Why SNP’s Ian may celebrate a Tory victory!

While a labour victory would have guaranteed a second referendum on Scottish independence, one SNP MP may have been secretly toasting the Tory landslide.

ian Blackford, the SNP leader in Parliament, who retained his highlands seat, is non-executive chairman of internet provider Commsworld.

The edinburgh-based company is the subject of a £45 million takeover by private equity firm lDC, which is expected to be finalised this week. had Jeremy Corbyn been our new PM, the deal would have collapsed.

Under labour’s madcap, £20billion plan to give free fast broadband to all British homes, private internet providers such as Commsworld would have been taken into public ownership.

A former investment banker, Blackford, who likes to style himself as a man-of-the-people crofter and who was criticised for wearing a kilt to the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday 2017, has

declared a holding in Commsworld. in the past, he has denied it being as high as 6 per cent, but he is expected to receive a seven-figure windfall from the sale.

expect much barracking from the Tory benches when he rises to speak at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday!

▪ FORMER Attorney General Dominic Grieve, booted out of the Tory party for defying the leadership on Brexit, stood as an independent in Beaconsfield and lost by 16,000 votes to the official Tory candidate.

Grieve, a QC, will not go hungry. MPs must declare any shareholdings of £70,000 or more, and Grieve has listed more than 30, including Rolls-Royce and Rio Tinto.