HE came from Surrey with a thirst for knowledge, satisfied by PPE at Magdalen College.

That's where he, thought he'd be an MP. He knew that his Pa was loaded, he said, "In that case I'll have the local beverage, fish and chips."

SPAD said, "Fine."

And in 30 seconds time, he said, "I want to eat like Scottish people. I want to eat whatever the Scottish people eat. I want the votes of Scottish people, I want the votes of Scottish people like you."

What else could he do? Other than drink Irn Bru?

He was taken to a fish market. He didn't know why but he had to turn up somewhere, why not there? His SPAD said, "Pretend you've got no money."

He laughed and said, "Oh you're so funny." She said "Yeah? Well I can't see anyone else smiling in here."

Day three of his campaign and Jeremy Hunt has irritated the north already. A photo posted to Twitter shows the prime ministerial hopeful sitting in an oddly empty Heathrow departure gate waiting for a flight to Scotland with the words: "Just heading to Scotland for day three of campaign. Scotland wants a third runway for Heathrow and so do I!"

READ MORE: Irn-Bru and fish and chips: Jeremy Hunt bids to win over Scottish Tories 

Scotland collectively furrowed its brow. We... want a third runway? I mean, I can't speak for anyone I know because the topic of Heathrow's third runway has absolutely never come up in conversation with friends, not at the dinner table, not at the bar, never in the office. I may, of course, be in the minority of Scotland-dwellers who fail to prioritise money spent on infrastructure 400 miles away in London.

I am, though, certainly in the minority of people I know: I quite like connecting through Heathrow. I have never heard anyone Scottish ever express this preference - they quite emphatically try to avoid Heathrow, in fact.

Perhaps the Foreign Secretary has been reading the prophetic, but lesser known, words of the Bard ahead of his trip to Scotland: "Some hae flight but cannae skite, and some wad skite that want it. If only Heathrow had wan mare runway, we could, to Hunt, be thankit."

And then, his spectacular misread of voters' desires made public, Mr Hunt lands in Peterhead clutching a can of Irn Bru and a fish supper. The scene was obviously staged - there is no way in hell that fish supper would have been safe from swooping North Sea seagulls for more than mere moments. It begs the question, did Hunt have minions with Super Soakers warding off the birds?

It is the only explanation and one that bursts the myth of him as man of the deep fried dinner people. Yet it gets worse.

READ MORE: Union 'under greatest strain in living memory'

Who, one must ask, advises Westminster politicians that supping Irn Bru will give them an instant in to the Scottish populace?

Hunt, who said he would, "Protect the union with every drop of blood in my veins," during his visit, is pictured with a can of the fluorescent orange national drink having made mention of a Scottish great-aunt and childhood summers spent in Aberdeenshire.

"You can trust me," he's trying to say, with his can aloft, "I love Jockland. I'm just like you. Mmmm, tastes like girders." Actually, he described it as "very pleasant," damning with faint praise.

He's not the first. A can of Irn Bru has become a political barometer of cross-border desperation. Forget his weak line on Brexit, it was the beginning of the end for Jeremy Corbyn's relationship with Scotland when he was pictured smirking on a train with a bottle of Bru.

READ MORE: Irn-Bru will pay sugar tax on new energy drink 

SNP MP Deirdre Brock was quick to criticise his "silly grin" and tactless misstep.

Boris Johnson, too, has been foiled by a faked preference for Irn Bru. He was pictured in a stage-managed stunt enjoying the luminous elixir from a glass.

This was his Scottish downfall. No self-respecting Irn Bru drinker would decant it; it's straight from the bottle - or can, at a push - but a true Scot would never use a glass.

Irn Bru is no plaything, as surely any basic research from an advisor would find out. Whitehouse relations fell to a perilous low when Trump Turnberry banned Irn Bru for its deleterious effect on the resort's carpets.

"We can’t have it staining when to replace the ballroom carpet would be £500,000 alone," Turnberry’s general manager, Ralph Porciani, said. "We have villas here with Irn-Bru stains in the carpets which I can’t let.”

This is so obviously fake news as to be painful. Trump himself must leave far more orange smears around the place than any stains created by the tilting glasses of well refreshed guests - think orange soiled towels, bed linen, shirts. Maybe not shirts. Perhaps his fake tan begins at the neck and wrists, the rest of him as peely wally as his Scottish heritage would ensure. Let us not dwell too long upon this thought.

Give a Westminster politician an Irn Bru and he will magically assimilate, seems to be the thinking. The Scots will view him, can in hand, as a man of understanding. Sorry chaps.

Irn Bru gripped in the mitt of a Westminster politician with designs on the Scottish vote is nothing but a sign of the enormous disconnect between there and here. It's not a man with the common touch; it's a man reaching for the lowest common denominator and still missing.