GOT a problem you just can’t fix? Something nagging inside? Then why not email God, now available via the SNP’s John Mason. The Shettleston MSP invited all Holyrood to a prayer breakfast this week. “If anyone has anything they would like us to pray for, please just send me an email,” he wrote. Our mole isn’t sure if it works, but frowns: “Try as I might, somehow these emails always get through my firewall.” Truly, the Lord moves in mysterious Spam.

ALSO acting mysteriously is Nat MSP Richard Lyle, who proudly backed the Give Me Five campaign at a stall in parliament. It wants £5 a week added to child benefit, an idea promoted by Labour and, er, resisted by the SNP. Lanarkshire Labour promptly tweeted a picture of Mr Lyle’s conversion, saying it hoped his colleagues would follow suit. A furious Mr Lyle then attacked Labour over its equal pay record. Ah, the spirit of Christmas cheer.

TORY fringe-magnet Ross Thomson is at it again, hanging out in a bizarre YouTube video with the Taxpayers’ Alliance. The right-wing group is currently fighting a tax that doesn’t even exist yet, the mythical “meat tax”. As Tory MPs scoff fry-ups in a greasy spoon, one declares: “I’m yet to find anybody who’s had major repercussion from a sausage.” At which Mr Thomson appears. He says he believes in consumer choice. Consumers should choose to ignore it.

A MASS Freudian slip on Thursday, as Labour, the SNP, LibDems and Greens issued a joint statement announcing they would all reject Theresa May’s Brexit deal in a looming Holyrood vote. Suggesting a thirst for explosive mayhem, the date was given as the 5th of November, not December. Labour also revealed another of its obsessions in a press release earlier in the week, getting awfully worked up over something called “Salmond Farming”.

THE current FM’s Bute House conference had its hiccups on Tuesday. ITV Border Pol Ed Peter MacMahon tried to get in a final question, only to discover his cameraman had retired to a corner and had to set up the shot again. “Hang on!” the bloke cried as Mr MacMahon was about to start. “Just talk amongst yourselves and accommodate Peter,” laughed the FM. “I do apologise, First Minister”, he quailed, sounding as if he was back in short trousers.

THE stampede by Tory MPs to sign a pledge card issued by the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation has revived sweaty memories for some. Besides the inconsistency - Tories demanding a pledge they say is already delivered - it has uncanny echoes of the LibDem vow on student tuition fees. Those Tory selfies may not look so clever in future. “I think they should have sought our advice on that first,” Willie Rennie sighed to Unspun.

HOLYROOD maverick Kenny Gibson was on classic form at local government committee. The man who first got the phrase “ba’ hair” into the Official Report, was clearly impressed by some of the evidence in a session about tackling fuel poverty. So impressed he declared he was "just going to put my feet up and have a spliff" because the witnesses had already answered his questions. We assume he was joking. Or wasted.