Readers' Best Comments

Salmond fails to win friends by saying Sky is the limit, while there's a few doubts over Princes Street's recovery

Alex Salmond is snubbing the BBC and ITV over his exclusion from the leaders' debates. He has no problem with Sky though. Our online team aren't impressed with our esteemed leader.

Sorry Alex you've got it the wrong way round, they are snubbing you.

Elethiomel, Edinburgh

Is Alex Salmond standing in the General Election? If my memory serves me right, I thought he was stepping down! Oh yes, he'll do anything for a sound bite.

TankEngine, Edinburgh

Salmond has been snubbed and now he is trying to turn it round so he is snubbing them. Spectacular failure. Why on earth he wants to take part in the debates with the major party players is beyond me. If we add up all the votes around the UK for each political party the SNP will be near the bottom! People simply aren't interested in the SNP being on a UK-wide debate.

Chirpy Council Worker

So what sort of deals and horse-trading will Sky benefit from an obvious payback arrangement from the SNP? Here we have a right-wing media group entertaining a leader shunned by regular 'neutral' broadcasters. Will Salmond sell his soul to the devil? Will Scotland's voters wake up to this latest example of SNP's "power at any price"? Have they finally demonstrated they would indeed shove their granny off the bus?

Front Street, Grange Court

This is utterly pathetic! You would expect such behaviour from a primary school child, not Scotland's First Minister. He is basically cutting off his nose to spite his face. Because the BBC and ITV refused to cave in to his ludicrous demands to take part in the PM debates he is now refusing to take part in the Scottish debates. The man is supposed to be an accomplished and rational politician!

Yeah1

Princes Street is on the road to recovery, our survey says. There are now only four empty shop units – there were seven 3 months ago.

A couple more tartan tat stores and a store that we would only ever go into during 4 months of the year is hardly a sign of redevelopment nor progress. Everyone is sick and tired of hearing all these masterplans for Princes Street and yet no-one has done anything to make it happen. All talk and no action. Sick of it

Angus Mcdonald, Edinburgh

"As well as our historic attractions, a lot of people visit Edinburgh to shop and we feel it is very important to have a strong retail offering". Surely we should have a quality retail offering to attract shoppers – tartan tat & shops found on high streets throughout the country are not the way to attract shoppers from outwith Edinburgh, or even from within Edinburgh.

Nitpicking, Edinburgh

There should be a world-class iconic tram merchandise store. I'm sure grateful Edinburghers would flock to pay over the odds for TIE-branded souvenirs and items of memorabilia, like "Trams coming in 2009" signs and unused sections of track.

Wullie Coyote

Places I'd like to open on Princes street: Apple store, some decent upmarket restaurants, assorted boutique shops. Places that need to be priced out of Princes street: Ann Summers, Tartan Tat, Mobile phone shops. That's my list.

Softly spoken mellow North Korean gentleman