DEBATE of the week was on the SNP Government’s woeful FoI record, when Tory Graham Simpson had the pleasure of telling Nat mega-bore Stewart Stevenson to “stop chuntering”. It earned him the world’s mildest rebuke from Deputy PO Linda Fabiani, suggesting she too had had enough. “I remind members they should always be polite, even when they revert to name calling,” she smiled.
GREEN Andy Wightman used the event to goad several landed Tories by reading out - for the sake of transparency, of course - how much they trousered in EU farm payments. Like the £320,000 which went to Peter Chapman's firm over three years. He twisted the knife by asking Mr Chapman if his latest payments had arrived on time. “You're a nasty piece of work,” he replied. As if to prove it, Mr Wightman duly posted the remark on Twitter.
MORE bitchiness on Radio 4 on Thursday in an interview with new SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford. His predecessor, Angus Robertson was famous for his self-regard. Asked how he’d be different, Mr Blackford said he greatly respected Angus, before adding: “My style is different. I’m very much a team person.” Ow! Watch those claws...
AFTER a cranky FMQs, Ms Sturgeon tried to leaven the mood with a gag at the expense of PO Ken Macintosh. Answering a question from new dad, she said he “some way to go to catch up with the PO on this front,” a reference to Ken’s award-winning loins, from which have sprung six young Macintoshes. He was not amused. “Am I in trouble?” she asked. Yes, but not that way. It was only a hard stare.
TALKING of babies, there was a blow this week for Provan MSP Ivan McKee, whose mission is “ending rough sleeping and getting reusable nappies more widely used”. (There’s a nappy factory in his seat.) Alas, new parents don't really fancy washing manky nappies, according to feedback on the government's baby boxes. The biggest demand was “removing the reusable nappies, viewed as ‘wasted’ items most parents would not use”. One mission down, one to go...
YET more embarrassment for Uddingston & Bellshill MSP Richard Lyle, after his daughter, ex-Nat councillor Marina Lyle, was censured for failing to declare she owned half dad’s house. Last year, Slick Dick insisted there was no problem as officials told Ms Lyle she didn’t have to register it. However a report to North Lanarkshire Council this week says ethics watchdogs were “unable to find any evidence” to support this. Ms Lyle had also “been invited to produce such evidence but had failed to do so”. Fancy that!
RED faces too at Second Reading, the blog of the Commons library. The lead article this week was “Women in the General Election 2017”. However it was illustrated by a picture of the 2015 intake, with SNP loser Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh front and centre.
HAS Nicola Sturgeon finally decided what to do on Indyref2? The FM held a rare evening meeting of MSPs on Wednesday to discuss the election result. It ranged from big picture stuff to moans about lousy leaflets. However our mole reports MSPs were still none the wiser about Ms Sturgeon’s referendum plans by the end of it.
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