UNIONIST poshos Scotland in Union are a twitchy bunch, it seems. After one public body was asked for information about them under FoI, founder Alastair Cameron was desperate to know more. “I suspect this request is a 'fishing expedition' to try to find anything controversial about SIU's donations,” he wrote. “Are you able to let us know whether the FOI request comes from a journalist?” To its credit, the public body declined.
MR Cameron also has some big ideas about SIU’s future. Last year he wrote a report about a conversation in which he was asked if his two-lairds-and-a-hound outfit might step up if there was another referendum. “They asked if we would see ourselves as potential lead designated campaign if there was another indyref. I said potentially, if the parties didn’t form another BT [Better Together] and at the moment there isn’t any other organisation like us.” There certainly isn’t, old chap. There certainly isn’t.
HUMBUG of the week award goes to Richard Leonard. Forever attacking bad bosses in the private sector, the Scottish Labour leader seems oddly blind to shabby practices at home. Last month some of the senior team he inherited at Holyrood were deemed “interim” and their jobs advertised. After one applied for her post, she was told it would be advertised yet again because of a lack of suitable applicants. Unspun’s mole reports disgust in the party at what is seen as a cowardly tactic to sicken someone insufficiently Corbyn-mad into quitting.
MORE evidence at FMQs of frosty relations between Nicola Sturgeon and her predecessor. Discussing the Common Fisheries Policy, the FM recalled: “I think that it was back in 2004 that an SNP MP introduced a private member’s bill in the House of Commons to argue that we should come out of the CFP.” However for some reason she never spat out the person’s name. Who was it? Why, Moscow’s own Alex Salmond of course.
TALKING of liabilities, Glasgow Shettleston MSP John Mason is famous for online musings that generate bad headlines and migraines in SNP HQ. Unlike some, however, he is at least self-aware. Last week he waxed lyrical about public transport. “Apart from the obvious environmental benefits, using the bus or train lets me do many important things,” he revealed, “such as reading committee papers or engaging in profound conversations on Twitter.” We suspect the party will buy him a personal jet at the earliest opportunity.
WHAT a difference a week makes. A new public health strategy from the Scottish Tories calls for burger vans and fast food joints to be banished from near schools. It must have come as a surprise to the party’s health spokesman Miles Briggs. Just six days before the blueprint was launched, he was slammed for attending the reopening of a McDonald's in Edinburgh… just a short walk from the local primary school.
DEPUTY Presiding Officer Christine Grahame is never far from an outburst, but even we didn’t expect two in a local tax debate. After Labour’s James Kelly held up a 2007 SNP pledge to scrap the council tax, she cut him off sharp. “You know how I feel about props,” she snapped. Greens Patrick Harvie and Andy Wightman should have taken note. When they held up copies of their party’s tax plan, she pounced “I have had enough of props, even if they are Green,” she growled at them. “Do not hold things up!” Next time, the belt...
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