Kate expectations
ABERDEENSHIRE Tory MP Andrew Bowie has featured regularly in Unspun for various gaffes, but had better press on Tuesday. In the morning he posted a picture of an ultrasound to announce he and partner Maddie were “ecstatic” at a baby Bowie on the way. Alas, after lunch, he was eclipsed by SNP Finance Secretary Kate Forbes announcing she too was due a joyous event. Nae luck, Andrew. What are the odds that if Maddie has twins, Kate will have triplets?
Baby talk
Talking of odd, Ms Forbes’s government-issued proclamation had a line only a politician could write. “My husband Ali and I are absolutely thrilled,” she said of the nipper. “I am equally pleased to be the first serving Cabinet Secretary to take maternity leave in Scotland which I hope sends a clear and strong message that holding a senior leadership role in the public eye should not be a barrier to starting a family.” Equally pleased? Sending a message about leadership is equal to the kick of a new life? That's politicians for you, folks.
Three men and a...
THE maternity leave gap turns the spotlight on Ms Forbes's three junior ministers, Richard Lochhead, Ivan McKee and Tom Arthur. Who will get to step up and audition for cabinet? Should be a good jostle. Though perhaps it should be about maverick Nat Kenny Gibson. Never a minister but smarter than most of them, he put in a barnstorming turn at Thursday’s budget debate, easily eclipsing his bosses. We especially liked his put down to LibDem Willie Rennie. “I'd rather take interventions from members of one of the two major parties,” he told him. Merciless.
Mister Bump
THE budget debate also saw MSPs congratulate Ms Forbes. The strangest effort was from Labour’s Paul Sweeney, who chose to remind her of the horrors of childbirth. “I'm sure that the experience will be even more frightening than the budget,” he said, before adding hastily “but that it will go very well”. He then somehow got worse with, “Labour will not support the budget today - I am sorry if that's not much of a baby shower gift”. Ah, MSPs. They think they’re just like us, you know.
Head cold
The debate prompted a bizarre press release from the LibDems about their leader, which included the line “Speaking in the chamber Mr Alex Cole-Hamilton said…” Well, up to a point. Mr Cole-Hamilton’s disembodied head did speak on an internet connection, but it said: “I am sorry that I am joining the Parliament remotely, having tested positive for Covid-19 this morning.”
Listen with Mother
MR Cole-Hamilton was more prominent in a Tuesday debate he held on BBC Funding, though other MSPs kept filling it up with reminiscences. Nat Jenni Minto “grew up watching Swap Shop and Grange Hill”. Tory Donald Cameron worked briefly for the BBC bureau in Washington DC after Uni. The SNP's Angus Robertson topped that with the brag: “I worked for the BBC for nearly a decade as its Vienna correspondent.” But Christine Grahame trumped them all with fond sepia memories of “gathering around the family wireless - that is the radio, to members - listening to Dan Dare and Life with the Lyons”. And when a tiny TV arrived in 1952, “we invited neighbours in to watch with the accompaniment of Shippam’s paste sandwiches and the luxury of a glass of lemonade.” Somehow Sarah Boyack’s praise for River City didn’t quite match it.
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