IT seems idiotic statements are all the rage these days - politically speaking.

Forget the frothing nonsense claiming the Thames would metaphorically run with blood if the SNP held the balance of power at Westminster. That's too off-the-scale to deserve a response. Best left ignored. Don't feed the trolls.

But the LibDems equating the SNP with the Front National in France? Likening it to the Tea Party - and even Ukip? That's clearly the last gasp of a party going under.

It also indicates how completely out of touch - or deliberately misleading - many Westminster politicians are being about political events in Scotland - and just how content they are to insult millions of Scottish voters.

The SNP is riding a progressive wave in Scotland. People have flocked to the party because it is where policies of equality and fairness are to be found. Where voices against austerity are to be found.

Playing dirty with the definition of nationalism is a cowardly, lying tactic - but given they are as good as done for, perhaps, dirty tricks and lies are all the LibDems have left.

And to throw the SNP into the same political mix as Ukip is frankly beyond disgraceful. Just look at what the anti-EU anti-immigration party is up to in Scotland.

It's easy to dismiss Ukip in Scotland. But don't. They are a toxic and disgusting brew.

David Coburn, the Glasgow-born antiques dealer who is now Ukip's Scottish MEP, is a shameful addition to this country's political landscape. His latest disgraceful act is to liken Humza Yousaf, the only Muslim minister in the Scottish government, to the convicted terrorist Abu Hamza.

That comment should be enough to make him as politically dead as the LibDems.

Until now he has been a clown, a joke. But even clowns can go to far.

Previously, he's said Alex Salmond would be "hanging from a lamp-post" if there had been a Yes vote last September in light of the oil price slump, or that same sex marriage is being imposed by "equality nazis".

There is a hefty back catalogue of such nonsense - and like many attention seekers and loudmouths, he took the rope he'd been given by the electorate and has now fashioned his own noose out of it.

His dreadful smear on Yousaf cannot be waved away as Ukip 'banter' - the crass defence of all racists and sexists these days - or 'just being David'.

It is racist, it is Islamophobic, it is wrong.

And it was certainly not, as Ukip's Scottish chairman (and Coburn's chief of staff in Brussels) claimed, "a slip of the tongue".

Farage, who has sacked errant MEPs before, should now expel Coburn too.

There is no place in Scotland or elsewhere for the caricaturing of Muslims as terrorists, and so there can be no place for Coburn in political life.

He has been tolerated until now as a fool, but as a bigot he has to go.

To avoid being pushed, he even has a last chance to satisfy his craving for an audience.

His speech need not be long.

"I resign" would suffice.

As for the LibDems, we can wait for election night to hear their last words. But their slurs will be remembered.