Vladimir Putin, enraged by the unstintingly brave rhetoric of the SNP’s Nato wing had obviously been planning this for some time. 

Did you not get a close look at the features of some of those cops who descended on the home of Peter Murrell and Nicola Sturgeon? Some of them looked more than a bit Russian to me. 

And don’t tell me that this could never happen. You need only recall the plot to kill Winston Churchill as described in Jack Higgins’s great war-time thriller, The Eagle Has Landed.

That was when a detachment of crack German special forces, led by Michael Caine, landed on the south coast of England, dressed up as British soldiers, and came within a whisker of slaying the Prime Minister.

Those Irish were also involved. Wouldn’t at all surprise me if the hidden hand of Erin was at work somewhere here too. 

Putin has obviously hollowed out the Scottish Government as well as the upper echelons of Scottish society. MI5 will work with anyone to bring down those whom they consider to be Britain’s real enemy: the SNP. 

Did you see those tweets by Roddy Dunlop, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates? He was demanding that people refrain from making any comment on the police searches at the homes of our First Minister and SNP party headquarters. 

It was all obviously part of a sophisticated and co-ordinated effort to ensure these disproportionate and over-the-top searches of the Murrells’ home could proceed unhindered.  

Some of us have had suspicions about Scotland’s legal establishment for quite some time. And it’s clear, too, that the Russians orchestrated the GRR shambles that helped fold this house of cards.

I wouldn’t even be surprised to see some of the SNP’s top brass sipping black tea on Red Square before hopping in to their Maserati Ghiblis to enjoy weekends with their mistresses at their Black Sea dachas.

Spin-off jobs

I note that our new First Minister is seeking the services of a new spin doctor. At this rate, I think Humza Yousaf could probably also do with the assistance of a spin orthopaedic consultant; a spin theatre nurse; and a spin undertaker. 

Why Mr Yousaf feels he needs to spend 90k on a press enforcer is a mystery. Several of my esteemed colleagues in the Scottish commentariat and the blogging fraternity have been acting as unpaid cheerleaders for the SNP establishment for quite some time.  

As we’re all family in the Scottish media, I offer this in a spirit of fraternal goodwill. Some of them might now consider pausing a little while to reflect on why they neglected to distance themselves from the glamour of power rather than acting as its mouthpiece.  

This also applies to some prominent operators in the independent television documentary sector.

Airy conditioning

A curious by-product of Nicola Sturgeon’s ruinous stewardship of the SNP and the Scottish Government has seen the emergence of a class of middle-aged, middle-class males some of us like to call “The Airy Bikers”.

They take to social media to flaunt their edginess, having spent their lives in garden centres and shopping for fleeces in outdoor clothing emporiums. They began to embrace transgender activism as the principal means of displaying their newly-discovered radicalism. 

It didn’t matter to them that real progressives such as feminists and lesbians were being subject to abuse and slander for objecting to the slow eradication of womanhood. What mattered was that, having done nothing more rebellious than purchase Fairtrade coffee products, they now appeared cool in their 50s and 60s.   

They can now be spotted gathering in little social media self-help groups trying delicately to unhitch their wagons from their lost leader’s caravan. 

Flying Scotsman

As a longstanding member of the mainstream press, it pains me to write this but it needs saying. At next year’s national press awards, the work of the Rev Stuart Campbell on Wings Over Scotland, inset, should be rewarded in the digital media categories.

He’s not everyone’s cup of Darjeeling, and, of course, we in the grown-up media would never use the sort of language he does, or turn people over to obtain a story. 

But for several years now, his revelations about the true nature of life inside the SNP and his predictions about the apocalypse now engulfing the party have been 100% spot-on.

Good journalistic practice includes the virtue of giving due credit to rival publications when following up their stories in your own organ. 

So, take a bow Wings Over Scotland and please continue to be a roaster, a banger, a weapon, and a rocket.