Hamish Macdonell - New Year, old battles

MSPs gather back at Holyrood this week for the start of the new term.
This week's parliamentary business appears fairly routine but, hanging over everything is the row between the Scottish Government and the Treasury over the funding of the Forth Road Bridge.
John Swinney, the Finance Minister, is seeking urgent talks with Yvette Cooper, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, in an attempt to persuade her to give him some flexibility in how to pay for the bridge.
The initial signs for Mr Swinney are not good. Ms Cooper has already flatly rejected his plans to spread the payments over 20 years and she is unlikely to move any further, particularly as the two have already clashed publicly over the SNP's local income tax plans.
Mr Swinney may have to find room for compromise somewhere if he wants help from the Treasury, that's how business is done.
Otherwise he had better be prepared to fund the new bridge out of the Scottish Government's rather limited coffers.
There is though, a possible solution for Mr Swinney. The Calman Commission (a unionist plot, according to the Nats) is looking at the issue of government borrowing and may well recommend that the Scottish Government be given borrowing powers.
That would get Mr Swinney out of this Forth Bridge-sized hole but, to do so, he would have to back the Calman Commission and its findings - something no SNP minister has felt able to do so far.
But then again, tough choices, compromises and difficult decisions are what ministerial life is all about ...
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