This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.

Okay, we get it, you can down a pint but can you govern with competence?

I was quite pleased to go to a photocall at a deli restaurant in the West End this week. It was for Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay to make his demands heard ahead of the Scottish Budget. 100% rates relief for pubs and restaurants and no tax rises. Seemed very appropriate to head there with such a call.

Then it happened.

Mr Findlay made his way to the keg. I rolled my eyes. 

Here we go again.

It was 11:25am. The pint was well-poured (clearly practiced) by the Tory leader and then gulped down. ‘Drinking on the job, oh great,’ I mumbled. Laughs followed as he joked that an early morning pint always ‘hits the spot’.

He’s not the only one. Pint pulling and downing is almost seen as a rite of passage for politicians. Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson have become notorious for their 'pint pics'.  John Swinney drank beer with Stephen Flynn before Scotland got hammered at the Euros. Football, pints and kilts. The holy trinity of a 'true Scotsman'.

I’ve also been to photocalls with Anas Sarwar and Keir Starmer where I’m forced to put up with them doing keepie uppies with collars loosened when I just want to ask them about politics. 

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It feels like every male politician wants to be the archetype of a lad and to be honest I just find it tiring, uncomfortable and time-consuming. Often, they engage the most with the male journalists when this is happening and, to be fair, my look of fatigue wouldn’t be encouraging to anyone.

I get that you want to look normal to voters, guys, but you would make a lot of women feel more comfortable if you just spoke honestly and took the macho gimmicks out of the equation.

I know plenty of women who like football and pints but the need to assert yourselves as a ‘guy’s guy’ during your working day where you gravitate to the men in the room makes us feel excluded. 

What I really care about is how you would run the country, what you can offer voters and whether you will stick by promises.

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I’m not someone who can't have a laugh. At Uni, I enjoyed when a friend challenged me to down a pint and I embarrassed him by drinking it in half the time it took him. But this isn’t on my CV and I don’t whip out a can of Tennent's as I question politicians or write my stories. 

You see, the thing is, I don’t feel the need to, I don't think it would help anyone and, to quote the Great Shania Twain, it don’t impress me much.

So, to any male politicians reading this, don't worry, your masculinity will still be intact with or without a pint in hand. What really matters is how impressive your political policies and actions are.