THE most popular event in Scottish politics yesterday was the inaugural Holyrood dog show, won by the SNP’s Emma Harper and Border Collie Maya. Judge Ruth Davidson brought her cocker spaniel Wilson. “Not named after Harold,” she insisted. It was fun for most, but not broadcasters, who were duty-bound to show MSPs of all parties for balance in the election. However no LibDem entered. Cue a scramble for archive footage of Willie Rennie doing things with animals. And as the infamous pig clip showed, that’s not always a good look. Meanwhile, the only thing the photographers seemed interested in was Nat Gillian Martin’s rescue greyhound - just as it cocked its leg against a jump.
TALKING of broadcasters, we hear BBC Scotland has a problem on its hands, or possibly feet. The politics unit wanted to use the main Pacific Quay studio for its election night show, but found to its dismay it was already booked for a Strictly Come Dancing spin off with Len Goodman. Insiders report something of a bureaucratic minuet is now underway to see who goes where.
WHEN his activists were knocking doors last Thursday, Willie Rennie sloped off to run in the Ochil Hills. “It helps me think,” he told Unspun. Running also made the SNP’s Aileen Campbell think twice. She spent election day limping around after it gave her a back injury. “Maybe I should do some yoga,” she muses. Ms Campbell is, you guessed it, the Minister for Sport.
EAST Renfrewshire hopeful Paul ‘Tory as F***’ Masterton (his words) seems to have wisely deleted a lot of his old Tweets, but Unspun still found some. Like his show of faith in Theresa May after she invoked Article 50: “Good statement. Please don’t f*** this up.” Charming!
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 here