Legislation for the sake of it Mr Gray. All that leads to is permanent change - and that means people are unable to get on with what they're supposed to be doing. Of course, it's typical of New Labour to want to control everything we do.

I find it amazing that the Hootsmon keep praising up these New Labour Sleaze clowns.

Iain Gray is a complete idiot (see You Tube for details).

A dying paper bumming up a dying political party!!

Carry on, Iain. Your childish, negative scaremongering and personal attacks will continue to reap Labour the same rewards they have for the last 18 months.

Sorry Iain, you are never going to be anything other than a Puppet and Quisling of Westmonster I'm afraid, same as Dewar, McLeish and McFlannel afore ye. Alex and his team are a breath of fresh air and whets the appetite of most Scots for complete Independence.

Does no b*gger support this guy Gray? Not even his family? I hope for his sake he does not read this forum. He might do himself in. Or worse still, join the FibDums on their fence.

oh dear.....Gray & Tavish.......... independence is coming

#7 Ken - "oh dear.....Gray & Tavish"......and dinna forget Annabel

Independence is definitely coming.

In politics Iain Gray is just a silly little boy, who was reduced to a quivering, stuttering, stammering wreck by Gordon Brewer on newsnight Scotland a few weeks ago, can you just envisage what Mr.A.Salmond will do to him, first meal of the day comes to mind!!

Iain Gray makes a statement about the Scottish first minister who won the plaudits of the media and his peers when winning his awards as 'Best politician at Holyrood' AND 'Best parliamentarian in Westminster'!

Part of the comments Gray has made was:

"I do not mind humour in politics, nor political rough and tumble, but I do mind seeing the parliament Scotland was so proud of in 1999 treated this way; its legislative powers under-used, its scrutiny ignored and its stature diminished".

So Iain Gray is trying to tell the electorate that they made a BIG MISTAKE booting out New Labour and voting for the SNP and now our parliament is practically worthless, because of the complete shambles the SNP have made of everything, a total dogs breakfast!!

So, it is all very clear now, all the electorate has to do now to sort everything, is vote New Labour back in, SIMPLE!!

The man is an idiot!

oh yeah, it's in the bag - thank you - you roll over and play dead unionist idiots.
gawdon 'magie t' broon (the stalin now known as mr bean) who was 'born in north britain' & who's finest spoting moment was seeing s***land getting kicked out of the eucup & obviously hates us & the english hate him as pm - toom tabard idiot!
there's another one called iain gray who - is dull and un -charosmatic because he doesn't know what he wants - other than his wage!

#5 darien from panama - spot on - dewar(?) mcleish / mcconnel & now gray for puppet & quislings - (they're in league with the torries)
FREE SCOTLAND - ALBA GU BRATH

What Ian grey and the whole labour party fails to realise is that when they attack alex salmond the first minister they also attack (albeit indiretly) all the people who voted for him and will continue to vote for him.

Labour are not conivincing voters to switch from the snp with this kind of infantile behaviour but are in fact entrenching these voters views.

grey said
Kelvin Mackenzie insulted Scots on Question Time, our First Minister's response was to call him a "tube". For once I share the sentiment, but I regret the manner in which it was expressed.

really most of scotland thinks mackenzie is a tube as well at least alex says what he thinks unlike grey who is obviously thinking it but wont say it.

gray is a coward.

gray by name gray by nature.

Kerrless used the same thought process a few weeks ago. Why not confront the winner with his/her daily quotes as he/she line up for the chopping block under Alex Salmond? The North British media loves reporting their inane daily comments, without reminding them of their previous criminal records.

6 Darien wrote:

"Does no b*gger support this guy Gray? Not even his family? I hope for his sake he does not read this forum. He might do himself in."

I find your comments ironic - do you really think anyone reading YOUR contributions on here is likely to warm to your cause? On the contrary; I suspect even most nationalists would find the kind of comments on here off-putting, never mind those you need to convert to your cause to achieve indpependence.

To the extent that playground politics and bullying are hardly confined to Alex Salmond and the SNP, I think Iain Gray is skating on thin ice here, but his comments are certainly apt with regard to his hangers-on on these forums.

Thank you girning gray - you are now officially another asset to Independence!

The Scottish Parliament is powerless over defence, taxation, energy, international affairs, social security, pensions, etc. I could go on.
Today with the release of life expectancy figures for Lanzie and the east end og Glasgow we see just how powerless Scottish government has been.

With all the attacks coming from Gray and Tavish Shnot, it just shows in reality how much respect they have for Alex Salmond.

Labour keep coming out with "cuts" but forget to mention that at a time Scotland is subsidising the UK Treasury by £5 billion this year we received the poorest post devolution "block grant" settlement from London - a percentage that was less than Wales or Northern Ireland.

The architect of the Scotland Act, the respected Donald Dewar, is well remembered by the Scots.

Unfortunately, for Mr. Gray, he is no Donald Dewar!

FFS Gray what are you about you mumbling idiot.
Do really think anyone outside the dwindling liebour mob of selfseeking parasites gives a fick about your ranting slavering ,tic,tic, nonsence.
Sad little man.

Gray offers the electorate nothing to vote for, does he realy think he is going to win votes by attacking the very man the people voted for and continue to show support for? Is Ian Gray who is out of touch or the rest of Scotland?

This is the clearest sign yet of how utterly desperate the Labour party have become, they have nothing left in their magazine, and have resorted to chucking the spoons and empty boxes in an embarrasing attempt to stop the role to Independence.

Alex will do what he always does in this instance, stand back, stay quiet and let the Labour Unionists make total fools of themselves.....yet again!

Soar Alba

Facinating stuff, Scotsman.

When can we expect "Scotland's National Newspaper" to start publishing similar articles from the opposite perspective?

There's nothing wrong with a paper having a bias, but a paper that claims not to, yet knocks out the above on a regular basis, is both dishonest, and has no respect for its readership.

"Alex Salmond and I served in the first Scottish Parliament, passing laws that changed Scotland forever."

I did not know either of them were that old!

we don't need salmond for us to see that the parliament is toothless..we've just had 8 years of liblabs "we cannae do that" nonsense attitude to show us that its toothless.

Iain Gray has discussed how much he hates the SNP and in particular Alex Salmond, but he has not said a word about what sort of person he is and what he actually believes in.

Nobody will vote for a nonentity Mr. Gray.

Nobody will vote for a vacuous politician.

Nobody in Scotland will vote for a politician who clearly is controlled by London.

All Iain Gray has shown is that he is a small-bit player in a SNP-HATE-FEST orchestrated by London and played out in the pages of the Scotsman. It is neither convincing nor is it working.

Ian Grey just seems to be an idiot.

The whole point of labour setting up Calman was to give the Scottish parliament more power. Wendy labours last leader, wanted considerable more power for the scottish parliament particularly round the money the parliament raises and spends.

His own coalition parner, the lib dems consitutional position is set down by the steel commission, which advises considerable more power.

Even the tories are signed up to Calman.

Opinion polls in scotland show the people overwhelmingly want more powers for the scottish parliament (70/80%),as we can see how weak it is.

We can all see labour botched devolution.

Labour really need to stop attacking the opposition and actually have alternative solutions to problems.

My question to Grey would be: labour 10yrs in power in scotland failed to transform scotland poor economic growth rate, so that in a decent global economic climate that growth over the last decade has averaged 2.2% while the uk 2.8% and the group of small european countries known as the arc of prosperity have averaged 3.6%. Why did they fail? What have they learned from their failure? What would they do different now? Does the severely limited powers of the sp over economic matters not have a central relevence.

Labour whole problem is they are a party about spending money (other peoples) and not generating the wealth that creates that money. As such if you just have devolution of spending money they thing that is ok.

Johnston Press today said tumbling returns from the property and job markets had left its advertising revenues down 21% on a year ago.

The group, which publishes titles including The Scotsman and The Star in Sheffield, axed its half-year dividend as it told shareholders that advertising trends continued to deteriorate.

Reporting an 18% fall in profits for the six months to June 30, Johnston said advertising revenues declined 9.5% in the half year, even though digital revenues grew by 52.1%.

The poor state of the house market meant property print revenues fell by 17.8% over the six months, with the figure for June showing a decline of 33.1%.

Employment advertising also suffered a worsening trend, down by 10.4% in the six month period but off by 16.7% in the month of June.

It added that advertising revenues in the first seven weeks of its second half were down 21% on a year earlier. Shares were 5% lower following the update.

Chief executive Tim Bowdler said: "Advertising trends have continued to deteriorate over the course of the year and future performance will inevitably be linked to the economies of the UK and to a lesser extent that of the Republic of Ireland."

He said the company achieved a year-on-year cost reduction of £7.6 million in the first half. Johnston also raised £205 million after a rights issue and the sale of a 20% stake in the business to Malaysian investment firm Usaha Tegas.

Underlying pre-tax profits for the six months were £62.5 million against £76.3 million a year earlier. However, a £109 million write-down against the carrying value of its assets meant Johnston reported overall losses of £53.7 million.

Judging by Gray's attempt above, I take it that Liebour in Scotland still have nothing fresh to offer Scotland. Just more of its futile but colossally expensive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. More of its assaults on the least well off with its tax regimes. Just more of favouring its friends amongst the better off with its tax regimes. Just more of the acquisition of personal wealth accruable to its MP's and MSP's which comes via the expenses claims.

I suspect that Ian Gray will be the next leader of the Labour group in the Scottish Parliament.Sadly he has a lot of learning before he can emulate the skills of Alec Salmond.It is sad that he is unable to undserstand the difference between what a regional government with limited powers can achieve,and the autonomy enjoyed by a fully independant government.Ian should start to consider the reality of the gap between the Scottish electorates power and the aspirations of the Scottiah people.Otherwise,he is going nowhere,since he can deliver nothing.

Gray,s comments remind me of Inspector Fowler from 'The Thin Blue Line'

Whether he likes it or not, whether it is right or wrong does not matter, to succeed in politics today personality is more important than policies!

So it is Salmond 10 Gray 0

Salmond's personal character and appearance is easy to ridicule - its really his politics of seperation and division that is so abhorrant. Its a pity we don't know what Ian Grays politics are - not socialism that's for sure.

Yeah, yeah, Iain Gray beleives in Scotland so much that he is happy to see her sovereignty handed over to another country. Stroll on Iain.

I think that we should be ready to praise the Scotsman where and when it's due, i think it was very helpful of the Scotsman to tell us at the end of the article who Ian Grey is and what he is, no that anybody outside the Labour party or his family realy cares, but it was nice of them to tell us before he slips back into obscurity!

It really is quite breathtaking to encounter this attitude on the part of the Labour Party, which pulled out all the stops on the organ in its attempts to kill the devolution of political power to Scotland, till in the end the international authorities had to step in and force them to restore the Scottish Parliament with threat of international sanctions.

Further to #36 above, if Mr. Gray wants to deny the fact that Labour had no intention of restoring democracy in Scotland, he should take a look at the updated story of the Scotland-UN committee's action in the Council of Europe in Strasbourg that finally brought it about. Labour's treachery and betrayal of the Scottish people is now coming to light with a vengeance with the gradual release of the relevant papers of the Council of Europe that now prove the veracity of the Scotland-UN story as the only authentic account of how the restoration of the Scottish Parliament and Government came about. Take a look at:

http://www.realmofscotland.com/paper/

Only a referendum will tell us what the people of Scotland want. But I am sure that at the 2012 Olympics there will be a "Team Scotland".

LOL. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
What a desperate, desperate poor wee soul this Iain Gray is! I've never encountered such straw-snatching in all my life. It's pathetic and I know I really shouldn't be laughing, but I can't help it. Damn! My cheeks are hurting I'm laughing so much! This is surely one of the most pathetic attacks any politician has ever made! It's priceless - better than any cartoon I've seen in the last 10 years. This goes in my scrapbook of best laughs ever.

"Salmond's penchant for playground patois"

Right bignose, I'm going to ping your ears, slap your brew and flush your head down the bog.

A well thught out statment. Much of which i and others in my profession would agree with.

I'd like to the new Parliment used and put back to work, rather waiting and waiting. This is a great tool for Scotland, a tool which must be used, not left to rust.

Personally I cant wait for this eejit to be slapped down in debate in First Ministers Questions....... Roll on the new session