THERE was limitless cynicism around the SNP walk-out at PMQs. Apart from the discovery of a crib sheet telling Nat MPs to express “outrage/disappointment” over the government’s timetable for Brexit legislation, there was the suspiciously speedy 600-word press release that followed the mini exodus. Complete with quote from top Commons Nat Ian Blackford this was date-stamped a mere 11 minutes after the chamber rumpus. How spookily efficient.
THERE was also no shortage of metaphors deployed on walk-out Wednesday. Shortly afterwards an “out to lunch” was taped to SNP group rooms in the Commons. Mr Blackford was also likened to Bagpuss, because once Bagpuss walks out, all his friends walk out. However Unspun hears Tory MPs reminded the rotund Highlander of a different children’s TV show as he toddled off merrily towards the cameras, cruelly calling out “teletubby”.
JAW-dropper of the week award went to Scottish Labour leader and situationist prankster Richard Leonard for his opening gambit at FMQs. “Can the First Minister give us another word for a hummingbird’s beak?” is now the stuff of Holyrood legend. But not in a good way. Although colleagues almost kept a straight face, they were also left baffled and dismayed by the wacky approach. “Our MSPs were not impressed,” admitted one down-in-the-bill insider.
SNIGGERS at the Court of Session on Tuesday on the final day of the great £100,000 SNP defamation case involving warring factions in North Lanarkshire. The penultimate witness affirmed - solemnly, sincerely and truly declaring he would tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. After confirming his name, he was asked his age. “Eh, you want the truth?” he replied.
THIS week’s highly principled/job-hunting conversion to independence by former Daily Record editor Murray Foote reminds Unspun of the time he hacked off Annabel Goldie. Unhappy about a perceived lack of Unionist vigour in the paper in the run up to the 2014 referendum, the Tory peer and then MSP asked a flunky for the editor’s name. “Murray Foote? Well, Murray Foote is going to feel my boot,” she trilled in her best Lady Bracknell.
LABOUR MSP Neil Findlay has been twisting the knife in the SNP’s Growth Commission. After it emerged a chunk was lifted from a decade old study on New Zealand, he tabled a parliamentary question to one of its authors, universities minister Shirley-Anne Somerville, asking what she was doing about “the plagiarism of academic work”. Plagiarism “is a serious academic offence”, Ms Somerville tutted, an answer Mr Findlay rated an irony-laden “gem”.
SNP MP Stewart McDonald is moving his constituency office in Glasgow South. He has his eye on a former gift shop in Shawlands. He’s told friends that if the lease goes through he hopes to retain the old name, as “Box of Delights” is what every workplace should be.
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