AFTER the week he's had, the last thing Jim Murphy needed was an embarrassing photo to sum up his confused position over spending cuts.
It was something he narrowly avoided yesterday, when he prepared for TV interviews during a campaign event at a nursery in Cumbernauld - alongside a toy abacus and a child's calculator.
But Mr Murphy, who has been in the game a while, spotted the danger at the last minute. "Is this a set up?" he joked, as the unwelcome props were quickly jettisoned.
//
Reports come in of the Greens manifesto launch and a dearth of er, manifestos, in an attempt to be more environmentally friendly one presumes.
There was also a lack of microphones meaning that television viewers at home, and indeed many others, could not hear the tough questions from journalists being put to the party leaders.
//
Do the Liberal Democrats have the most accident-prone battle bus in politics?
Last week, it managed to squash an innocent pigeon that clearly did not see the bright yellow juggernaut coming as it wound its way through the streets of Dorset.
And yesterday, an electrical fault left it stranded on the streets of London as a result of an electrical fault, leaving passengers to abandon it for the Tube.
//
Who says the SNP is only interested in independence?
Eilidh Whiteford, candidate in Banff and Buchan, is campaigning on an issue that is closer to voters' hearts in Aberdeenshire, where separation was rejected by a margin of two to one.
She is highlighting the state of a phone box in the village of Pennan, made famous by the 1983 movie Local Hero.
"One of the biggest stars of the film is the red telephone box," she said. "It was therefore very disappointing to see it in the condition it was in, badly in need of a spruce-up and with the door propped-up against the wall having come off its hinges."
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