The Scottish press – contrasts between Scotland on Sunday and Sunday Herald

THE MILITARY/INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

The MOD gravy train, a money-making machine for civil servants and career politicians that functions as a vehicle of death for inadequately equipped servicemen and women, an arm of government that is apparently incompetent and not fit for purpose, yet one that displays superb competence at enriching the politicians who have held senior posts in defence - notably senior Scottish Labour politicians - who wind up with directorships and lucrative consultancies in arms-related industries, and the senior civil servants who spin gleefully through the door to similar appointments.

(If you doubt this, examine the biographies of former defence secretaries, defence ministers, senior MOD civil servants, former NATO officials, etc.)

The Fox/Werrity affair briefly and embarrassingly lifted the veil, a veil that was rapidly dropped again as the Establishment closed ranks.

Today, the Telegraph - Ministry of Defence civil servant awarded £86,000 bonus with the sub-header Ministry of Defence civil servants have been awarded £40 million in bonuses despite fierce criticism of the department.

Search in vain for this Telegraph story in the Scottish Press today – if they didn’t know about it, they should have. But it doesn’t quite fit with David Cameron extolling the virtues of the UK and defence …

The Sunday Herald and Scotland on Sunday provide interesting contrasts today.Here are two Sunday Herald stories - 'Lives at risk' from poor nuclear safety regimes at Trident bases on Clyde and Anger at LibDems over Devo secrecy ruling

Search in vain for them in Scotland on Sunday – they don’t quite fit the narrative of that increasingly sad paper, although maybe they have or will appear, buried away somewhere.

A 2009 view of the nuclear question - vitally relevant to May 5th election

I made these two videos almost two years ago, in April 2009. I think most of it is still relevant and pertinent to the present debate on nuclear power, and to the choice facing the Scottish electorate on May 5th.

My view are not only unchanged, they have been reinforced several times over the two intervening years.

The only effective way for Scots to say no to both nuclear weapons and nuclear power is to vote SNP on May 5th.

Only the SNP can deliver these twin objectives in the context ultimately of an independent Scotland. The Tories and the Labour Party are totally committed to nuclear power, to nuclear weapons, to Trident , to WMDs and to the policy of nuclear deterrence. The LibDems are now an irrelevancy in the political debate, stripped of their credibility, their values and their consciences by the ConLib Coalition.

Vote SNP