Who cares that Liz Lochhead has joined the SNP?

Is it acceptable for writers to sport their political allegiances publicly? In more sensible times you’d hardly need to consider the question since its answer would ordinarily be so bleedin’ obvious. These, of course, are neither sensible nor ordinary times.

So it is with the fauxtroversy over whether or not it is acceptable – or, worse, appropriate – for Liz Lochhead to have joined the SNP. This is a real thing, it seems and yet another example of how politics corrupts most things it touches. Lochhead, you see, is not just a poet she is Scotland’s Makar (or poet laureate) and therefore, god help us, it’s all very different. For some reason.

People are easily outraged I guess and if it wasn’t this it would be another thing that prompted so much hand-trembling fretting. Seriously, we have actual politicians from notionally grown-up political parties suggesting there’s something not quite on about this. Columnists, naturally, wade into the fray.