Executive advertising

The Scottish Executive freedom of information site reveals the amount spent by the Executive on advertising in newspapers. By far the biggest beneficiary is The Daily Record, which in the period from 1 August 2004 to the present received £443,182, out of a total spend of £1,751,937. By comparison, The Sun received only £78,343, The Scotsman received £50,581 and The Herald received £40,895; almost bottom of the list was The West Highland Free Press which received a paltry £174.

I have no idea why The Daily Record should bag more than 25% of the Executive's spend on advertising in newspapers. It is presumably the whole page adverts for campaigns that incur the biggest costs, but why should The Record exceed The Sun by a factor of more than 5?

Second thoughts on booze

The Herald reports:

"THE Scottish Executive is planning a U-turn on the controversial off-licence reform law by giving the green light to 24-hour off-sales in out-of-town shopping centres.The reforms were voted through by parliament during a day of high farce last week.According to sources, the executive intends to make use of a flexibility clause in the new act which would keep the newly-agreed hours – 10am to 10pm – in place for off-licences in town centres, but could liberalise hours in premises away from high streets. Labour ministers are believed willing to relax the new laws to reduce tensions within the coalition and with the licensed trade itself. Details of precisely how they would use the flexibility clause have yet to be worked out but it is thought that, at some point before the new law comes into effect in 2008-09, it would have to be approved by parliament. Liberal Democrat ministers want to go further and plan to try to overturn the restrictions in the off-sales law passed by Labour and Tory MSPs after the coalition split on the issue."

Did they not think about this last week (or during any of the last four years)? Or are we eternally condemned to suffer policy-making on the spur of the moment - subject to the latest whims of the media or whatever the Labour Executive thinks will get them a decent headline? And how can you possibly justify allowing Tesco to sell booze before 10 am out of town, while restricting sales in town centres?

Happiness

The Guardian fails to demonstrate the utility of self-indulgence (or maybe it succeeds):

"Pleasure and happiness are not the same thing, but they are close relations. Indeed, if Epicurus is to be believed, "Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily." And John Stuart Mill believed that "Pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends."
But before we raise a glass and a spliff to philosophy's endorsement of indulgence, we need to remember the sobering qualifications that come attached. First, both Aristotle and Epicurus argued that for pleasure to be good we must not be its slave. The trouble with drugs is that when we take them, we give up sovereignty over our experiences and let the chemicals rule us. You might think that is the point, but don't expect the wisdom of the ancients to back you up.
Second, philosophers such as Mill distinguish between pleasures of the mind and pleasures of the flesh. We need both, but the former are superior and a life with too many of the latter is not commensurate with human dignity. If we give in wholly to bodily pleasures, we live the lives not of humans but of feral animals (which, again, you might think is the point).
Third, there is the difference between authentic and inauthentic living. There is something to be
said for facing reality, even if that makes us less happy. Thinkers such as Sartre have argued that if the price of happiness is self-deception and delusion, it is not worth paying. But yet again, you might think the so-called great minds of history have again missed the bleeding obvious: no one ever got drunk in order to remember the pain of everyday life.
So there are reasons for not smoking dope, but they are nothing to do with it simply being pleasurable. Its main drawbacks seem to be that it shortens your life and turns you into a bore. But then so does spending all your life sitting on your arse reading philosophy."

This may not be the usual kind of post for this blog, but I attended the Sunderland-Aston Villa match on Saturday, which naturally steers one's thoughts in the direction of philosophical futility. It is all very well for old J-P Sartre to argue that self-delusion invalidates the price of happiness, but I don't suppose he was a regular at the Stadium of Light.

Cheap shot (No 27)

The Herald reports:

"George Reid, the Scottish Parliament's charismatic and forward-thinking presiding officer, was last night named The Herald Diageo Scottish Politician of the Year 2005. The Ochil MSP was presented with the award at a gala ceremony in Edinburgh in front of 500 guests from the worlds of arts, politics and entertainment. The only person to win the award for a second time, Mr Reid was honoured for his drive and imagination in his unofficial role as ambassador for the new Holyrood building in its first year. He not only helped to change its image from a £431m embarrassment to one of Scotland's most popular tourist attractions, he also broadened its ambitions by establishing a festival of politics and a Futures Forum.Speaking at the ceremony in the Royal Museum, Mr Reid paid tribute to the parliament staff and praised his 128 fellow MSPs. "I assure you they are decent, hardworking men and women who put public service first in their lives."

And no-one set the curtains on fire...

Smell the coffee

Lucy Mangan in The Guardian reflects on the research findings that decaf may not be healthy:

"It does open up a world of counterintuitive possibility - a world in which saturated fat may one day be proved to sluice out instead of stop up arteries, refined sugar is revealed to be just the thing for buffing up tooth enamel and complex carbo-hydrates are instrumental in purging the body of cellulite. Or, even better, a world in which muesli causes deep vein thromboses, carrot sticks and hummus give you BSE and brown rice makes your head explode.
Perhaps if we get enough scientists to put their heads down and concentrate, the greatest triumph of all will come to pass. The headline will read: Pork Scratchings Cure Cancer - Sunflower Seeds Do Sod All."

I wish.

Production values

Intrigued to see that Rome on BBC2 yesterday evening was well served by production staff. According to the opening credits, the "Consulting Producer" was Mr Michael Apted. Then there were two "Co-producers", Messrs Papazian and Hirsch, who had to share a screen credit. Two other "Co-producers", Mr Frank Yablans and Mr Todd London, each got a separate credit. We were then advised that the programme was "produced by" Mr Marco Valerio Pugini. There were also two "Co-executive Producers", Messrs Dyer and Kelley, who secured their own singular screen credits. The "Executive Producers", Messrs Macdonald and Milius had to share a credit. Finally, each with his or her own screen credit, we got a further three "Executive Producers", Mr Doelger, Ms Thomopoulos and Mr Heller.

I make this 13; is this a record? Who was the diplomat that decided who should get a single screen credit and who would have to share? Who cares? The programme is not very good...

Opening hours

How did the bill to liberalise the arrangements for the sale of alcohol end up by reducing the time periods during which alcohol may be sold by off-licences and supermarkets? You start with the principle that opening hours for both pubs and off-licences should be a matter for local licensing boards but that those boards should have more powers to resist or amend licensing applications in the light of local circumstances. This was the agreed Executive line, a line that was held until yesterday throughout the Committee stages of the bill. And this line was maintained even in yesterday's debates insofar as it was applied to pubs, which will now in theory be able to open at any time of the day or night - subject of course to the decision of the local licensing board. But certain Labour and SNP backbenchers would not recognise a principle if it sat up and bit them on the nose. And Labour Ministers, instead of sticking to the principle underlying the bill, caved in. Hence the unseemly Dutch auction over the last 48 hours to reduce the hours during which off-licences and supermarkets would be able to sell alcohol. The end result is that we will in future only be able to buy booze in supermarkets and off-licences during the hours between 10 am and 10 pm.

Was this outcome the subject of consultation with the licenced and/or retail trade? No - off-licences will now need to postpone opening in the morning until 10 am, while supermarkets will need to cordon off their booze departments until that time.

Was this outcome the subject of consultation with local authorities? No - but the powers of local licensing boards to adjust opening times to suit local circumstances are now heavily circumscribed.

Was this a rational considered choice by Parliament? No, it was a hastily cobbled-together fix. Given the confusion of yesterday's debate, it is not even clear that MSPs knew what they were voting for.

Altogether a poor show. Here is part of the Minister's speech on the relevant group of amendments:

"Mr McCabe:
Bristow Muldoon's amendments 12A, 17A, 24A, 64, 66 and 67 will introduce a new package in relation to licence applications for off-sales. They will, in effect, prevent boards from granting premises licences that would allow off-sales between 10 pm and 3 am. Boards will also be required to take into account the effect that the off-sales hours that are proposed in the application might have on antisocial behaviour. Frank McAveety's amendment 64A would amend the proposals by further restricting off-sales hours by preventing off-sales premises from opening between 10 pm and 10 am.
Bruce Crawford's amendment 63 seeks to amend section 60A of the bill, which was inserted at stage 2 and reintroduces statutorily permitted opening hours for off-sales of 8 am until 11 pm. The amendment would require off-sales to close at 10 pm. Andrew Arbuckle seeks to rely on the provisions of the bill as it was introduced...
Members have a number of options; for example, they could disagree to all the amendments and leave the bill as it stands, including Bruce Crawford's amendments that were passed at stage 2. As I said, statutorily permitted opening hours between 8 am and 11 pm for off-sales would therefore be reintroduced.
Alternatively, members could choose Bristow Muldoon's proposal, which would require off-sales to close between 10 pm and 3 am. They could support what he has proposed with the additional safeguard that Frank McAveety has proposed, which would require closure between 10 pm and 10 am. That would be a move from the current position and would surprise the licensed trade. However, I hope that the trade would understand the concerns that members have expressed about the difficulties that communities face as a result of the behaviour that is exhibited when people consume excess alcohol.
I want to make it absolutely clear that if members wish to introduce closure from 10 pm to 10 am—which Frank McAveety has proposed—they must vote for Bristow Muldoon's amendment 64 and for Frank McAveety's amendment 64A. As I said, Andrew Arbuckle has also lodged an amendment, which relies on the existing provisions of the bill to provide the protections that we seek."

Grace and favour

Grace and favour indeed. The Independent reveals that Mr Blunkett remains a rewarded crony of the Prime Minister:

"A fortnight ago it seemed that nothing would ever be the same again for David Blunkett when the storm over his business interests forced him to walk out of the Cabinet for the second time in a year. Gone was the power he had wielded as a senior minister. At a stroke his salary tumbled from the £130,347 commanded by a cabinet member to the £59,095 paid to the backbench MP for Sheffield Brightside.
But there is one consolation for him as he surveys the wreckage of his political career.
Thanks to the Prime Minister, he will be allowed to stay on in the luxurious grace-and-favour Belgravia home that he has occupied for the past four years.
The house, valued at up to £3m, is in a prime London location close to Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace and within walking distance of exclusive bars and restaurants. Similar properties cost up to £7,000 a month to rent.
Mr Blunkett was allowed to hold on to the property last year after resigning as Home Secretary over the "nannygate" furore, with Downing Street citing security reasons for the decision.
Tony Blair has taken the same view following Mr Blunkett's downfall as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions."

While Mr Blunkett was clearly unaware of hubris, he seems equally impervious to embarrassment and shame.

3am boozing

The Herald reports something of a shambles:

"Ministerial plans to liberalise the licensing laws in Scotland were in disarray last night after back-bench Labour MSPs mutinied over a proposal to let off-sales open up at 3am.In a day of intense and bewildering horse-trading at Holyrood, Labour said it was standing by the idea, then changed its mind, before finally seeming to change it back again. The muddle delighted some of its Liberal Democrat coalition partners, who said the row had been self-inflicted.Labour's problems began last week after Bristow Muldoon, the party's MSP for Livingston, tabled an amendment to the Licensing (Scotland) Bill, which completes its third and final parliamentary stage today. If passed, the effect would be to allow off-sales licences between 3am and 10pm, instead of between 8am to 11pm which was specified in the bill following an earlier SNP amendment. Although the proposal had the backing of the Scottish Executive, it angered many Labour MSPs worried about antisocial behaviour, especially in inner-city areas. After the issue was aired at the Holyrood Labour group meeting yesterday, Mr Muldoon told reporters that a refinement would be proposed by another MSP, so that off-sales could not open before 6am. However, the compromise lasted barely half an hour, before it became clear there would no refinement after all. It is understood that ministers have decided to stick with 3am to 10pm opening in a move intended to placate Labour MSPs with city seats."

Why on earth would an off-licence wish to open at 3am? Who would want to buy booze at that hour, other than those emerging from clubs (who have probably already had enough)? And why should the Scottish Parliament - and specifically the Labour Group - be going out of its way to facilitate boozing at 3am? Mysteries, mysteries, mysteries...

Mrs DD becomes a star

The Guardian reports the remarks of Mrs Doreen Davis on her husband:

"He will go for days without calling her, and when he is at home, at weekends, he spends all his time at one end of the house either on the phone or watching "a film with a lot of shooting in it", while she gets on with the ironing at the other end.
It is undeniably endearing to listen to a politician's wife say something other than, "Well, of course I'm standing by him" or, "Lonely? Me? Why no, I'm far too involved having a fantastic time dealing with the problems of our wonderful constituents."
Instead, Doreen tells the Daily Mail that David now sometimes sleeps in the spare room. "Life becomes a bit separate because you get used to doing your own thing. There was passion in our marriage to start with, but I suppose some of that goes after 32 years." She does admit that "he likes to have a cuddle - particularly now that he's away so much". All of which is very refreshing after Cherie Blair insisting she and Tony are at it five times a night.
Does Doreen get depressed? She says she throws the odd "wobbly", but mainly because "the hormones are wrong" (she has a degree in molecular biology, so I suppose she knows exactly which hormones those would be).
Doreen clearly lives the life of a practically abandoned wife, dumped in the country with an empty nest, while her husband gets on with the proper "man's business" of politics (something she's never been that interested in).
"He can be quite selfish and inconsiderate sometimes," says Doreen."

How unusual: someone not afraid to tell the truth and a politician's wife who seems, well, normal. While David Davis may not be the most considerate husband, he gets full marks for having married an honest sensible woman.

The curse of e-mails

The Times wonders at the number of e-mails:

"First my attention was caught by an article about the Gillette takeover. A US Government official had demanded access to all of Gillette’s corporate e-mails for the period in question. But he had been rebuffed by a judge, simply because his demand was ludicrous. Gillette’s staff, it seems, churn out no fewer than 14 million e-mails a month. Yes, 14 million. Assume that each takes just 25 seconds to write and five seconds to read and delete. My maths may not be as sharp as Gillette’s finest blades, but I reckon that still amounts to 1.4 million employee-hours a year.
Yet no sooner had I cranked my jaw back to its usual anchorage, an inch below my upper dentures, than I came across a yet-more-startling statistic. Tesco is now sending 20 million e-mails to its customers each month, making Gillette’s execs look like slouches in their bestowal of cyberspatial salutations. And then, because all bizarre things come in threes, my eye alighted on the e-mail statistic to cap them all. Bill Gates now receives so many e-mails — four million a day — that he employs a whole secretariat to fillet his in-box. (Connoisseurs of irony will be delighted to know that 95 per cent of its contents are spam-mail.)
Compared with that, the rest of humanity may seem to have escaped lightly. OK, we generate 50 billion e-mails a day. Yet that works out at only eight for every man, woman and child on the planet. "

"only eight" per head per day? Seems a lot to me...

Lord of the rings

Entertaining conceit reported in The Independent:

"In the Tory version of Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings, revealed to the New Statesman by a Cameron supporter, David Cameron is, naturally, cast as the hobbit Frodo, whose mission is to overthrow Sauron, ruler of Mordor, aka Gordon Brown.
Frodo is sent on his quest by the wizard Gandalf, a role given to the former shadow chancellor Oliver Letwin. Mr Letwin, like Mr Cameron, is an Old Etonian, but at 49 is 10 years older. He played a decisive role in persuading Mr Cameron to enter the leadership contest.
Frodo leaves the Shire with three hobbits. Two of them, Merry and Pippin, are happy-go-lucky, naive where evil forces are at work, but prove to be brave and loyal. Their roles go to Mr Cameron's campaign manager George Osborne, and the former Times journalist Michael Gove. The role of the bumbling but shrewd and loyal Samwise is given to Boris Johnson.
Another character who dominates the saga is Gollum, originally a hobbit but driven insane by his long, unfulfilled yearning to possess the ring of power - assigned to David Davis."

Malcolm Rifkind as Legolas? No, I don't think so. I like the idea of Gordon Brown as Sauron, but I suppose that would cast the backbench Labour MPs as orcs.

The definition of success

The New York Times does not actually state that Secretary of State Rice is living in a fantasy land but it does come close (here):

"MOSUL, Iraq,
Friday, Nov. 11 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise stop on Friday in this violent, Sunni-dominated city in northern Iraq , declaring that it had recently become a success story for the strategy of using Iraqi forces to quell the insurgency.
On her way to Mosul, a detour in her trip to the Middle East, Ms. Rice said she wanted to show that the American approach of "clear, hold and build" was working despite criticism at home that the Bush administration lacked a plan for success in Iraq and for the eventual withdrawal of American forces.
"We are working to better unify our political and military activities in the field," Ms. Rice said, citing the creation of three "provincial reconstruction teams," one in Mosul and two in other northern cities, Kirkuk and Hilla. In general, she said, the American objective was to "redefine the mission" toward more cooperation between military forces and the effort to rebuild the area."

So all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds: Mosul is a "success story". The article goes on:

"But the visit also reflected the delicate situation in Mosul as Ms. Rice - making her second trip to Iraq as secretary of state and her first trip to a Sunni-dominated area outside Baghdad - flew from Bahrain directly to a heavily fortified military base north of the Tigris River, surrounding an old palace of Saddam Hussein's on the city's northern outskirts. The area is now known as Camp Courage.
A month ago, four State Department security officers were killed in Mosul by a roadside bomb, and the city, Iraq's third largest, was not deemed safe enough for her to visit."

Some success story: the city is not safe enough for Dr Rice to visit. Instead, she goes to a fortified army base. If this is success, how do we define failure?

Council tax increases

Here is a classic case of the Scottish Executive putting itself under pressure, as reported in The Scotsman:

"Jack McConnell reiterated his message yesterday that there was "no need" for local authorities to raise council taxes above 2.5 per cent. But the councils immediately hit back, warning that the Executive had not given them enough money to fund frontline services.
Senior local government sources admitted that many councils would simply not be able to keep to Mr McConnell's inflation limit and would impose council tax rises well in excess of 2.5 per
cent next year.
"Councils do not believe it is possible to keep to this limit given the money that is being offered from the Executive," a senior council insider said.
Initial forecasts for council tax have already predicted an average rise of 4.6 per cent with some bills going up by as much as 7 per cent.
Ministers had hoped that the councils would scale down these estimates after negotiations with the Executive, but this has not happened and the local authorities are still preparing to go ahead with the inflation-busting rises...
During First Minister's questions yesterday, Mr McConnell made it clear that councils would have to take responsibility for any inflation-busting tax rises, and would not be supported by the Executive if they did so. Answering a question from the Scottish Socialists' Colin Fox, Mr McConnell said: "The reality is that, given the funding settlement agreed for local authorities next year, there is no need - unless local authorities decide to increase their expenditure - for local authorities to be increasing council tax by more than 2.5 per cent next year. That is a consistent position in my view backed by the facts and figures."

As the scare stories about big increases in council tax for next year continue, and as local authorities impose mounting pressure on MSPs, the Executive will inevitably climb down and produce some extra cash to moderate those increases. They will of course deny it, up until the moment when it happens. You read it first here.

Binge drinking in Sweden

According to The Guardian, European drinking habits are not always civilised; these creatures do not appear to be content with the occasional glass of wine (here):

"A drunken party of elks surrounded an old people's home in Sweden and had to be driven away by armed police, Sweden's media reported yesterday.
The elks attacked the home in the town of Östra Göinge, near Malmö, after devouring large numbers of fermented apples, the paper Dagens Nyheter said. Police with dogs had failed to scare them off, and the animals only ran away after hunters with guns arrived on the scene.
"It's not unusual for elks to get drunk," forester Fredrik Jönsson told the newspaper. "They don't recognise the difference between fermented and not fermented and stuff themselves down to the last apple." Mr Jönsson did not know how many apples the elks had eaten."

We get the occasional drunken animal in Scotland...

The Grim Reaper

The Office for National Statistics sets out male life expectancy rates for local authority areas:

Lowest life expectancy 2002-2004
Rank order/Local Authority/Years

432 Glasgow City 69.3
431 Inverclyde 70.3
430 West Dunbartonshire 70.7
429 Renfrewshire 71.8
428 Comhairle Eilean Siar 72.2
427 Manchester 72.3
426 North Lanarkshire 72.4
425 Dundee City 72.5
424 Blackpool 72.8
423 Liverpool 73.2

Some useful argumentation here for higher public spending in Scotland than elsewhere; or, alternatively, a comment on the appalling Scottish lifestyle.

Sex objects

The Independent reports on Mr Davis' troubles with the monstrous regiment:

"When David Davis paraded two young women wearing tight T-shirts bearing his slogan "it's DD for me" at the Tory party conference, not everyone was impressed by his modern brand of Conservatism.
So when Mr Davis faced the twin challenge yesterday of a slot on Radio 4's Woman's Hour and a speech to the Conservative Women's Organisation most assumed he'd be on his best behaviour.
But, far from impressing the women of the Tory party, Mr Davis, who appeared at both events with his rival David Cameron, merely compounded his image problem.
Asked by the Woman's Hour presenter Martha Kearney if they preferred blondes or brunettes, Mr Cameron tactfully refused to comment. Mr Davis however rushed in with "blondes" - a doubly unwise comment given that his wife, Doreen, has red hair.
Next, the pair were asked for their choice of underwear. Mr Cameron responded with boxer shorts, Mr Davis with briefs. For many women, enough said."

I'm not at all sure that Mr Davis gets it. Does nobody brief (sorry!) him in advance?

Schizophrenia

The Herald can't make up its mind about the new Hearts' coach. On the one hand, Graham Speirs is sympathetic:

"I hope I'm not the only one who is uneasy about the growing witchhunt over Graham Rix's arrival at Hearts. Talk about unstinting castigation before the guy has even had a chance? The hysteria around Rix over the past 48 hours has been absurd. I was going to say I have been amazed – though I shouldn't have been – at the Scottish football community's ability to be so judgemental and Pharisaic.
You'd think Rix was a paedophile from the way he has been treated. Let's get this straight. What Rix did in the under-age sex case in 1999 was wrong. He committed his crime and he paid for it. Indeed, not only did Rix pay for his offence in the penal sense, but his name became forever tarred, as we have already witnessed over these past two days. As usual, no-one is interested in the finer details of Rix's crime. In actual fact, that case in 1999 was a complex one, with the 15-year-old girl in question, who was already in a relationship with Rix, coming as perilously close as you can get to being a consenting adult.
Nonetheless, Rix's behaviour was to be deplored. I still maintain, though, that the new Hearts coach deserves sympathy. He is neither a paedophile nor a pervert, yet the lynch-mobs are already marching on various phone-ins and websites."

On the other hand, Joan McAlpine takes a rather more censorious position:

"Graham Rix says the full story of his crime has yet to be told. Only he knows the truth, he told the press this week. So, by implication, we should not judge him too harshly over the behaviour which sent him to jail for unlawful sex with an underage girl. We surely must question the extend of his penitence. A generation of porn-reared males may rally to him. They may assume he was seduced by some teenage temptress, a fantasy Lolita they dream may one day cross their own path. As one fan said on a Hearts chat room yesterday: "Who among us has never looked lustfully at a 15-year-old girl?" But Rix did not just look. His position, age and experience gave him a responsibility to exercise self-control, something he failed to do. There is a case for nderstanding when an 18-year-old boy or even a man in his early twenties finds himself in a relationship with a younger girl and one thing leads to another. Similarly, we all might feel a modicum of sympathy for a chap who is duped by a sophisticated young lady who pretends to be older than her years. None of this applies in Rix's case. Here we had a 41-year-old man abusing a child 26 years younger than himself. We should remember that, as well as unlawful sex, he was convicted of a separate offence of indecently assaulting the same girl. This suggests he forced her to do something against her will."

Oh dear, oh dear

The Herald reports Sir Christopher Meyer's comments on, of all people, Scotland's former First Minister:

"Henry McLeish, his amiably uncharismatic successor, was struck nearly dumb with shock when, to his astonishment (and mine, to be frank), a chance remark I had made to the White House led to an invitation to meet President Bush."As poor Henry twitched and stuttered in the Oval Office, George Bush, accompanied by the then national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, genially recounted his time in Scotland as a boy," writes Sir Christopher.But he recalls that even this simple hospitality based on shared Scottish connections had explosive consequences at Westminster.He says: "After McLeish's coup, the sound of spitting from envious Westminster politicians became audible. "It caused me all kinds of problems."There are few things harder to handle than a minister who expects access way above his or her grade."One threw a tantrum and cancelled her visit, because her demands for access could not be met."

Now who do you suppose could be this tantrum-throwing Minister? Scottish, female, Cabinet rank...perhaps now in Australia?

Goody-bag time

Today sees the resumption of the Highlands and Islands Convention. As usual on these occasions, the First Minister arrives bearing gifts, as the Executive's press release points out:

"A funding package of around £6 million had been agreed to create a new regional air hub in Oban and new licensed airfields on the islands of Coll and Colonsay.
First Minister Jack McConnell, at the Convention of the Highlands and Islands at Inverary today, said creating the new island airfields will mean islanders and tourists have an alternative to the existing ferry service - opening up the area to increased business and tourism.
The new air service will integrate with the existing scheduled air services between Tiree/Glasgow and allow the Argyll Island air network to link with the pan-Highland and national services.
The First Minister said: "Since the creation of the Highlands and Islands Development Board 40 years ago, this part of Scotland has been transformed. The economy is strong, tourism is booming and people are being attracted to live and to work here.
"Where once people were leaving their communities in search of jobs, they are now staying and helping their area to thrive.
"These new airports will make sure that this Highland Renaissance can continue. They will open up some of the most spectacular scenery in the world to more tourists. They will make sure that businesses can remain connected. And they will make sure that more and more people choose to make the Highlands and Islands their home. This is an exciting project that will bring benefits to all of Scotland."

The cost of £6.2 million will benefit the inhabitants of Coll and Colonsay. Coll has a population of 150, while Colonsay numbers about 100. The average cost of the airfield infrastructure (and this is the capital cost - there will be additional operating costs falling on the public purse) therefore amounts to about £25,000 per inhabitant. Does this make economic sense?

Ah, but what about the tourism potential? Well unfortunately, Coll does not even have a hotel, only some self-catering accommodation. Colonsay has a six bedroom hotel (as well as more self catering accommodation), but I rather doubt that this has the capacity to make a significant impact in terms of tourist numbers.

But never mind - who cares about economics when the Highlands and Islands Convention comes to town?