Green and Whine

A BAD start to the week for SNP Westminster leader and massive Hibbee Ian Blackford, after he proved less than universally popular at a gala dinner for Easter Road legend Franck Sauzee in the capital. Despite styling himself as a humble crofter, the Skye MP is of course an Edinburgh-born banker. Our mole reports his speech was booed as it seemed to drag on into extra time, and he was laughed at and called a Tory. Outrageous! As regular readers know, Mr Blackford is not a Tory. He just accepted £6,000 in donations from a millionaire Tory pal. 

Failure to launch

STILL, better than the SNP campaign launch, which backfired before it even began. Continuing a depressingly familiar trend, the party excluded the media - choosing a venue barely big enough for Nicola Sturgeon and a dog. It then sighed numbers were “limited”, and picked just two broadcasters to cover it. It was all so cack-handed that the ‘media blackout’ became the story, with opposition parties crowing about the SNP leader fearing scrutiny. To cap it all, a punter came over at the end of the event, walked straight past the First Minister, and asked the BBC’s Andrew Kerr for a selfie. The Selfie Queen was reportedly not amused.

Murray Mince

THE bungled launch has swivelled the spotlight of doom onto the SNP’s media boss, former Daily Record editor Murray Foote. Hacks at Holyrood fondly remember Conrad Landin, the spindoctor to hapless ex-Labour leader Richard Leonard. As Mr Leonard’s crises mounted, Conrad’s nickname went from Hard to Bumpy and finally ‘Crash’ Landin. Does a similar descent await Murray, we wonder? He used to be On the Back Foote, then On the Wrong Foote, and now he’s Shot Himself in the Foote. Whatever happens, you can be sure we’ll follow his every step.

Dental case

Scottish Tory chief whip Stephen Kerr is still trying to live down his 15 minutes of fame at his party’s recent conference, when he had a dental malfunction in the middle of his speech. As if in a fever dream, he fiddled with, twiddled with, dropped and then had to recover from the stage a crown that had come loose in front of delegates. In case he was forgetting it, a Tory staffer sent an email to all party staff and MSPs on April Fools Day, signing it off “On behalf of the Teeth Whip”.

Murrell Collection

THE SNP has also been having a torrid time with a slew of stories about their council candidates saying mad, bad and dangerous things on social media. Dr Siobhan Tolland in Dundee called 9/11 an “inside job” and claimed to have driven to Edinburgh just to swear at the pope. Diane Tortolano in Stirling dismissed a first-hand account of racism in Scotland as a “load of s**t”. And Denis Dixon in Edinburgh likened Brexiteers to the Nazis. Nicola Sturgeon has now issued an email calling all her candidates “brilliant”. Ahem. Although, it is her hubby, SNP boss Peter Murrell, who’s meant to be overseeing the vetting, so she would say that.

Pigging out

Finally, a disturbed reader passes on a new Facebook post from former Glasgow Lord Provost Michael Kelly. “Scottish pig farmers say that the supply of pork is significantly reduced by the lack of boners which they attribute entirely to Brexit,” he wrote. It gives a whole new meaning to EU withdrawal...