JIM Murphy's return to the fray for day 87 of his 100 days Irn Bru crate roadshow took place before a warmly appreciative audience in Edinburgh yesterday.
He said it himself: "This must be the warmest welcome a Glaswegian has ever had in Edinburgh."
His problem was that his warmly appreciative audience comprised mostly elderly Conservatives from the capital. The lack of counter-demonstrators produced a win-win response from Mr Murphy.
Last week, when he was heckled and egged by counter-demonstrators, he accused the Yes campaign of running organised mobs of sinister shock troops. Yesterday, when his event was unmolested and ignored by opponents he claimed this proved that his opponents had "turned the tap off."
The SNP countered: "All abuse is to be condemned, and the police have intervened in this affair, but not in the way Mr Murphy had hoped - it was to criticise 'intemperate, inflammatory and exaggerated' language which they warned was in danger of creating a 'self-fulfilling prophecy'.
"The reality is that the referendum is proving to be the most wonderful, invigorating political debate that Scotland has ever seen - people across Scotland are moving towards Yes in big numbers."
Yesterday's soap-box meeting was great fun, with satellite trucks and television crews, a big hitter from the Guardian up from London, the piper in the campaign tee-shirt and over-long kilt, and the man from the tabloid newspaper wearing the chicken suit.
But Mr Murphy was unfazed as he climbed on his crates, microphone in hand, to address one of the more unusual adoring audiences he will have encountered.
His schtick is a hymn of praise to Scotland, its scenery and inventiveness -- more a tea towel than a speech. A solitary heckler shouted something about everyone being deceived, but that was about it.
Mr Murphy brushed off suggestions that the Yes campaign was damaged by cross-party or other alliances. "David Cameron or Nigel Farage will be gone in 20 years, but independence is forever," he insisted, stressing that the Orange Order were not part of the official No campaign.
Had he had his suit cleaned since the egg attack? "As you know, I'm New Labour, so I have two suits," he riposted.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article