This week saw comings and goings....new Green Targets, a new speaker, more expenses with the BBC involved in a row...Alan Cochrane of the Daily Telegraph, Patrick Harvie Green Party MSP and Neil Baxter of the Royal Incorporation of Architects joined Lesley to dissect it all in Riddoch Questions.

As part of an investigation for BBC Radio Scotland, Lesley travelled to Norway to look at the provision of outdoor activity in nursery education for Norwegian children. The contrast with Scotland,as you can hear, is stark.

Lesley’s guests on Riddoch Questions this week are: Councillor Ewan Aitken, former leader of Edinburgh city council; Mark Perryman, editor of the book ‘Breaking up Britain: Four Nations after a Union’; and Christine Grahame MSP. They discussed the stories making the headlines this week, including the Calman Commission, the Digital Britain report, the de-selection of Labour MP Jim Devine and the SNP’s long-awaiting school building programme. Mike Russell, the Scottish Government's Culture Minister joins in to give a view of Calman.

Lesley’s guests on Riddoch Questions this week are: newly re-elected SNP MEP Alyn Smith; author, journalist and Tartan Army member Ian Black; and Tory MSP for North East Scotland Alex Johnstone. European elections, parliamentary reform and swine flu are amongst the subjects the panel mull over.

When former Labour Provost Michael Kelly, former Chairman of the Scottish Labour Party Bob Thomson and Independent journalist Bruce Anderson met Lesley on 5June 2009; there was only one subject hogging the headlines. The state of the Labour government with all its resignations, reshuffles and talk of voter rebellion. Recorded after the local English election results were known, but before the European election results were in; this is a fascinating Riddoch Questions. 

MPs' expenses and the current problems within the Church of Scotland over a gay priest are centre stage. It's a very lively programmes as the Tory blogger, the distinguished academic and environmental leader ( and Lib Dem ) all getting stuck in. Vintage Riddoch.

In this special Riddoch Questions recorded in front of an audience at Hillhead Library on 28 May 2009, Lesley chaired an old fashioned hustings meeting. The sponsors, Amnesty International and the Federation of Small Businesses put together a panel of all the main political parties seeking election in the forthcoming European elections. A packed audience posed all the questions and the result is recorded here in a slightly longer than usual format.

Recorded in front of a live audience at a conference organised by the Hansard Society of Scotland, the panel includes Bruce Crawford, MSP and Minister for Parliamentary Business; Iain Gray, MSP and Scottish Labour leader; Sir Tam Dalyell, former Labour MP and ‘Father of the House’ and Joyce McMillan, columnist and chair of the Hansard Society Scotland Working Group.

Derek Bateman stood in for Lesley and guess what ? MPs' expenses was the hot topic.

Joining Lesley on this week’s panel: from Iceland, Halla Tomasdottir, chairman of Audur Capital and the banker through whom Bjork is channelling funds to the Icelandic government. From Ireland, Paul Sweeney, economic advisor for the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and author of the book “Ireland’s Economic Success”; and the Scotsman’s business editor Peter Macmahon