NEWS of the week is that Scotland’s leading classical composer (and online Nat basher) Sir James MacMillan has written a piece in honour of right-wing columnist Stephen Daisley. Mr Daisley, you may recall, quit STV earlier this year after SNP MPs moaned about his output. What US audiences will make of the finer points of a Scottish media 'gagging row' is unclear, but it debuts next year in New York. Unspun stands ready to take a freebie for the opening.
FRESH news too on the “Frenchgate” saga that landed LibDem Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael in court accused of lying to voters to win his seat. Central to the affair was his special adviser, Euan Roddin, who leaked a damaging, but duff, account of the FM chatting to a French diplomat before the 2015 election. The indefatigable Mr Roddin is now the Adviser to the Secretary General at the Council of Europe. Tres bon!
ALSO enjoying a soft landing, we hear, is ex-East Renfrewshire MP Kirsten Oswald. When she defeated Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy in 2015, we were told she was an HR whizz. So doubtless she waltzed into a high power job after losing in June, right? Er, she’s back on the public payroll, working for Nat MP Patricia Gibson.
TALKING of old pals, Glasgow’s SNP council leader Susan Aitken has been in the news after her friend’s husband landed a plum post in her office. Ms Aitken, be it noted, vowed her new regime would spurn the cronyism of her Labour predecessors. However we hear the SNP’s city-wide election agent in May, Kirsty MacAlpine, has also got an adviser’s job in the leader’s office. Bad old Labour did exactly the same thing in 2012.
NICOLA Sturgeon devolution anniversary speech didn't go smoothly. Security sent the media to the wrong side of the building, then angry hacks were barred from the floor and left squinting from a distant balcony. And then there was her text, which read: “Whilst we have challenges in education - which we we determined to address - there have been improvements.” As any fule kno, always spell-check any menshun of edukashun.
THE FM has also had to correct the Official Report at Holyrood after a toe-curling blunder. An Edinburgh MSP asked her about a 10-year-old boy seriously injured by a motorbike in his constituency. Bad enough, you’d think, but Ms Sturgeon tried to kill the poor lad off. She twice referred to a “tragedy” and offered her “sincere condolences” to his family and friends. The tragedy has now been downgraded to an “incident” in the official record, and the FM is offering her “best wishes” to family and friends instead. Awkward.
A FUNNY choice of speakers at the Global Ethical Finance Forum in Edinburgh this week. Economy secretary Keith Brown was predictable, but Unspun was puzzled by a slot going to Nat Lord Provost Frank Ross. Councillor Ross is currently the subject of a complaint to Scotland’s ethics watchdog after forgetting - like you do - to declare he owned a Highland hotel in his register of interests. Perhaps he was informing the forum that ethics are old hat.
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