the lowest bands of Council tax payers? I was very surprised at this rabbit out of the hat announcement. All the talk before had been about significant increases for Band D and above property owners.

I am very suspicious of this announcement. Have our local councils given Holyrood totals of the amount of council tax that would be raised under the original proposals? Is that figure going to be given to councils as part of their block grant?

Will there be significant increases in business rates?

This whole approach from Humza sounds very dodgy and I hope that local government will stand up for their constituents.

I watched an Aljazeera programme recently about democracy in the Middle East. The dictators like Saddam and Gaddafi were corrupt and surrounded themselves with people who were bribed with fabulous wealth to ensure that the dictatorship controlled the population.

Democracy was sold to these populations by the West, as a fairer way to run a country and they would be much better off if they changed to a democratic approach to running their countries.

It didn't work at all and new or perhaps even the same corrupt rich people carried on as before and the same poor people suffered.

Along comes religion and new leaders who make the same promises of a better world but this time the problem is a foreign power or different religion.