Utter brinkmanship - or the perrish cooncil at its best

(Looking west for a change). Alex Salmond, the leader of the Scottish National Party and Scotland's First (ie Prime) Minister managed to get his budget passed, even though he has a minority government. For the opposition all I can say is 'wimps'!

He had threatened to resign and call a new election if his budget, the first of his period in office since last May, was not passed - and call a new election. Labour, in opposition, apparently had their own amendments, which were accepted, before the vote on the budget overall was taken. From which Labour, the Greens and some others abstained - getting the budget passed and keeping wee 'Eck in a job. (A vote on an amendment before a vote on the whole thing - is that quite the right sequence?).

Of course, what with oor Wendy (Alexander, leader of the Scottish Labour Party) having her own troubles over donations to her campaign (the prosecutor's office is looking at them), maybe Labour would not have been in a good shape to face an election.

Now we have (I don't, not living or paying taxes there) a budget which not only allows free traffic across the main firth bridges in Scotland (contributing nicely to global warming), but also vastly increases spending on health. Health spending has doubled since I was there (in 2000/2001).

But more than 4 weeks after having her back x-ray taken my friend is still waiting to hear what the x-ray said.