Drunlanrig

Snippets from the past week in the political sphere

Disorderly conduct of NHS reform, Sandy?

Joseph And His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is required for urgent interpretation in Edinburgh. At a talk last week, Alexander McCall Smith regaled an audience with a story of a dream he’d had that week. He was eating Ryvita. David Cameron came into the room. McCall Smith asked him to try Ryvita spread with Benecol. Cameron ate it and was promptly sick before giving McCall Smith an invitation to London carved on stone. What on earth? Perhaps, given McCall Smith’s background in medical ethics, his subconscious was trying to tell him something about Cameron’s NHS reforms.

Faslane families’ fast lane to Plymouth

All family break-ups end up with a negotiation over who gets the tea-towels and the china. So it is with Scotland and England. Opportunist Tory MP for Plymouth and Devonport Oliver Colvile last week put in an early bid for the four nuclear subs at Faslane which the SNP has made clear it doesn’t want if separation is confirmed. “Rest assured of this, Plymouth is ready to pick up the baton should the Scots … not want to have the nuclear deterrent or submarines,” he told a local blatt. Perhaps Faslane families should start hunting through its rooms-to-let pages.

A peel to Swinney to look in horse’s mouth

Opposition parties are stepping up the pressure on John Swinney over his Tesco Tax plan. The finance secretary plans to haul in £40 million a year from the supermarkets for having the temerity to serve booze and fags to customers.

To rub it in, he has so far declined to follow procedure by publishing a Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (Bria), that is, how many jobs it will cost.

Not required, he says. This has prompted Tory shadow Gavin Brown to raise some of the bills for which Brias have been deemed necessary. They include the never to be forgotten Seed Potatoes (Fees) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2011, and The African Horse Sickness (Scotland) Order 2012. Publish and be damned, John.

A Brad-ical change for the Gorbals

Margaret McCulloch, Labour MSP for Central Scotland, seems to have a bit of a thing for Brad Pitt. Last week in parliament, she was reminiscing about his visit to Glasgow last summer to make World War Z.

“When I was growing up in the Gorbals, it would have been pure fantasy to imagine Hollywood stars filming in our city, but it is now a reality,” she said with disbelief in her voice.

Presumably, the only shooting in the Gorbals back then had little to do with film-making.