SERIAL animal botherer Willie Rennie has been up to his old tricks again. After turning on a pair of pigs, boxing a sheep and being upstaged by a llama in previous photo ops, the Scottish LibDem leader asked to pose with the UK’s first polar bear cub in 25 years. The excuse was making a point about climate change. However the Highland Wildlife Park said its prize cub was apolitical and it was a No. We suggest Willie tries to wrestle with junior’s mum instead.
THE socialist revolution seems to have bypassed Scottish Labour spin doctor Andrew Liddle. Unspun hears that, like any good comrade, he treated himself to a full lobster at the boutique White Horse seafood bar on the Royal Mile this week - twice in one day. Troughing for the many, not the few. What would Jeremy say? Luckily, ‘Two Lobsters’ Liddle appears to be keeping his options open. Next month he publishes a biography of Tory boss Ruth Davidson.
WHILE we’re on the subject of food, MSPs and staffers queued up for burgers and hotdogs at a Holyrood BBQ to mark the first sunny day of the year this week. But while most folk chowed down on Buccleuch estate beef, incurable LibDem Willie Rennie made do with salad. He also told hacks he's looking forward to a good long run during the party's conference in Aviemore this weekend. Someone, get the man a pint, for God's sake.
TALKING of which, one conference speaker yesterday praised the ability of MSP Liam McArthur to secure good press coverage for policing issues. He then added hastily it wasn’t just Liam, Alex Cole-Hamilton often appeared in the papers too. At which Mr Cole-Hamilton, who made headlines for a year with a police probe into his Holyrood election expenses, shouted ruefully from the audience: “Not for the right reasons!”
HEARTFELT speeches abounded as LibDemmers discussed puppy farming. But why hadn't thought of the cats? An amendment to the motion was quickly lodged replacing "puppy" with "pet", and "dog" with "cat or dog". "Thank you for that wonderfully earnest speech," the chair dryly noted after one particularly impassioned contribution, during which we were informed that animals are "living beings". Who knew?
NICOLA Sturgeon’s grilling by Holyrood’s committee conveners threw up its usual rag-bag of odd moments. For some reason, sea lice invariably feature in the round table quiz, and this week did not disappoint. But even weirder was Tory MSP Graham Simpson, chair of the delegated powers committee, revealing that Finance Secretary Derek Mackay had “become a bit of a pen friend to me”. Apparently they share a mutual fascination with council tax. Awww.
MR Simpson also heap praised on minister for parliamentary business Joe FitzPatrick for his recent flawless secondary legislation. He had even written a letter to him about it. Before the adulation could go to his head, the FM replied: “I’m sure Joe FitzPatrick will be delighted. It doesn’t mean he’s asking for a promotion. I should put on the public record he’s not getting one at this stage - at this stage, I don’t want to take all hope away from him.” Ouch.
Tory MP Dominic Grieve has updated his Commons register of members. The former Attorney General declared a recent visit to Ireland, twice claiming he was a guest of the “Centre for Cross Boarder Studies”. This may be related to a similar sounding think tank about border studies. However, when it comes to posh Tory MPs, it might equally be a think tank about unhappy Etonians having to live away from mater and pater.
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