You would have thought Alex Salmond would have been positively salivating at the prospect of giving Gordon Brown a killer blow with an SNP win in Glasgow East.
NO FRENCH FANCY FOR POOR ALEX
So why has his party been bleating on about Labour calling an early poll in the middle of the Glasgow Fair break? Because of its undue haste? Because it is unfair to holidaying voters? Or is it because the First Min
ister was supposed to be in France on his own holiday this weekend instead of pressing the flesh in Parkhead? First lady Moira was particularly non-plussed, Drumlanrig hears.
CATHY TURNS LEFT
Potential Holyrood leadership candidate Cathy Jamieson is one of those Labour politicians who made the transformation from hardline lefty in opposition to pragmatic centrist in government. But now it looks like she's heading back to her roots. Drumlanrig hears that Glasgow MSP Bill Butler has been drafted in to recruit support for Wee Cathy after having agreed to back her bid. For the uninitiated, Butler comes from the Jurassic wing of the Labour Party. Leftwards ho!
LADY IN WAITING
It was thought that Andy Kerr was going to run for his party's leadership too, but it now appears that the former health secretary has decided to back out in favour of the company of his wife and three daughters. Labour insiders say they are not surprised, recalling the time when, prior to his ascent to political fame, Kerr would regularly let it be known that he liked nothing more than washing the dishes. Drumlanrig asks: if she runs her household so firmly, would Mrs Kerr herself not fancy her chances in John Smith House?
NO VACANCIES
With the Lib Dems also looking for a new Scottish leader, there has been much talk of all Holyrood's opposition being thrown into disarray by the dominant Salmond. This is what prompted the Scots Tories to erect a "No Vacancies" sign above the office of leader Annabel Goldie. Just in case anyone got the wrong idea.
CHEAP iPOD? I, RIGHT!
Never mind the gold-plated pension, just feel those hi-tech goodies. The Scottish Government have admitted that one of their number was given a super-swanky Apple iPod, bought with taxpayers' cash. The government insists that the gizmo was bought in order to help develop podcasts by ministers, but this was no ordinary iPod, it was a £200 30 Gigabyte super-stylish black model. Lesser humans might be expected to make do with a small cheap MP3 player. That's not good enough for civil servants it seems.
DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS
Another day, another scandal about personal data being lost. This time it involved the personal details of thousands of people and their bank account numbers and sort codes. Time, surely, for another thundering Daily Mail headline? Er, no. This time the details – lost when a laptop was stolen – were of contributors to Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mail. As yet, Drumlanrig has seen nothing in that august journal's pages to this effect.
The full article contains 509 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
