And another thing…

I ALMOST feel sorry for the nationalist candidate in Glasgow North East. Almost, but not quite.

His latest faux pas fits into the media’s developing narrative of a hapless chap who’s not quite sure about where he was born or why he can’t buy his Benson & Hedges from the cheese counter…

"Hurry up, Alex - I've just been told Santa's grotto's near here..."

ANYONE who saw David Kerr’s car crash of an interview on Newsnicht last night will be left wondering why he’s ashamed of having been born in Govan.

Pressed on the vexed question of his birthplace, the SNP’s Glasgow North East candidate refused point blank to say where he was born, instead falling back on the weasel words of “there wasn’t a maternity hospital in Dennistoun at the time”. Why didn’t he just say “Govan”?

Pressed further on why he he previously claimed, during the Falkirk by-election, to have been born in Cumberbauld, he said that a big boy done it and ran away (or words to that effect) and that the mistake had been quickly rectified.

Was it? Does that mean that during that particular campaign, a replacement leaflet was produced by Kerr’s campaign stating that he was, in fact, born in Govan? Or Dennistoun? Will he now produce that leaflet?

A nation holds its breath.

BOOKMAKERS throughout Scotland announced today they are now accepting bets on which Scottish town the SNP’s David Kerr will next claim to have been born in.

Odds-on favourite is Drongan, with Methil and Shotts coming in at evens.

But an SNP insider said there would be no announcement on Mr Kerr’s next preferred place of birth until the next parliamentary by-election has been confirmed.

Meanwhile Kerr’s campaign for the Glasgow North East parliamentary by-election was seen by a number of witnesses going down a public toilet in Alexandra Parade after someone produced one of his campaign leaflets for his failed 2000 campaign in Falkirk and compared it with a more recent leaflet issues by the SNP in Glasgow.

Mr Kerr, from Cumbernauld/Dennistoun/Govan/Milton Keynes (delete as applicable), commented: “It is utterly reprehensible and unfair of Labour to use facts and stuff just to win votes.”

Alex Salmond added: “David who?”

That was then...

... and this is now

"Hmm... I'll give you a fiver if you throw in the lighter and the sports socks..."

WHAT is it with the SNP and guns?

Remember this from last year? Now David Kerr, the nationalist candidate in the Glasgow North East by-election, is in trouble over this cute stunt he pulled in a Glasgow car park last year.

The SNP have already dismissed the incident (“So what? He’s the nationalist candidate, for goodness sake — how could he have done anything wrong?!”). But given that Kerr’s then employers, the BBC, reprimanded him for brandishing lethal — and illegal — weapons in an east end car park, then someone, somewhere obviously thought this was, to say the least, an unwise move.

Eaxctly the kind of judgment you might want from a putative MP, yes?*

*Er… no.