Wullie wrote:
How do you make a small fortune in Scotland, start with a big one and let Gordon Broon steal your money in taxes. That joke is for prissy '' George Alexander ''. A little rangers ned.

As someone who purports to be an advocate of independence '' George Alexander '' is indeed a phoney.

Samoyed wrote:
From The Sunday TimesMay 11, 2008 Grim news for Scotsman and The Herald Advertising revenues are falling at Scotland's two rival papers and more jobs are going. Can they survive on their own? (Steve Cox) In February The Scotsman’s advertising revenue was down 4.2%. John Penman Six years ago, Andrew Neil prompted outrage when he proposed a merger of the Edinburgh-based Scotsman with its Glasgow rival, The Herald. His rationale was that by combining operations such as advertising, printing and back office functions, while maintaining editorial independence, the titles could continue to thrive. Without the merger, he argued, they would wilt under increasing competition, not least from the Scottish editions of UK nationals. Neil, then running The Scotsman for its owners, the Barclay brothers, was deadly serious and the Barclays came close to persuading The Herald’s then owners, SMG, to sell, but the price and opposition from politicians and journalists — including at least one editor on the Herald titles — put paid to his plans. Although they were willing to pay a premium, the final asking price was too high for the Barclays, but not for Newsquest, the British arm of the US publishing giant Gannett, which won the auction by paying £216m. Within a few months, poor advertising returns meant Newsquest had to cut back, setting a budget freeze that foreshadowed at least two rounds of redundancies. Last week, The Herald again asked for volunteers for redundancy. It said it wants 20 more journalists to go out of a total of 40 job cuts across the company. According to sources at the paper, that would reduce the number of journalists to fewer than 100, two-thirds of the number employed when Newsquest took ownership. Johnston Press, which bought The Scotsman from the Barclays for £160m in 2005, will update the market this week and the expectation is of another tale of woe. In February, Johnston said that advertising was down 4.2%. In figures published last week, The Scotsman’s full-rate circulation has fallen to just under 45,000; its overall figure, including bulks, was just over 50,000, while The Herald’s full-rate figure was just under 64,000. Bulks brought its total up to just over 65,000. Maybe Neil’s merger plan does not look such a bad idea after all. In a documentary on BBC Radio Scotland later this week presented by John McGurk, Neil will suggest parallels with the catastrophic decline of the Clyde shipbuilding industry. That may be a bit dramatic, but what is clear is that the fall in circulation for Scotland’s quality daily press has been sharp. In January 2005, two years into Newsquest’s ownership, The Herald could boast an average sale of 80,700, while the Scotsman was in the mid 60,000s, so where have all the readers gone?

Peter Thomson wrote:
Magrat Currant and her bunch of weasel faced cowardly comrades should hang their heads in shame at their failure to support the return of funds from the Scottish block grant that Joke and his bunch of weaselly libdem and labpoorites should never have let Brownovitch away with in the first place. There is no surprise in yet another U turn from Labour in Scotland - all the integrity of a cow pat covered in icing. Its not so much not causing a dispute with Westminster, Magrat, as lying down face front with 'Welcome' tattooed on your back and requesting all folk cleaning their shoes on you to have at least half inch cleats in their soles. Labour in Scotland, the party that loves masochism. Brownovitch wants us to trust him on the economy when he balances the books by stealing money from grannies and the poorest then has to go off and borrow from his banker pals in the city when the UK as a whole tells him not this time! Worse still the economy he and his pals in the SE and the City mock is performing better than the rest of the UK for the first time in three hundred years. Mmmmm, wonder why that is?

BM wrote:
Trust the man who stole the pension money, sold the gold reserves, imposed mega taxes on fuel, let the banks get out of control with their greed and conspired in the bankrupting and illegal genocide in Iraq. Trust him ? Never! He has single handedly bankrupted the country through his sheer incompetence, so how can he be trusted to rescue it?

george alexander wrote:
COMMENTS BLACKOUT ON SCOTTISH POLITICAL ARTICLES CONTINUES. Casual readers of The Herald should be aware that readers are being prevented from making online comments on Scottish political articles. The Herald blackout also includes articles relating to Rangers football fans. This blackout is the second such from The Herald and follows a similar pattern to the first being that it coincided with the Labour party in apparent turmoil. There has been no explanation forthcoming from The Herald editorial team and we are therefore forced to conclude that online comments are not to the liking of those in authority.

Wullie wrote:
Here we have the twit '' George Alexander '' wittering on like an old sweetie wife . As someone who purports to be an advocate of independence '' George Alexander '' is indeed a phoney. Yesterday he was telling us he was a rangers fan. The most British, arch unionist, loyalist, union jack waving thing in Scotland. '' George '' probably goes to freemason meetings with Donald Findlay QC. Absolutely hilarious. Listen '' George '' most of us on the Herald forum are use to you squealing like a piglet, but the majority of people in Scotland are not use to it. When are you going to behave yourself ? Its hard work for me typing out all these comments, trying to keep you right . Do us all a favour and give us all peace.

george alexander wrote:
COMMENTS BLACKOUT ON SCOTTISH POLITICAL ARTICLES CONTINUES. Casual readers of The Herald should be aware that readers are being prevented from making online comments on Scottish political articles. The Herald blackout also includes articles relating to Rangers football fans. This blackout is the second such from The Herald and follows a similar pattern to the first being that it coincided with the Labour party in apparent turmoil. There has been no explanation forthcoming from The Herald editorial team and we are therefore forced to conclude that online comments are not to the liking of those in authority.

Luigi wrote:

Samoyed wrote: From The Sunday TimesMay 11, 2008 Grim news for Scotsman and The Herald Advertising revenues are falling at Scotland's two rival papers and more jobs are going. Can they survive on their own? (Steve Cox) In February The Scotsman’s advertising revenue was down 4.2%. John Penman Six years ago, Andrew Neil prompted outrage when he proposed a merger of the Edinburgh-based Scotsman with its Glasgow rival, The Herald. His rationale was that by combining operations such as advertising, printing and back office functions, while maintaining editorial independence, the titles could continue to thrive. Without the merger, he argued, they would wilt under increasing competition, not least from the Scottish editions of UK nationals. Neil, then running The Scotsman for its owners, the Barclay brothers, was deadly serious and the Barclays came close to persuading The Herald’s then owners, SMG, to sell, but the price and opposition from politicians and journalists — including at least one editor on the Herald titles — put paid to his plans. Although they were willing to pay a premium, the final asking price was too high for the Barclays, but not for Newsquest, the British arm of the US publishing giant Gannett, which won the auction by paying £216m. Within a few months, poor advertising returns meant Newsquest had to cut back, setting a budget freeze that foreshadowed at least two rounds of redundancies. Last week, The Herald again asked for volunteers for redundancy. It said it wants 20 more journalists to go out of a total of 40 job cuts across the company. According to sources at the paper, that would reduce the number of journalists to fewer than 100, two-thirds of the number employed when Newsquest took ownership. Johnston Press, which bought The Scotsman from the Barclays for £160m in 2005, will update the market this week and the expectation is of another tale of woe. In February, Johnston said that advertising was down 4.2%. In figures published last week, The Scotsman’s full-rate circulation has fallen to just under 45,000; its overall figure, including bulks, was just over 50,000, while The Herald’s full-rate figure was just under 64,000. Bulks brought its total up to just over 65,000. Maybe Neil’s merger plan does not look such a bad idea after all. In a documentary on BBC Radio Scotland later this week presented by John McGurk, Neil will suggest parallels with the catastrophic decline of the Clyde shipbuilding industry. That may be a bit dramatic, but what is clear is that the fall in circulation for Scotland’s quality daily press has been sharp. In January 2005, two years into Newsquest’s ownership, The Herald could boast an average sale of 80,700, while the Scotsman was in the mid 60,000s, so where have all the readers gone?

It gets worse, Samoyed, It was just announced on BBC Radio Scotland this morning that the Scottish councils are no longer going to use the national newspapers to advertise jobs etc. Apparently, they have a new website for that purpose. Estimated loss to Scotsman, Herald et al - will be about £6 million a year. GRIM. An american analyst who studies newspaper circulation patterns in the USA reckons the Herald and Scotsman will disappear within the next 10 years.