POLITICS
A sheepish Liberal Democrat spin doctor has admitted he was embarrassed after booking a photo opportunity with party leader Nick Clegg at a Cathkin dogging hotspot.
The bizarre story was recounted by Ben Rathe, Clegg’s former campaign manager, on his blog and described as being like out of TV comedy The Thick of It.
In 2013 the Lib Dems’ party conference was held in Glasgow, and the party announced their new policy of a 5p charge on plastic bags.
Mr Rathe picked Cathkin Marsh as the location for the announcement, due to it being a “lovely nature reserve”.
However it was only after he visited the site for the first time that he discovered what else the marsh is notorious for, after Police Scotland officers tipped him off.
His blog states: “A dogging site. I’d arranged for the Deputy Prime Minister to visit a dogging site. Armando (Iannucci, creator of the Thick of It)himself couldn’t have written this script.
“Thinking that the police might be playing a cruel joke on me, I raced to my hotel room and promptly searched for any links relating to Cathkin Marsh and dogging.
“In hindsight, searching for local dogging sites on a work computer probably wasn’t a smart move, but I wasn’t thinking clearly.
“And what did I find? I found a Daily Record story about the ‘dogging hotspot’, as well as a number of links that I simply can’t post on a family friendly blog.
“That’s right. Just four weeks before our conference, two pensioners had been caught doing what the Daily Record chose to describe as ‘unsavoury’ things to one another in the very bird hut I’d walked past that afternoon and signed off as a