The shame of Scotland’s SNP leadership contest

Ed Miliband must be relieved. With Ash Regan’s idea for an ‘independence thermometer’, a giant screen or billboard visually representing progress towards various aspects of independence, his ‘Edstone’ now has competition for the most ridiculous idea ever presented by a UK politician during an election campaign.

It is a measure of how absurd the contest to replace Nicola Sturgeon has become that Regan’s Heath Robinson-esque brainwave has caused only mild amusement. Regan followed up her inspiration by going full Braveheart and endorsing Alex Salmond’s idea of withholding the Stone of Destiny from the upcoming coronation. Quite how this benefits the people of Scotland or advances the cause of independence was left unclear. Still, at least Regan is offering a modicum of comic relief, a rare commodity from the usual granite-faced, permanently outraged Sottish Nationalists. 

Less amusing than the various gaffes and pie-in-the-sky promises is the growing controversy about how the contest is being run and the allegations that the SNP hierarchy is doing everything it can to favour one candidate: the supposed court favourite and front runner health minister Humza