The night pro-Palestinian protesters ambushed me

“Have you nothing to say? Have you nothing to say,” bellowed his chum. “Why won’t you speak to us?” Another chap was wearing his Palestine Action T-shirt which proclaimed he’d been arrested for supporting the cause. I’m not sure you should have your collar felt for this sort of thing, but I’d have definitely lifted his pal for his bad patter.

“I’ve read all your articles. You’re just part of the media elite and you think we’ve got nothing between our ears,” the chief flag-worrier shouted before delivering a belter. “I’ve got a first-class honours degree in Politics.” Admittedly, my Glasgow University degree’s still waiting for me to complete it. So, hats off to the big man.

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The camera phones soon emerged and I decide the best policy is to say nothing, smile and finish my cigarette. God love them, I’m thinking. This is proper old-fashioned politics in the raw and if you give it out, like I do, you need to take it back. And besides, they were harmless enough and never looked like breaching the boundary beyond which an executive intervention might have been required.

I’m in Edinburgh for STV’s Holyrood leaders’ debate to be held in this most hallowed of the Old Town’s holy places, a classical, 200-year-old architectural masterpiece. It’s the home of the four centuries-old Society of the Writers to His Majesty’s Signet, an anointed guild of lawyers who were entitled to determine who got to use the personal seals of the old Scottish kings.

This place is where the ideas and philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment were disseminated, modified and recorded. My man with the first-class Politics degree might even have got a turn in here.

That line, about his politics degree, by m’learned friend with the Palestine flag was the best of the night … until about an hour later when Malcolm Offord said “hold my Bollinger”.

After a rambling response to Ross Greer in which Reform’s Scottish subaltern talked about growing up at 33 Bank Street in Greenock and setting off to London with two grand in his sky-rocket and working hard and being successful, Mr Offord said: “Today, I own six houses, five cars and six boats.” Who does he think he is: Roz Foyer?

Later, John Swinney would tell us that he’d be taking delivery of a lot of shiny new ferries “later in the year”. Until then, could he not ask Cap’n Malky for a loan of his boats? You’re tempted to get all cynical and detached about these leaders' debates. To be fair though, last night’s wasn’t the worst. When the leaders emerge after it, all smiles and handshakes, there’s a shared sense of euphoria. No-one’s kidding themselves that they’ll ever make a dent in their projected numbers. The main object of the exercise is not to make a howling horse’s fundament of yourself and these men all avoided that, while making the odd smart thrust and parry.

The journalists all congregate in a separate chamber from where the debate takes place. This is called “the spin room”. Presumably, they call it so because of what happens not long before the debate finishes. This is when the spin doctors suddenly descend upon you like wraiths and you think of the shopkeeper in Mr Benn with his wee fez. “As if by magic, the shopkeeper appears.”

And then they proceed to drop their little beads of casuistry. “Wasn't that clever of us to source that New York Times article?” This, by a Lib-Dem PR man pleased about their man Alex Cole-Hamilton quoting a New York Times article which said that while Scotland’s islands were lovely to visit, good luck getting on and off them.

Then it is: I thought Russell had the measure of Swinney. Anas had Offord pinned down on tax and houses. Didn’t Ross play a blinder?

At first, you're left to wonder what good any of this can do. They're dealing with seasoned political journalists who can spot contrivance and artifice from 50 paces. But when some are in the midst of crafting 700 words for a 9pm deadline they’re at their most suggestible to these sly whispers.

The line-up in the spin-room features some of the kenspeckle titans of the print and broadcast trade. Learmonth of The Herald is here (of course) for whom I fetch some tea and sandwiches while he tries to spin gold out of straw.  Boothman of the Times, who always updates me on who’s hitting who is here too who tells me about a glorious incident that had occurred earlier in the day involving Mr Swinney.

The First Minister has always claimed to be a Hearts supporter and, facing a press huddle, is asked sweetly by Hutcheon of the Record if he can name his favourite team’s captain. He struggles, of course, because most of them do when they pretend to play the contrived Man of the People card. (It’s Lawrence Shankland, seeing as you’re asking).

Rona Dougall is reporting live from the Spin Room with Andrews of ITN Border and Lucy Dunn, the station’s brand new Westminster Correspondent. Ms Dougall tells me that she was married and had her reception in the Signet Library at a time when you could book these places for much less than the price of one of Cap’n Malky’s yachts, which seems to be the current going rate for weddings.

In the background, Colin Mackay is practising his intros which will be dropped in before the live action starts. He thinks this will be the leaders’ last big chance “to make a splash”.

None of them do, of course.

Mr Swinney is on the back foot for most of the night, frenziedly defending a record of prolonged failure by firing out sophistries about the NHS, Educational attainment, the ferries and Scotland’s drugs crisis. “We’ve taken action to stop it,” he says. He knows and we know that the problem has got worse on his party’ watch.   

Cap’n Malky claims that Scotland once led the world, though we know not in what. They each had their moments, though. Mr Sarwar once more reminded us that as a dentist in Paisley he’s the only party leader who’s been on the NHS frontline. He dismantles the SNP’s record on health easily. 

The Greens' Ross Greer is perhaps the most able of all the speakers: smart, fluent, polite and unruffled. He largely avoids most of the rammies when they talk over each other like rugby types trying to impress a wee princess at the bar. He’s good when he talks about dodgy landlords collecting rents for houses that aren't fit for purpose. Less so, when he inveighs obsessively about hurting Israel. Despite my occasional barbs in his direction he is nothing other than pleasant and engaging. He’s a class act, but I fear he’ll get chewed up and spat out by much less able and jealous actors in the Scottish Greens.

At this point, I’m getting texts from friends who’ve spotted me loitering in the background of the television pictures and telling me to smile a bit. And here’s me just trying to convey some pale and interesting energy.

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“When we come back after the break, we’ll do the cross-examination,” says Colin Mackay, STV’s laconic political editor and the best interviewer in the business. It’s a bold claim. He and Ms Dougall have handled this two-hour pantomime with their customary aplomb, but none of the opposition leaders have been able to make life uncomfortable for the First Minister.

There are no big ideas; no bold, fresh policies. Indeed, Mr Swinney scores what’s arguably the goal of the game, thanking Mr Cole-Hamilton for his support for the last two SNP budgets and inviting him to do so again.  And when Cap’n Malky and Russell Findlay cross swords it’s a bit like watching Blackbeard and Long John Silver arguing over who’s best at redistributing all the poppy.

The pre-match rumour was that Alex Cole-Hamilton had “a zinger” in store for Cap’n Malky, but it’s nothing more than a jibe about his being a Donald Trump fan-boy.

As the debate proceeds, the Lib-Dem leader comes increasingly to sound like a warm-up act for the SNP and you wondered if a future deal might have been struck. Thus, Mr Swinney could be in the happy position of selling off ministerial seats to the highest bidder between the Greens and Lib-Dems.

In a drab and lifeless Holyrood campaign, it might all come down to a seedy auction of ministerial limos. Cap’n Malky could help them with that too.