JUST when he least expected it, fame has sought out former LibDem MSP Jeremy Purvis. Well, the sort of fame bestowed by late-night US satire, at any rate.
On Monday, JP cropped up on HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver to illustrate the absurdity of the House of Lords.
It was, said Oliver pointing at a mugshot of an ermine-clad Jezza, “a place with a member whose actual name is Lord Purvis of Tweed”.
Compounding his embarrassment, a couple of media reports about the show then misspelled his name as Lord Pervis.
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The Tory Advocate General Lord Keen and his Scotland Office sidekick Lord Dunlop recently gave evidence to the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee.
Mid-chunter, the division bell rang in the Lords, prompting SNP chair Pete Wishart to ask cheekily “if both of our noble Friends want to relieve themselves to vote?”
Lord Keen admitted he would like to go. “Just as we got you into full flow too, Lord Keen,” Wishart noted, continuing the theme.
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Sticking with peers, Baroness Goldie, the former Scots Tory leader, was subjected to the put-down of the week.
She tried to embarrass the SNP over its U-turn on tax credit cuts and Holyrood's new powers. (The moment when Alex Neil was likened to a pantomime dame, remember?)
Nicola Sturgeon was having none of it.
Reminding the chamber that Bella, as she used to be known, had voted for tax credit cuts in the House of Lords, she gave her both barrels.
"I have to say that I give Baroness Goldie 10 out of 10 for sheer brass neck. It will be a long time before I am prepared to take any lectures on tax credits in this chamber from Baroness Goldie," said a furious First Minister.
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