference.

Not a wind up at all, you stated that Labour was irrelevant but they still get more support than the Greens, therefore............

I think on a broader scale the comparison is similar, we have groups of people not wanting to belong in an institution for political and economic reasons.

I find it strange those two groups would not have some similarities with each other at least.

At their lowest ebb up to this point Labour still got more votes than the Tories did in the Scottish election.

I find all this talk of Brexiteers wanting 'to take control back of their country & sovereignty' all very ironic. OK for Britain, not OK for Scotland. Blow torch & necks come to mind.

It even more ridiculous when you get people, expecting to be taken seriously, who think that they can compare the power of the EU over Britain to the power of London over Scotland. The two are incomparable and it's insulting to people's intelligence to make out like they are.

The two are comparable, see my post above. Both consist of political groups that don't wish to be in a political union. What's not comparable about that? Both groups use very similar arguments at times too.