Angus MacLeod Reveals His Humorous Side

It's not often a Scottish journalist shows even a glimmer of humour or wit, but Angus MacLeod has excelled himself in today's Times. 'Slugger Salmond ducks out of political debate with Mauler Murphy' roars the headline accompanied by the above cartoon (which could more truth than fiction!)

Jim Murphy has challenged Alex Salmond to a debate because they are both attending the same conference in Edinburgh tomorrow.

“We are both due to speak at the McKay Hannah conference in Edinburgh this Wednesday,” it began. “As our slots in the programme are separated only by a coffee break I thought it might be more interesting for the audience if, instead of speaking back to back, we went head to head in a straight debate on the future of Scotland.

“Many questions remain unanswered on the detail of your proposal of separating Scotland from the United Kingdom and this would be a fitting forum for this discussion.”

Response:

Mr Salmond believed that Mr Murphy was “desperate”. His spokesman said that Mr Salmond had been asked simply to open the conference, not speak at it — though that begged the question as to when this First Minister had ever opened anything without making a (sometimes very long) speech.

Mr Murphy was, said the spokesman, drawing attention to himself, as if that was a characteristic not normally associated with politicians. He was trying to sideline Iain Gray, the Labour leader at Holyrood, with whom Mr Salmond debates every Thursday in the Scottish Parliament. It was all, the spokesman said with affected weariness, “a silly stunt”.

You'll just have to bide yer time Jim, Alex has his own plans and he's not going to be thrown off course by a numpty. Good try though and it did get your photo and name in today's press so objective accomplished.

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