IF at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

It could be etched onto the gravestone of Alex Cole-Hamilton, the new MSP for Edinburgh Western, who spent more than a decade racking up election defeat after election defeat before perseverance finally paid off.

At the LibDem victory party, held the day after the shock win in which he took his seat from the SNP, he floundered as he attempted to pop open a bottle of fizz, a prop for what was supposed to be a Formula One style victory photo-op.

"He's never won before - he doesn't know what to do," observed one fellow traveller, as the extended tussle between ACH and the cork continued.

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WHAT lessons can be gleaned from the Holyrood election for SNP candidate Danus Skene? For one, destroying one of only two phone boxes on a remote island with shoddy mobile reception is not a vote winning strategy.

Danus, an Old Etonian, wrote off the payphone in Whalsay after crashing his car into it while out canvassing, to the evident anger of his prospective constituents, one of whom then scrawled 'Vote SNP Out' across the mangled metal in red paint.

According to sources at the Shetland count, Danus, who last year came within a whisker of becoming an MP but was beaten comfortably in his bid for Holyrood, received just four per cent of the vote at Whalsay's only polling station.

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EDINBURGH Southern MSP Daniel Johnson, or "Future Labour leader Daniel Johnson" to give him his full title, has some interesting snaps on his website. Unspun liked the one of him goofing around in a Clement Attlee T-shirt, aping the great pipe-smoker’s moody pose. Pity about the Attlee quote underneath, mind you. "We shall be judged by what we achieve, not by what we attempt." Not really the sort of thing DJ’s colleagues need to hear after the election.

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HAVING saved the world during the financial crisis, the Union during the independence referendum, Gordon Brown has now set his sights on saving Britain's place in the EU.

The former premier was on good form at the LSE this week. Among all the serious points about Brexit not being British were some good jokes, including the one where Gordy was at an event with the saintly Nelson Mandela when the late great Amy Winehouse approached the former South African president and told him: "'Mr Mandela, my husband and you have a great deal in common.' Mandela's a bit stumped and he wonders well, oh. 'Yes, both of you have spent a long time in prison.'"

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THERE was one notable absence from a gathering of senior Leave campaigners in Edinburgh last week. Ukip MEP David Coburn was left off the invite list, while a far left campaigner for "Lexit" was welcomed by Tories with open arms. The Ukip Scotland leader, it seems, is viewed as pure poison by the Brexiters. "We’d rather have the communist than Coburn," shivered one.

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In 2011, the SNP’s Mark MacDonald was roused from his slumbers to hear he’d unexpectedly been elected a list MSP in the North East, in defiance of all the predictions. This year, Unspun hears, the honour goes to Lothians Tory Jeremy Balfour. He was phoned at 6:30am by fellow Edinburgh councillor Iain Whyte to hear the shock news that not only had Ruth Davidson been elected in the capital, but so had he.