Extra points for immigrants who live in Scotland

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8169285.stm

I'd be very surprised if this passed, unfortunately.  Very, very surprised.

But why not?  If you're going to award points for a variety of things, why not 'not being in the South East'?  Certainly the SNP will be fighting for something like this - Pete Wishart's been hammering home this issue whenever he's spoken in Parliament during the BCI debates.

I think the idea is to try and encourage people to live in parts of the UK that 'need' immigrants more. Scotland initially had the Fresh Talent visa (the Lab/Lib coalition got that one, btw), but that's been replaced by Tier 1 PSW which is for the whole UK. Scotland has been complaining for a while that its needs immigration-wise are quite different from England, but immigration policy seems to be based entirely on the tensions in some English cities and don't take into account the needs of other parts. As part of the points-based citizenship (which is wrong wrong wrong, but that's beside the point), I could definitely see this being implemented to try and populate parts of the country, and not just Scotland, which have a need for, say, certain professions or skills. Australia has something similar with doctors in the remote parts of the country getting fast track visas and such.