FMQ Analysis: Keep your champagne and canapés, tea and Tunnocks enough to impress media tycoon

THE answer to one of the less compelling questions of our time was revealed at First Minister’s Questions yesterday. Nonetheless it would have been of interest to the more obsessive observers of etiquette to learn what should be served up to an elderly Australian media mogul if one turns up on your doorstep.

If you are the First Minister of Scotland, the answer is keep it simple. No need to splash out on stovies or Dundee cake and certainly no need to take that bottle of Piat d’Or out of the fridge.

A cup of tea and a Tunnocks caramel wafer will do.

That is what Alex Salmond gave to Rupert Murdoch when the boss of News International met him at Bute House – an encounter that had the Labour benches in a state of apoplexy.

This week’s Salmond/Murdoch meeting was brought up by Johann Lamont when she questioned the closeness of the First Minister to the controversial tycoon at First Minister’s Questions yesterday.

But as Lamont recalled Salmond’s embarrassing attempts to woo Murdoch by offering him tickets to the theatre and sending him golf DVDs, the First Minister was already lining up his riposte. Predictably, Salmond rounded on Labour’s own close ties to the Murdoch empire by producing an account of the News International summer party.

To the slavish cheers of the SNP backbenches, Salmond recounted that David and Samantha Cameron were there “drinking Moët and Chandon champagne and eating oysters”.

Joining the Tory elite at this spectacular do were “the Labour leader Ed Miliband [more SNP cheers] and his shadow chancellor Ed Balls..”.

Minds couldn’t help wandering as Salmond painted a picture of entertainment on a truly lavish scale. Truth be told, the First Minister sounded a little irritated that he hadn’t been invited. One could almost taste the bubbles in the champagne as Salmond described Miliband and Balls “sheltering from the inclement weather in a giant canapé”.

Sheltering in a giant canapé? There must have been a magnificent spread. By now this observer was lost in an epicurean reverie and it took some time for the penny to drop. Salmond was, in fact, referring to a “giant canopy in the Orangery in Kensington”.

It was then that Salmond reassured MSPs there was no such fancy stuff when Murdoch came round to Bute House. “There were no oysters. All you get at Bute House is a cup of tea and a Tunnocks caramel wafer,”