Lost.

The SNP Scottish Government has lost the occasional vote before, but never an entire piece of legislation which by political standards is rather careless.

"THE Scottish Government was tonight dealt a humiliating public blow when its plans for a new national arts body collapsed in ruins. Ministers lost a crunch vote on the financial resolution of the Creative Scotland Bill in Parliament after Labour complained they had been misled over the financial implications of the Bill."

Sloppy. Mr Smith thinks that Bruce Crawford MSP, the SNP's Business Manager will be carrying out the autopsy as we post.

Right To Vote.

Is it just Mr Smith or is the Scottish Government's apparent new support for sixteen year olds to be given the vote in Scotland very ironic?

"YOU can go to war for your country, legally have sex, get married or be held responsible for a crime. Now the Scottish Government has called for the voting age to be lowered to 16 and demanded the powers from Westminster to implement the change in Scotland. It had previously been suggested that by giving Scotland's 131,000 16- and 17-year-olds the franchise, the SNP would pick up more votes than the other parties, which could swing results in key council and Holyrood seats. But the call by Bruce Crawford, the SNP minister for parliament, at a meeting of the Electoral Reform Society yesterday, was also seen as an attempt to highlight divisions between Westminster and Holyrood ... Mr Crawford said: "It is the responsibility of us all to get young people interested in the democratic process."While 16-year-olds can pay taxes, get married or serve in the armed forces, they effectively have to bite their lip when it comes to decisions that will affect them."

But hang on ... didn't the Scottish Parliament decide yesterday to ban 16 and 17 year olds from being able to use sunbeds? A few months ago didn't the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament vote to outlaw 16 and 17 year olds from being able to buy cigarettes despite the fact they can still legally smoke them? And from 2009 as a result of a change in the law agreed by the Scottish Parliament 16 and 17 year olds will no longer be able to buy alcohol and consume it with a meal as they can now do.

So isn't there a bit of a contradiction in saying that 16 year olds should be able to vote when our current band of politicians lead by the current SNP Government have lead the charge in removing their rights to do many of the things that they could lawfully do previously? Give them the vote if you want, but you can't then treat them like children at the same time.

Jamie dodgers.

The Sunday Times political diarist ATTICUS suggests that new SNP MSP Jamie Hepburn has had his knuckles rapped by the Scottish Government's Business Manager and chief enforcer, Bruce Crawford MSP, for tabling no fewer than 150 parliamentary questions over the summer recess.

Apparently Mr Crawford sought to remind Mr Hepburn to consider "whose side he was on" given that the Scottish Government is SNP controlled. As a former political research at Holyrood, Mr Hepburn is obviously finding the old habits involving drafting parliamentary questions hard to break.

His other claim to fame of course is that he boycotted the Royal Opening of the Scottish Parliament in June because it was being carried out by .. er ... Her Majesty the Queen. He must have used the time to draft a few more questions.