Alex Massie

Everyone agrees that cuts in public spending are necessary. Everyone also agrees that we could do with a better and more candid class of politician. And everyone should agree that we could do with better newspapers too. It's budget week here in Scotland and that means there's the chance to preview some of arguments that are going to be had at Westminster next year. So how does the Scottish Daily Mail report the SNP's budget? With the splash: CUTS AT HOME, CASH FOR AFRICA. How charming. Apparently As SNP budget paves way for savage cuts in housing, transport and education, Salmond finds extra millions for pet foreign aid projects. You have to read as far as the 21st paragraph to discover that the foreign aid budget will increase from £6m to a whopping £9m next year.

One last - barring any more developments! - post on the Megrahi Affair. Much of the commentary has presumed that there must be some grubby, even sinister, deal made. No-one denies that British industrial interests influenced the terms of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (though, again, that agreement was not, I understand, any different to those negotiated with other countries). But that doesn't quite mean there was some grubby, shady conspiracy or that, no matter what some people say, BP really stands for Blair Petroleum. And for all that big business, government and nasty foreign regimes are often wrapped together it's worth asking what might have happened if Megrahi had been tried, convicted and imprisoned in another jurisdiction. Like, say, France.

Angela Harbutt of Liberal Vision and Samizdata's Jonathan Pearce say much of what needs to be said about the British Medical Association's depressingly predictable demand that all alcohol advertising and sponsorship should be banned. Meanwhile, elsewhere, Simon Clark draws my attention to the next front in the endless War on Smoking. Apparently smoking should be banned from pub patios and other outdoor areas too. Seriously.  Mark my words, however, we'll be hearing more on this, no matter how daft it may initially seem. It continues to mystify me that organisations such as ASH are listened to as though they were some kind of independent umpire, while groups such as Forest are dismissed simply because they receive some funding from tobacco companies.

James says that the government is at odds with itself over the Megrahi Case. He cites these statements to support his argument that while either of these claims may be true, they cannot both be: David Miliband on the Today Programme on September 2nd: “We did not want him [Megrahi] to die in prison.” Ed Balls on the Today Programme on September 7th: “None of us wanted to see the release of al-Megrahi” On the face of it, James is correct. But only, I hazard, on the face of it. That is, the contradiction - or the seeming contradiction - may be explained as follows. 1. Miliband's line echoes that allegedly made by FCO Minister Bill Rammell. To wit, the government assured the Libyans that there was no desire to see Megrahi die in a Scottish jail. 2.

1st May 1930: Australian opening batsmen Bill Woodfull (1897 - 1965, left) and Archie Jackson (1909 - 1933) going out to bat against Worcester at Worcester. Photo: E. F. Corcoran/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images. The other day Patrick Kidd wrote a nice post on cricket and the outbreak of the Second World War, but, speaking of cricketing heartbreak, Saturday was the 100th anniversary of Archie Jackson's birth. Poor Jackson. We'll never know what might have been and, of course, it's that sense of if that lends his story its power. It's not quite right to say that Jackson's premature death was a tragedy since the rules of tragedy demand that the protagonist earns his downfall; Jackson, struck down by tuberculosis and dead at 23, was an innocent victim, dealt a rotten hand by fate.