Cherry bye

CELEBRITY litigant Joanna Cherry QC recently admitted she’s not Nicola Sturgeon’s “best mate”, and boy does it show. Ms Cherry was one of three SNP MPs to join the FM on the campaign trail in Edinburgh North & Leith yesterday. After speaking, Ms Sturgeon hugged Deidre Brock first. “Good luck to you,” she said. She then hugged Tommy Sheppard: “Good luck to you, too.” And when Ms Cherry got her perfunctory embrace? Total silence. Unspun’s mole was right next to them. “It was so chilly it took me half an hour to defrost,” he reports.

Toecapped

ALSO feeling the FM’s froideur is Eva ‘Shoolander’ Bolander, the footwear loving former Lord Provost of Glasgow who quit on Thursday after charging the taxpayer £8000 for several wardrobes worth of civic finery, including 23 pairs of shoes. Ms Sturgeon recently called Ms Bolander an “excellent Lord Provost”. But after she left in disgrace, the FM downgraded her in a tweet to merely a “good Lord Provost”. Next stop “so-so”, followed by “Eva who?”

Also ran and ran

EDINBURGH North & Leith also boasts Scotland’s most optimistic candidate, Iain ‘Mad Dog’ McGill. The former postie has tried in vain to get into Westminster, Holyrood and Brussels at least a dozen times. The devoted Leaver is now standing again on December 12. “I’m starting to run out of toes,” he tells Unspun. “I ran out of fingers ages ago.”

Insta gaffe

SCOTTISH Labour’s press office didn’t waste any time in the election, beating all records to issue a correction on day one of the campaign. Announcing leader Richard Leonard would be out and about in Edinburgh , it said he’d be available “at 2pm this afternoon (Monday October 30)”. Just eight minutes later, journalists received a second email telling them it was, ahem, actually “Wednesday, October 30th”. Auspicious!

Silver sufferer

MR Leonard was in a street called John Paul Jones View, prompting him to go off topic and start wittering about the Led Zeppelin bassist of the same name. Candidate Gordon Munro also had a bit of a rock God look to him - sporting a striking pair of silver Dr Martens shoes. Not all were impressed, however. “Tsk tsk, the colour of second place,” noted one scribbler.

Pressganged

THE SNP press operation also got off to a rocky start when the party only invited broadcasters to its launch in Stirling, and pointedly omitted newspapers. The tactic, also used in 2017 to avoid pesky questions, prompted a wave of complaints. A grovelling apology said it wouldn’t happen again. “The First Minister is always happy to engage with the media,” SNP HQ said. We shall see.

Snapper happy

MEANWHILE, the Scottish Tories launched their campaign in Perth, with interim leader Jackson Carlaw grilled about Ruth Davidson’s disastrous foray into the second jobs market. A pertinent question for the Tory candidate in the seat, Councillor Angus Forbes. A self-employed photographer, he has weddings booked up to 2022. If he gets elected, he’ll still do the work. “These are almost all on Saturdays, so I would have to try and manage that,” he tells Unspun. But will the happy couples be able to stop him making a speech?