REGULAR readers will be familiar with Fulton ‘No Show’ MacGregor, the SNP MSP for Coatbridge who became notorious in the election for repeatedly ducking debates.
He then arrived at Holyrood dressed like an extra from Brigadoon. But where can new readers learn about this political Colossus? Not Wikipedia. His exploits were all there last week. But then they were mysteriously deleted from his entry. Perhaps No Show should be renamed No Info?
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BESIDES the most names in parliament, Alexander James Amherst Burnett of Leys, the Tory MSP for Aberdeenshire West, also has the most companies.
One of which, Banchon Homes, evidently believes sex sells. Its current adverts feature a pouting beauty and a besotted bloke under the slogan "I don’t remember him… But I remember his apartment." Ah, what the SNP’s Stewart Hosie would give now for one of those amnesiac love nests...
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FOR the first time, MSPs will be allowed to use wi-fi in the debating chamber.
"You can tweet, but you can't play Candy Crush" declared new presiding officer Ken Macintosh, as he laid out the new ground rules.
But what about solitaire? It is a question the new Tory MSP Jeremy Balfour might be wise to clarify.
In a previous incarnation as an Edinburgh councillor, he found himself in hot water with local authority chiefs and was forced into a grovelling apology after being caught playing the card game on his publicly-funded iPad during a committee meeting.
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JOHN Mason, the re-elected MSP for Glasgow Shettleston, has started the new parliamentary term as he ended the last – by stirring things up on Twitter.
Challenged to disown anti-English and anti-British comments on the social media network, he equivocated. There "should not be anti-English comments," he declared, before adding: "But I am certainly anti-British".
Adding a smiley face symbol to his tweet did not prevent a slew of angry replies from affronted followers happy to identify themselves as British. Mr Mason’s forthright approach to social media did him no harm in the election. He increased a majority of less than 600 to one of more than 7000.
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IT'S back to school for left wing alliance RISE, following a humiliating performance at the Holyrood election in which it claimed just 0.5 per cent of the regional vote.
RISE, after even being beaten by Tommy Sheridan's Solidarity, have organised a 'political education network' which met for the first time on Thursday.
Among the topics under discussion was how to "more effectively engage and connect with those outside RISE."
How were they to know their previous strategy - haranguing McDonald's diners through a loud speaker about the virtues of a £10 minimum wage - wouldn't prove a vote winner?
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