Drumlanrig: Glenn Campbell | Alex Salmond

BBC Scotland’s Glenn Campbell set Nat chins wagging last week when he revealed that an anonymous former Labour MSP had told him they might consider voting “Yes” in next year’s referendum.

Alex Salmond. Picture: PA

One SNP blogger, Calum Cashley, went as far as to list every single member of the club – 44 in all – to try and figure out who it might be. Not former Strathkelvin and Bearsden member Brian Fitzpatrick (“I think he’d rather gouge his own eyes out with the clippings of his own toenails”). But he leaves the door open for one of Henry McLeish (above), Charlie Gordon or (improbably) Frank McAveety. The hunt is on.

An independent deterrent no more

ALEX Salmond set a hare running earlier this week when he told a Russian TV station of his vision for Britain’s nuclear deterrent. Once booted out of Faslane, post-independence, he suggested that the nuclear missiles themselves could be based in either North America or France. Given that this would, at a stroke, mean that the UK could no longer credibly describe its nuclear arsenal as independent, we have to ask whether the FM is now canvassing for the Moscow vote next year. 
Ex-KGB and Kremlin officials for Independence anyone?

Christine has had enough of the mice

The SNP’s Christine Grahame’s irritation grows over the fact that her campaign to get a parliamentary cat to rid Holyrood of its mice problem has fallen on deaf ears. Now she says she has three “squeally mice” in her office. Such is her affection for the vermin that she is threatening to robe them in ermine and is already calling them “the Lib Dems” after Lords David Steel, Jim Wallace and the recently enobled Jeremy Purvis.

Annabel will always be our national bird

Also elevated to the House of Lords was the former Tory leader Annabel Goldie, whose witticisms will now light up Upper Chamber. Drumlanrig recalls a campaign she launched at Holyrood for the Golden Eagle to be adopted as Scotland’s national bird. Addressing a parliamentary committee on her campaign, Goldie (right) opened by saying: “To avoid confusion, it’s the Golden Eagle we want as the national bird – not me!”