So why did Sarah stand in for Laura?

COULD the BBC’s male stars be pricing themselves out of the after-dinner circuit? When Laura Kuenssberg, pictured, pulled out of last week’s Federation of Small Businesses dinner in Edinburgh, the BBC political editor’s place was taken by another Scotswoman – BBC Scotland editor Sarah Smith, who has strong views on the corporation’s gender pay gap. She joked she might have been asked to substitute because the FSB could not afford a BBC man. Ouch.