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AS A minority government, the SNP may struggle to work with other parties at Holyrood.

SHELVING THEIR PARTY ANIMOSITY FOR TESCO

But the same would not seem to apply outside the Scottish Parliamentary bubble. As this column reported last week, the former Tory spinner Michael Crow has joined former SNP MSP Andrew Wilson at RBS.

Yesterday, the Nats took this new spirit of co-operation even further when Stewart Stevenson, the SNP's transport minister, visited Tesco's distribution centre in Livingston to highlight the work that lorry drivers are doing to get Scotland moving during the harsh weather. Representing Tesco was none other than Tony McElroy, above, Labour's former chief spinner.

WRONG CLIMATE CHANGE FOR STEW

YOU'VE got to feel a bit sorry for Stewart Stevenson. The transport minister is also the SNP's man in charge of climate change.

But the need for him to sort out the weather chaos has meant that he's missed out on the environment summit in Cancun, Mexico. "Lucky" Jim Mather, the enterprise minister, has gone in his place.

While Stephenson shivers, the temperature in sunny Cancun last night was a pleasant 73 degrees Fahrenheit (22.7C).

WORTH DIGGING UP SIR JAMIE'S ANCESTOR

THE distinguished antecedents of ebullient Tory MSP Sir Jamie McGrigor, below, are of endless fascination to Drumlanrig. Some light reading on the subject of brutal mass murders revealed that the Burke and Hare anatomist Robert Knox was once quite chummy with a Sir James McGrigor, a famous Army surgeon during the Napoleonic Wars. Drumlanrig remembers Sir Jamie once revealing that one of his forbears was an eminent medical military man.

So was Robert Knox's surgeon friend a forebear of the Old Etonian Tory? If so, perhaps this extremely tenuous body snatching connection ought to be declared on Sir Jamie's parliamentary register of interests.

MSP RAISES A GLASS FOR LOVE OF ALCOHOL

SO MUCH for the SNP being keen to crack down on the booze. A rather dismal tale of a snow-bound retired doctor in Angus sending his saintly wife into a blizzard "to pick up the gin and red wine" was being recounted in Holyrood's White Heather Club.

Instead of being greeted with boos and hisses, the SNP MSP Christine Grahame was delighted by this unseasonal behaviour.

"He sounds just like the sort of doctor that I like," said Ms Grahame clutching her glass.