Seriously, is that all it takes? Astonishing to see that the LibDems and Labour have voted to support the SNP budget, and got so very little in return.

I had hoped that the price of buying the LibDems and Labour off would have cost more than the £11million extra that the Scottish Greens were asking for over the £20million that the SNP were offering. However, it seems that you can buy the entire Scottish LibDems for not much more than wishy washy commitments to participate in the Calman Commission and a toothless financial sector review.

What do the LibDems gain from this? After the tough stance Tavish took on the 2p tax cut issue in the first round of negotiations, what was he thinking when he decided to roll over for Alex in the 2nd round? I just don't get it at all. Unless Tavish has made a secret back room deal, it seems to me that the LibDems have just made themselves even more irrelevent to Scottish politics.

At least Labour got £7million quid out the SNP for more apprenticeships. However, given the number of MSPs they have £7million quid seems like very little - albeit that the SNP have made a commitment for a further £7million next year. It at least means that Labour can claim they got something tangible out of Swinney, and I've no doubt that the 'more apprenticeships' with Labour message will play well to the core vote. However, the £7million was won at the expense of the Greens.

The Greens may have lost this battle, but who'd have thought that Labour and the LibDems would be so easily bought? I don't blame Patrick Harvie for gambling that his proposals would always be cheaper to fund than the other opposition parties.

I still think that the Greens have the most coherent response to the credit crunch, and every single person who lives in fuel poverty, or in a hard to heat home, many of whom probably live in a 'traditional Labour voting area,' should reflect on whether £7million worth of extra apprenticeships is really all that voting Labour means, when voting Green could've meant that every single household in Scotland would benefit from housing that is cheaper to heat and better for the planet.  Not to mention the jobs - and training opportunities - that would have been created by funding the Greens proposals.

Still, the Greens may have lost the battle, but in a sense they won the war because they stuck to their principles. The SNP have shown themselves up as well, more fond of the roads and house building lobbies than doing anything green when the chips are down. If there is any silver lining from this whole sorry mess, at least there is now clear 'Green water' between the Greens and any other party that may try to steal their clothes.

The Scottish local tax discussions lurch on one step further with the recent admission from John Swinney that the SNP are considering some of the LibDems proposals for a Local Income Tax (LIT) that is set by local authorities.

Although regular AD readers will know that I'm a fan of a Land Value Tax (LVT) not LIT, it must be said that Labours description of the proposals as having 32 different rates, for each local authority, is disingenuous to say the least, and doesn't do them much credit really.

The SNP propose to cap the maximum tax at 3p in the pound, so there will in theory be 4 different rates between 0p and 3p. However, I doubt very much that any local authority is going to choose to go below the 3p cap, particularly as the SNP have effectively given the green light to the 3p rate as this was the level the SNP themselves proposed.

Realistically then, employers will be unfortunate if they have to cope with more than 2 different rates of LIT. But even if they do, they're already set up to make these deductions. Employers already deduct trade union dues, bike to work fees, pensions, national insurance, charity donations, student loan repayments and goodness know what else from peoples salaries. In fact, I think the proposals would cut some council costs and bureaucracy, as they wouldn't need to employ hundreds of people across the country to chase people for council tax.

To me, that aspect of the SNP/LIT plan is perfectly workable so all those parties who deride it as unworkable probably need to come up with a different way to fight it.

However, the SNP may decide to tax income from shares too. Now, this is a good thing, in principle, as one of my main concerns about the LIT is that it really will affect the middle classes and the poorest workers disproportionately. If you subsist from 'unearned income' from owning shares, than you won't have to pay much in the way of LIT, unless income from shares is included. However, policing this really is going to be tricky, and it will require a bureaucracy of some sort to make it happen. Even then, I think the LIT proposals if implemented will still spawn a whole rash of offshore, or maybe just English based, share based tax avoidance schemes.

If I was self-employed, or had a nice employer, what's to stop me paying myself the minimum wage in Scotland, and paying the rest of my salary as dividends to an English based family member, or trust or whatever it is that people do to avoid income tax as it is? One of the reasons I prefer a LVT is because you can't hide land in an offshore trust, or move it south of the border. Perhaps the opposition parties should therefore be critiquing the LIT supporters not for producing unworkable proposals, but for favouring unfair ones?

News that there's to be another Scottish By-election that Labour will have to defend can only up the pressure on Brown, and the Scottish Labour party. With the Lib-dems and Labour still without a leader in Scotland, it looks as though this one could be carried by the SNP's seemingly unstoppable momentum. Recent polls, that have been sliced , diced and seasoned well by other scottish bloggers, seem to indicate that after the Glasgow East earthquake, the SNP should easily be due another win. 

This said, I think there'll be some serious local factors here. Not least, local sympathy for John MacDougall MP who seems to have had more local support after a long battle with serious illness. And whilst I don't know enough about the local politics in Fife to comment, I'm convinced of the point that Ideas of Civilisation makes about the influence of local politics on voting habits.

In Glasgow East, the local Labour party was mired in allegations of sleaze, so they got what they deserved. However, in Fife the SNP/Libdems are in charge of the council. If they've been making cuts that seem to target Labour heartland areas, like the SNP/Libdem coalition in Edinbrugh seems to be doing then I wonder whether that may help to support the Labour vote in this byelection?

Sure, just like everywhere else there is likely to be a massive protest vote in Fife, and the 10,000 lead John MacDougall had over the SNP is going to shrink. Unlike in Glasgow East, the 'protest vote' against Labour is more likely to be split between the LibDems and the SNP, even if the the LibDems don't have a leader. The constituency is more diverse, and Fife has a stronger LibDem vote. If Labour can stand the pressue, put on another slick campaign without imploding completely (which lets face it - is a big if) then I wonder whether they could have more luck here than in Glasgow East? 

A cynic might argue that actually Fife politics is all about which party can build the most toll free bridges into the Kingdom, given that half the people who live there seem to work elsewhere - in Dundee, Edinburgh or even Glasgow. The SNPs track record on tolls and their determination to build a second Forth crossing, even if it's not actually needed might be a vote winner for them, and given the Greens opposition to both of those proposals, they could lose votes on the bridge issue.

Whatever happens it would seem that there'll be a silver lining for folk like me. A Labour hold would wipe the smug smile of David Millibands face. And Alex Salmonds for that matter. Both worth seeing.

On the other hand, another Labour lose to the SNP, would hasten Gordon Browns departure, and it might even strenghten the hand of the the McCabe/Aitken school of thought who think Scottish Labour needs more decentralisation to fight the SNP.  Most people can see that this would mean that Labour might actually function as an opposition, even if the current labour leadership candidates won't come right out and admit it.

Assuming the Scottish Greens stand in this election, I'm hoping that they'll at least keep their deposit this time around.

Anyway, enough idle speculation from me, I suspect this is Doctor Vee's constituency, so it'll be interesting to hear what he has to say.

I can't believe that Steven Purcell, the leader of Glasgow City Council actually said that 'a vote for the SNP is a vote for the Tories,' on Newsnight Scotland last night.

Doctor Vee is right. This is like watching the two biggest bullies in the playground fighting. No-one really likes either of them, but we keep watching to the bitter end anyway, as it's the only show in town.

It would have been nice if the BBC could have invited the Greens along to participate in the programme. Afterall, the Tories and the Libdems haven't a hope of winning whatsoever and they get invited on. In fact, the Greens have more local representation on the city council than the Tories and the same as the LibDems. So the BBC can hardly claim they are a fringe party.

It seemed somewhat ironic that the newsnight byelection set featured a green rosette in a prominent position and there was no-one there tor represent their views.

If they had been there, perhaps the level of debate might have risen above the 'ferrets in a sack' standard too?