After years of playing footsie across several oceans, Holyrood's hottest star, First Minister Alex Salmond, and his media mogul admirer Rupert Murdoch, have gone public with their relationship.

Friends of the A-list pair confirmed that the bromance blossomed in recent weeks after Rupert (107) sent toy-boy Alex a series of flirtatious tweets.

These were quickly reciprocated by the First Minister, with a one-to-one phone call and public letter of support for the launch of the Aussie tycoon's new fragrance. (Sunday newspaper surely? – Ed)

Yesterday they made their long awaited public appearance, smiling broadly for the gathered paparazzi. One onlooker was heard to comment: "They look so great together, like Waldorf and Statler from The Muppets."

The couple did not discuss the intimate details of their meeting but Mr Murdoch  mumbled about Four Weddings and a Funeral,  while the First Minister shyly confirmed: "He had me at 'you're the most brilliant politician in the UK.'"

Oh, alright, of course they didn't say any such thing, but it is certainly tempting to compare recent relations between the First Minister and Mr Murdoch to a whirlwind romance.

The two men have had contact in the past, but tongues have really been set wagging by Mr Murdoch's teasing tweets, the First Minister's follow-up phone call and, most of all, by the front page splash in the first Scottish edition of Murdoch's Sun on Sunday.  This "exclusive" trumpeted the date of the independence referendum in 2014 and was published alongside a letter from the First Minister welcoming the paper's launch.

The First Minister subsequently denied that a decision on the date of the referendum had been taken; which is reassuring given that the Scottish Government's consultation on the issue is still under way. (As yet there has been no clear explanation as to how a Scottish Government source came to be quoted in the piece saying that this date "was being lined up…" but let's not dwell on that for the moment.)

And now this meeting; a meeting which, we are told, concentrated on matters such as inward investment and which enabled the First Minister to assert his support for the work of the Leveson inquiry. So far, so appropriate.

And yet the timing of all this is surely rather difficult for the First Minister, coming on the day that James Murdoch made a defeated exit from News International (NI) and in the week that further revelations at the Leveson inquiry cast a long shadow over NI's UK operations.

It is difficult to overstate the seriousness of the allegations made about practices at The Sun and The News of the World. Of course the Leveson inquiry has heard evidence of other newspapers' involvement in unethical and illegal practices like blagging and phone hacking, but few could argue that, to date, The Sun and The News of the World have the dubious honour of leading the pack.

The SNP have had great electoral success on the basis of a broad left-of-centre appeal. Indeed, one of the key planks of the SNP's case for independence is that not being thirled to Westminster will let Scotland choose governments more in tune with our left-leaning national character.

But how does the progressive SNP agenda sit with pictures of a beaming First Minister side by side with Mr Murdoch? Not least how will it play with the party's own supporters?

If this is a fledgling political romance, the First Minister must also remember that Mr Murdoch has the reputation of being something of a player; a player whose interest in both Scotland and the SNP is likely to extend only as far as it coincides with the interests of NewsCorp.

Finally, if Leveson has taught us anything, it is the danger of public institutions becoming too close to the media whose job it is to scrutinise and hold them to account.

This inquiry is the best opportunity our political leaders have had in decades to free themselves from their self-imposed servitude to the media barons. But that will mean changing the habits of a lifetime and refusing to be wooed when powerful suitors come calling.