Alex Massie Alex Massie

Tory attacks on Alistair Darling show that WMD Unionism is MAD

I don’t really understand why politicians spend so much time talking to journalists. Most of the time little good can come from doing so. Of course, from a personal or professional perspective, this is fine and adds greatly to the gaiety of trade and nation. Nevertheless…

Take, for instance, the reports in today’s Financial Times and Daily Mail in which “senior” government sources stick their shivs into Alistair Darling. The leader of the Unionist campaign fighting next year’s referendum on Scottish independence is, we are informed, “comatose most of the time”. A different (I think) Downing Street figure complains that Darling is a “dreary figurehead”.

Meanwhile in the Mail, Gerri Peev finds another “senior parliamentary figure” who complains that Darling is “useless”. Perhaps he is but since the source then suggests Jeremy Hunt would be a useful weapon for Unionists to deploy we may safely conclude that this particular Tory is, to use the proper technical term, a fucking zoomer.

Guess the source is, of course, an entertaining parlour game. We may, I think, presume that the “senior parliamentary figure” is not a cabinet minister and not, on this showing, likely to be promoted.

The redoubtable Peev quotes a cabinet minister saying “We could be in real danger, we are not in any way complacent about this. The independence side have an easier sell.” There are, this source adds, suggestions that Gordon Brown will be hauled from his tent to play a part in the campaign: “We have to remember he is more popular in Scotland than he is in the rest of the country. But God help us if it takes Gordon to win the referendum.” The casual, familiar, reference to ‘Gordon’ rather than ‘Brown’ makes me wonder if this source is a Scot but perhaps it doesn’t really matter who it is.

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