NOTHING shows how detached the SNP have become to the reality of people’s lives than how they responded to the announcement of a summer General Election. 

“Honest” John Swinney, who could contrive a grievance from a lottery win, said Rishi Sunak was disrespecting the Scottish people by naming July 4 as the date for the election. “Just say something about the Scottish school holidays, boss,” he seems to have been told by his kindergarten advisers. 

Mr Swinney said the decision to call the election for the start of the Scottish school holidays showed that Scots “will not have been given a moment’s thought”. 

Behave yourself, First Minister. 

Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s Westminster leader, seemed especially put out. Perhaps he’ll have to cancel his plans for summer boot camp in the Carpathians with former Spetsnaz hit-squad operatives.  

It’s just that, well … Nicola Sturgeon had previously suggested the October school holidays as a good time to have her imaginary second independence referendum. 

“Hell and damnation! We’ll need to rearrange our summer holiday plans now,” said not one Scottish parent when the General Election was announced. Isn’t this what postal votes are for? 

The SNP don’t give a Friar Tuck for the punters’ disrupted holiday plans. It’s their own holidays they’re worried about. 

What’s the point of purchasing a second home with the proceeds of your Holyrood-assisted mortgage scheme if you have to cancel your summer holidays at such short notice?   

More than 17 years of SNP government have left 250,000 children living in poverty in Scotland. The life expectancy gap between poor people and their affluent neighbours a few miles away is up to 20 years. 

Not many people can afford to jet off abroad for a summer holiday, Mr Swinney. And if they do manage to spare a few bob for a trip up the west coast they’ll need to factor in delays for ferry cancellations.  

The Herald:

Breaking point
THERE was a time, of course, when Scottish households were genuinely entitled to be aggrieved about English attitudes to our summer holiday choices. 

My own childhood memories were scarred by having to return to school in August not knowing what had happened to Robinson Crusoe, the hipster cokehead who had pitched up on a desert island after a sex party gone wrong on a luxury private yacht. 

The violent French children’s kidnap drama Belle and Sebastian would reach its denouement before the end of the English school holidays. But not the Scottish ones.

We would never know if the young protagonist in Hergé’s Adventures Of Tintin ever did conquer his teenage alcohol issues or escape the clutches of the Thompson Twins who we all knew were KGB operatives controlling a Soviet-era child kidnap ring. 

You were just getting into the adventures of Casey Jones when you had to get back to school. The stalwart but flawed American railroad engineer was immortalised in the Grateful Dead’s tribute: 

Driving that train
High on cocaine
Casey Jones you better
Watch your speed

The BBC’s insistence on planning its children’s television holiday viewing around the English schools’ curriculum left many of us carrying the emotional scars into adulthood. People have sought compensation for less. 

That’s what a real grievance looks like, Mr Swinney, not your summer holidays being spoiled.    

The Herald:   

Nat buying it
THE SNP’s fury at normal Scots’ holiday arrangements being disrupted by the UK General Election comes as a surprise to many of us. 

In recent years, we’ve come to realise that the Scottish Government thinks we’re all on the Dragon Soop and hitting the weans. 

And when we’re not doing that we’re deliberately jeopardising our health by shopping for frozen comestibles at Iceland, or contriving ways to be hateful to each other. Let’s speak frankly here: the SNP despise working-class Scottish people and take every opportunity to tell the rest of the world how hate-filled, prejudiced and ignorant they are. 

get angry when normal Scottish people insist on believing that real woman don’t have penises and that the jobs and housing crises are much more important than their climate emergency.  

Now they expect us to take them seriously when they pretend to be upset on our behalf. These people have no clue about the issues that affect the everyday lives of real people.  

John on the wane
HAS someone been slipping electric smarties into John Swinney’s porridge? I only ask because our new First Minister has been coming the hard man in recent weeks and getting all double wide. It doesn’t become him.

He’s like a kid getting a superman outfit for Christmas, believing it actually does come with magical powers. 

There he is defending Michael Matheson for trying to stiff the Scottish public for 11 grand on his iPad bill and then making absurd claims about the Holyrood Standards Committee.

And here he is looking like a cut-price Donald Trump. “I’m the most popular political party leader in Scotland.

That’s a huge advantage to the SNP, and we’re going to use it, we’re going to work hard in every constituency around the country, to make sure I’m visible and leading the campaign from the front. I’m dwarfing the people who ask me questions in Parliament on a weekly basis.”

In my experience, Scots tend to take a dim view of those exhibiting early signs of narcissism and developing a messiah complex. Mr Swinney removed Kevin Pringle, known as the best comms chief in Scottish politics, from his advisory executive this week. 

Few of us could have imagined that this foolish move would begin to unravel so quickly.