COULD serial Tory candidate Iain McGill finally get to parliament? Amazingly, the Edinburgh stalwart has three chances in June. If he wins Edinburgh North & Leith, he’s into Westminster. If MSP Miles Briggs wins Edinburgh South West, he replaces him at Holyrood. And if MEP Ian Duncan wins Perth & North Perthshire, he could replace him in Brussels. The polls say the latter is possible. Only one snag, Mr McGill is a staunch Brexiteer who hates the place. Still, we suspect two years of fresh Belgian beer might soften his views.

KICKING of the week went to ex-RBS chair Ken Barclay at the Local Government Committee, as MSPs pointed out his flagship review of business rates was mince. By the end, he was burbling about how he would need to consider “the unintended consequences” of his work. Eh, hello? They’re “unintended”, Ken. When the convener wondered why no one wanted to ask more questions, Patrick Harvie miaowed: “We might just be underwhelmed.”

FRESH news on top Scottish Labour spindoctor Alan Roden. Despite despairing about his leadership, we hear Red Roddo fancies himself as a Corbyn whisperer, after getting the wayward leader to stick to a script. He was particularly chuffed when JC to signed off his press release ruling out any coalition with the SNP. Alas, just after he'd sent it to the media, Roddo saw he had spelled his boss’s name as “Kezia Dugale”.

LIBDEM Alex Cole-Hamilton has shared his life story with Holyrood magazine. Besides a wild youth of long hair, vegetarianism and “arch left-wing beliefs”, the MSP recalled his worst ever pain. “I dislocated my shoulder on a beach underneath a girl,” he said. “It wasn’t anything dodgy,” he insisted. “She rolled one way and I rolled the other.” Sounds like the Coalition.

ACH, as he is known, also said he would love to meet his ancestor Arthur Cole-Hamilton, the MP for Tyrone in 1780. History doesn’t record much about this earlier ACH, except that he “threw his glass” at a blind fiddler in Belfast for playing the wrong tune. Charming.

SNP jitters as more polls suggest a Tory rout of Nat MPs in the North East. Maybe Callum McCaig in Aberdeen South should use his family ties. A fascinating memo in the Margaret Thatcher archive shows his grandpa, the SNP MP Hamish Watt, secretly cosied up to the Tories in 1976. “Hamish Watt is of course an ex-Tory candidate,” reported a Tory whip. “I gained the impression he was anxious to come to some sort of working arrangement with us.” Perhaps young Callum could do the same to survive a challenge from Ross Thomson.

JUST what is going on with Kirklands Credit Union in Coatbridge West? The office has all but disappeared under a sea of posters plugging Labour council candidate Kevin Docherty. Funnily enough, Mr Docherty turns out to be a director. As our mole says: “People thought the credit union was for saving money, now it’s about saving Labour’s skin.”