Exclusive:Election Diary: Sensitive Swinney, and sunshine on [redacted]

Wednesday saw the Scottish party leaders take part in a special live edition of the Holyrood Sources podcast at a venue within Easter Road stadium. Unfortunately, Hibs decided they didn’t want to have anything to do with it - or, perhaps more accurately, with interviewee Malcolm Offord, Reform UK’s leader in Scotland - so the hosts were told not to mention where it was taking place and blinds were pulled over the windows to block the view over the pitch. “I’m happy to tell you there is no political affiliation between any political party and this unnameable football stadium or this unnameable football club or indeed this unnameable podcast,” host Calum Macdonald told the audience. His colleague Geoff Aberdein was less subtle. “We shouldn’t break that rule, but if you look outside you won’t be able to see that there’s no sunshine on Leith.”

Grin and bear it

Mr Offord was asked about his party’s, er, rocky start to the election campaign, which has seen it lose a series of candidates and even its Scottish press officer, Amanda Crawford, who quit citing concerns she wasn’t being allowed to do her job properly. Is the beleaguered Reform leader going to have any team left by polling day? “Ha ha, good question,” he replied. There was a world of pain in that short laugh.

Not bunny

Earlier in the week, Mr Offord got a rough time from the other candidates at The Scotsman / Scotland 2050 hustings on Tuesday evening. “Well thank you for that,” he said, following a string of attacks from his opponents. “That’s a reasonable barrage. But that’s OK, I’m getting used to it, I’m learning this game as I go along.” Martin Whitfield, the mild-mannered Labour MSP, even cracked out the old ‘bunny ears’ prank at Mr Offord’s expense during the group photo at the end. Will the indignity never end?

Sensitive Swinney

Is the power going to John Swinney’s head? Since time immemorial, print hacks have listened in while broadcasters are interviewing politicians at events, before they are then given time to ask questions themselves. This is to avoid duplicating what has already been covered. But during a visit to Leith Docks on Thursday, the First Minister’s press team tried - and failed - to block newspaper reporters from doing just that, on the pretence that they didn’t want Mr Swinney to feel crowded. God forbid! How awful for him. Of course, it had nothing to do with this, and everything to do with trying to limit scrutiny and avoid inconvenient follow-up questions.

Breaking point

But back to Mr Offord, who held a press conference at Tollcross swimming pool in Glasgow on Wednesday. He started with a spiel about how Scotland's biggest city was bearing the brunt of high immigration, and then posed for photos alongside party candidate Thomas Kerr in front of two digital ad vans emblazoned with the words "Scotland is at breaking point”. Alas, when the vehicles arrived, one was instead showing a desktop screen in need of a software update. Reform's tech broke before the country did.