He is believed to have been forced out by MSPs who feared that his commitment to hitting the £195m budget target would diminish the quality of the building.The Holyrood Parliament, designed by the Catalan architect Enric Miralles and compared to “two upturned boats”, was commissioned by the former Scottish first minister Donald Dewar and originally budgeted at just £40m. That estimate rose to £109m in 1999 and was capped at £195m in April 2000.At First Minister’s questions in Edinburgh yesterday, the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, David McLetchie, accused Labour and Liberal Democrat MSPs of demanding “a blank cheque” and of mismanaging “a national folly which brings politics into disrepute and brings disgrace to this parliament”. He demanded to know “which budgets will have to be cut to pay for it”.Michael Russell, an SNP spokesman, described the new building as “a terrible epitaph for Scotland’s Parliament” and claimed that disputes over costs were “damaging devolution”.He said that “it would add insult to injury” if spending on education had to be reduced to pay for the building.Henry McLeish, the First Minister, told the Parliament that “the suggestion that any funds from education will be used … is simply untrue”, but other Labour spokesmen confirmed that funding would have to be found from within the existing executive budget.Mr Russell also demanded that ministers from the Scottish Executive take over responsibility for the project.John Home-Robertson MSP, the Labour convener of the cross-party Holyrood Project Group, admitted that it was impossible, even now, to put a limit on the completion cost.

“That would mean finishing the building and putting a cheap and nasty roof on it, ” he said.Speaking in support of the motion to permit additional expenditure, the Labour MSP Des McNulty claimed that the increased cost was the result of 16 per cent inflation in Edinburgh’s construction industry. He said: “I believe the building should be finished to the standard Scotland expects.”Before the debate, William Armstrong, a former manager of the project who resigned in 1998, said the building would still be completed no matter what it cost or how long it took.”If you can swallow that, you can get on with the job If not, you leave,” he added. “It is very sad because this should have been an icon for devolution, but it has become a bit of a Dome.”. Herbert Burden lied about his age to join the Army at 16. He escaped a massacre at Ypres, but was arrested, charged with desertion and shot He was 17 when he died. Herbert Burden lied about his age to join the Army at 16.

He escaped a massacre at Ypres, but was arrested, charged with desertion and shot. He was 17 when he died.
There were no survivors from Private Burden’s unit of the Northumberland Fusiliers to speak up for him at his court martial But yesterday there was recompense of sorts. A statue was unveiled in memory of him and the other British and Commonwealth soldiers executed by their own side during the First World War.The 10ft statue of a blindfolded teenage soldier tied to a stake, modelled on Private Burden, by the Birmingham-based artist Andy De Comyn, is at the National Memorial Arboretum, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire. Around him is a semi-circle of stakes with the names of 305 others who suffered the same fate. They are arranged in the style of a Greek theatre to stress the “tragedy” of what happened.

Most of those executed – or subjected to judicial murder, according to campaigners – were suffering from shell shock after months in the trenches. Many were of below-average intelligence and dismissed by officers as worthless.In many cases, even when senior officers recommended mercy, Field Marshal Haig, the commander-in-chief of the British forces, authorised executions. There was a prevailing feeling that examples needed to be made.Attempts to give posthumous pardons to those executed have failed after strong opposition from senior officers who believed it would demean the thousands of others who remained at their posts.David Childs, director of the memorial, denied that it was in any way “political”. He added: “Over 80 years of medical, psychological, psychiatric and sociological advances give us advantages over those who sat on the court martial boards.”The memorial asks us to recognise these deaths as another of the tragedies that warfare has brought about.”In 1997 Tony Blair’s government announced a plan for granting posthumous pardons after individual cases had been reviewed by the Ministry of Defence.They included: Pte James Archibald, 20, executed for going missing from his “bantam” unit of soldiers less than 5ft 3ins tall. He was not represented at his court martial; Lance Sergeant Joseph Stones, 25, who walked into an ambush in which his companion, a Lieutenant Mundy, was killed.