May-hem

THERESA May popped up on the campaign trail in Stirling on Monday, tramping sub-zero streets to defend Stephen ‘148-vote majority’ Kerr. At one house, a woman greeted her with a deafening cry of ‘On my God! It’s Theresa May at my door!” as if it were Dracula. Imagine her freak out if Mrs May had been gliding toward her through a field of wheat.

Family film

ALSO re-emerging from the ‘Where are they now?’ barrel is ex-Nat MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh. After being ousted by Perthshire voters in 2017, TAS has returned to her showbiz roots, producing a new Scottish-Pakistani movie, Sacch. Directed by her hubby Zulfikar, it’s billed as a “visual and musical extravaganza”, and features lots of love-struck folk gadding about a chilly Pollok Park. Luckily, Mr and Mrs Ahmed-Sheikh found the perfect star for their opus - their daughter Elysee, in her acting debut. Handy.

Poll peeve

STRANGE goings on in Coatbridge where a local museum held a Facebook election poll on Labour incumbent Hugh Gaffney and SNP challenger Steven Bonnar. One surprise in Mr Gaffney’s column was SNP councillor Tracy Carragher. Presumably a technical error and not at all related to her narrowly losing out on the SNP candidacy to Mr Bonnar...

Wuff justice

WE hear Mr Bonnar is also failing to win over the canine vote in Coatbridge. He recently suffered the classic candidate injury - a dog bite while pushing leaflets into letterboxes. Still, not as bad as one of his SNP colleagues in nextdoor Airdrie & Shotts. He lost the tip of a finger to a mutt while leafleting.

High five

NICOLA Sturgeon notched up her fifth year in the big chair at Bute House on Tuesday. After holding her cabinet that morning, deputy FM John Swinney led a round of applause, her spindoctor later told the media. “A standing ovation?” asked a grizzled hack. “A warm round of applause,” her spinner replied. “Oh, just warm, as in luke-warm?” said the scribbler. “It was positively scorching,” sighed the official. “Mmmm,” mused the undaunted reporter., “sounds Stalinist.”

Twitter tiff

THE Herald’s Politician of the Year awards featured some colourful acceptance speeches. Picking up the One to Watch gong, Green MSP Ross Greer quipped: “There you go - a Green gain. You probably won’t hear many of those next month.” Derek Mackay had a pop at his cabinet colleague Humza Yousaf, his rival for the Sturgeon throne. He revealed Humza had been bragging about being nominated for E-Politician of the year. “You’ve only got 20,000 Twitter followers, and I’ve got 80,000, he told me... Cheeky bastard.” We’re sure he was only kidding.

King in the North

GEOGRAPHY isn’t Drew Hendry’s strong point, it seems. The Inverness SNP candidate hastily deleted tweets this week after claiming to have been campaigning with an SNP colleague in Caithness, Sutherland & Wester Ross. Alas, there is no such seat. There is a Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross. But Wester Ross... isn’t that in Game of Thrones?