I’m distressed to learn that my dear friend, Murray Foote, has decided to step away from his role as chief executive of the SNP. Mr Foote and I go back a long way to the days when he starred for the Daily Record’s first XI football team competing in the informal Scottish newspaper league. 

I can pay him no higher compliment than to say that pound for pound he was probably the second-best Scottish newspaper footballer operating at that time (insert winking emoji here).

As I recall, Mr Foote was a rather cultured, left-sided midfielder who knew where the goals were. It’s my fervent hope that he doesn’t now become a lobbyist or a think-tanker. 

In Scotland, think tanks work hand in hand with lobbyists advising lumpen public sector executives and easily-swindled privateers how they can all work together to ensure that they all continue to work together. I suspect that Mr Foote, a wily, resourceful and likeable Dundonian will have no shortage of job offers in this absolutely sprawling and hoaching sector.  

There is big money to be had from the government and bored millionaires if you can organise a conference for the usual “stakeholders”, charge them a grand or so and give them a PowerPoint presentation about leadership and kindness.

Then you chuck in a seminar about artificial intelligence that will assure them their roles will always be protected from the robots and that only the shop-floor workers will be getting the bullet. 

There will be a workshop in the afternoon on the nimble use of pronouns in the workplace. A company specialising in pronoun discipline will be on hand to offer you a cut-price rate for an intensive two-week course on how to create workplace detention schemes and “truth palaces” for the purposes of chivvying reluctant employees to get a pronoun makeover. 

Afterwards, you will break into small groups and affirm each other with tales of pronoun trauma.

The reason why the schmucks are so easily parted from other people’s cash is because they like to be told they’re all geniuses and that the future of modern Scotland is in their hands. Then Roddy, Cameron or Gregor from the CabSec’s office will sidle up to you and tell you they’d love to catch up with you for brunch to discuss a cheeky wee non-exec role (£8k for two days a month) on a health or education quango.

Mr Foote, I beg you: please do not sully your reputation by falling for this mince. And if you secure a role at the John Smith Centre for bipartisan smugness and canapes, then you and I shall have words. 

Executive decision
Of course, Mr Foote’s resignation opens up an opportunity for a trough-full of the usual SNP losers to step into his shoes. Some very scary names have already been thrown about, including Ian Blackford (so long as it comes with a London townhouse).    

However, it also strikes me that I may be of some use to the SNP in the party chief executive role. And in this age of working from home and AI, surely I could combine it with my journalism job?

I’ve had many years studying what the party chief executive does and, without denigrating or diminishing the work of its last two incumbents, I feel I have the right attributes and experience with a great deal to spare. 

First up, my pronoun bona fides are in good order as my Twitter/X handle will confirm.

I’ve also worked out a pleasingly counter-intuitive way of selecting staff for the party’s permanent payroll and electoral candidates. 

This requires a process of sorting out the chaff from the detritus by ensuring that the wheat never makes it on to the shortlist.

Only those with no discernable talent should apply and preference will be given to those who earn less than £25k per annum in their current job. 

This permits economic leverage over them for the duration of their parliamentary careers and buys their eternal silence.

I’m also (if somewhat reluctantly) willing to cease having my suits handmade and to take advantage of the party’s frequent user account at Maison Matalan. 

My new calling
I’M also currently watching re-runs of The West Wing so that I can practise walking very quickly while getting Sophie and Torcuil “to sort out a pass for Kayleigh at VisitScotland”. I’ve timed myself walking 500 steps in a minute with a smartphone strapped to my ear. 

My first strategy workshop would be cheekily entitled: “50 Ways Not To Say Anything About Independence While Promoting Independence.”

The top three are: reviving our series of summer schools on Thinking About Independence But Only When The Time Is Right.

How to Stand Up For Scotland and blame everything on Westminster by repeatedly citing the child payment line. 

Make History Poverty: by showing how most people in Scotland were always really poor and that under the SNP they’re now only quite poor. It’s all about levels. 

Boxing clever
OBVIOUSLY, I’m too well aware of the financial challenges currently facing the SNP and so I’d like to encourage some “thinking outside the box” to address them. I’ll start. 

How about we all take strength from adversity? Once we get that campervan back from the pound we could organise a timeshare raffle. It’s pure dead simple. For maybe £100 a ticket members get entered into a raffle where you get the chance to win a week’s ownership of the campervan and take it on a wee hurl round Scotland. We’ll even throw in your luxury cutlery sets, your actual monochromed towelling, and your fancy stationery.   

I think also that elected members – both past and present – need to put their money where their mouth is. Many of them have second and third homes up that west coast. 

Wouldn’t it be brilliant if they let them out on a timeshare basis to boost party funds? Preference would be given to poor members who don’t even own a first home.