Scottish Political News

I don’t like to dwell on Iain Dale’s poll. As Longrider pointed out in the comments, it is of no real importance anyway. However, the first of Iain Dale’s category lists — media blogs — got me thinking. Why are there so few Scottish media blogs?

As far as I can make out, the list contains two blogs based on Scottish politics run by mainstream media organisations. One is the rather good Blether with Brian from the BBC’s Brian Taylor. The other is The Herald’s politics blog (though going by Iain Dale’s list it is only Douglas Fraser’s entries that meet with approval). I have to say that while I was very aware of Brian Taylor’s blog, I was only vaguely aware that The Herald had a political blog.

You might think that two entries in the top 30 of Iain Dale’s poll is not too bad. But when you look more closely at some of the other entries, things don’t look so good for the Scottish media. Wales has no fewer than four blogs in the list: David Cornock, Betsan Powys, Vaughan Roderick and 07:25 to Paddington.

Three of those come from the BBC Wales politics department. In Scotland, Brian Taylor is the only BBC political journalist that I know of that has a blog. Even then, I suspect that Brian Taylor was asked by BBC News Online to start his blog. Blogs by the political editors of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all started within a very short period of time of each other, as I recall.

What interests me more though is the poor showing of commercial media outlets. Wales is represented by a blog from WalesOnline. Also on Iain Dale’s list is a local blog run by David Ottewell of the Manchester Evening News.

So where are the Scottish media blogs? I don’t think I would be alone in saying that I think The Herald’s blogs are rather limp and half-hearted. Of late, Douglas Fraser has only updated once every fortnight or so (although, yes, I know it’s the summer — but there have been a lot of Scottish political stories too). Robbie Dinwoodie is much the same.

Scotsman.com is even worse. It has no proper blogs. It does, from time to time, call articles blogs, but they have no permalinks and no comments — just a normal page with some date headings. Worse still, many opinion pieces are behind a paywall, which means that bloggers — even if they can be bothered to fork out to read it in the first place — will seldom link to them and engage in the debate.

I doubt things will improve in this area. Ever since Johnston Press took it over, they have seemed determined to treat Scotsman.com like it is the website for a tiny local newspaper. The perfectly good website was replaced with Johnston Press’s own template which is used for all of their local papers, just with content from The Scotsman shoehorned in. This kind of approach to the web, which will be an increasingly important part of The Scotsman’s business in the future, does not bode well.

I am sure the Sunday Herald used to have a separate site for blogging and comments. I don’t think I imagined it, but I can’t find any sign of it now. Mind you, I’m not surprised — it wasn’t very good.

It needn’t be like this. Despite claims from some that bloggers and the MSM are competing, this is simply not true. Blogs and the MSM are complementing. There are plenty of excellent, high-profile blogs run by media outlets based in London. The Spectator’s Coffee House, The Times’s Comment Central, The Telegraph’s suite of politics blogs, The Guardian’s politics blog and Comment is free, Nick Robinson and many other blogs from the BBC.

And Iain Dale’s list shows that they don’t have to be based in London, with respected blogs coming from other parts of the country. Why is there not more coming from Scotland?

It has to be said that the honourable exception is Brian Taylor. He seems to enjoy blogging and it is certainly a great place to catch up with recent political shenanigans. But what about everyone else?

Perhaps my current reading matter has influenced my thinking but my thoughts are drawn towards the disclosure that Scotland's prison population rose to an all-time high last year.

The reading matter? "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote, a near-obsessive examination of a notably brutal multiple murder.

In particular, Capote scrutinises the societal and personal motivations underlying the crime.

With regard to the Scottish data, I know that the prison stats record an "all-time high" virtually daily as more are sent to the slammer and for longer sentences.

These figures, therefore, merely confirm a trend, based on averaging out the daily stats. However, it is a deeply disturbing trend.

Scotland's prison population has, this week, exceeded 8,000 for the first time.

The rate of increase is steeper. We should not allow familiarity to negate the necessary political debate.

An element to note in passing is that the use of community sentences is also at a record high.

In other words, it is not that the courts are ignoring or entirely setting aside alternatives to custody.

The prison service plays with the hand it is dealt.

Scotland's prisons, Scotland's officers, cope as they can with the numbers sent to them by the courts. They, rightly, take no part in the political debate.

To be fair, that political debate is vigorous, if inevitably a little repetitive.

For example, Bill Aitken for the Tories forecast that SNP ministers would "abuse these figures to argue their dangerous case that fewer criminals should be sent to prison".

Justice Minister Kenny Macaskill said that, far from advancing a dangerous case, he was attempting to deal with "the absurd situation" inherited by the Scottish Government.

Mr Macaskill noted that prison disposals had increased, despite a falling overall crime rate.

If one were being cheeky, one might suggest that recruiting more police will mean yet more arrests, more court appearances and - guess what?

Next week, ministers will set out their governmental programme for the year ahead at Holyrood.

Criminal justice and sentencing policy will feature prominently.

I'd welcome your views - as, I feel sure, would the politicians.

Do we send too many to prison - perhaps especially those whose behaviour is driven by addiction or deprivation?

Or is it entirely right that society be protected from offenders? Should we simply expand the prison estate to cope?

Sorry, this is all navel-gazing stuff. But since I mentioned it already, I should probably point out that the results are up.

If this happened on the train I would probably be complaining quite vociferously. As it is, I lie between the Brian Taylor and Calum Cashley in Iain Dale’s top 40 Scottish political blogs, as voted for by readers.

More to the point, this list is definitive proof that this blog is the second best non-aligned non-MSM Scottish political blog (behind Ideas of Civilisation). I always knew it. (Any way to make the result sound more impressive, huh?)

Overall this blog is 16th, which is a dramatic fall of fourteen places from my previous position in this list. Still, I got off lightly. The person who was number 1 in that previous poll is nowhere to be seen in the top 40 now. Just goes to show what a fickle world this popularity malarkey can be.

I’m actually quite pleased for this blog to be up there still in 16th place given the increasingly sporadic nature of my blogging. I certainly can’t complain about the blogs above mine in the list, nor a few below mine. So thanks if you voted!

Another point to note is that Scottish Roundup is number 31 (in the week that it celebrates its 100th roundup too). Not bad for a blog that has next to no original content. Scottish Roundup is run by me, but it is a thoroughly collaborative effort with many people chipping in. So if you have contributed to Scottish Roundup before, give yourself a pat on the back.

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