No sheepish arguments from Sturgeon after candidate’s Twitter trolling is revealed

“THE name’s McSheepie, Paco McSheepie. I think No voters are traitors and distrust the elderly. They forget stuff. Creepy! And they sook their food. Yeuch! So vote for me on May 7 to make Scotland a better place. But only for pro-indy under-65s (wink!)”

That at least would have been an honest election address from Neil Hay, the SNP candidate in Edinburgh South, who was yesterday exposed as a Twitter troll.

Writing under his ovine alias, Mr Hay called rivals quislings and mocked oldies who “can barely remember their names” but were mercifully “dying off”.

Opening FMQs, Labour’s Kezia Dugdale said it was time Paco got the chop.

“Mr Hay has apologised, but that is not enough,” she told Nicola Sturgeon.

“Will the First Minister sack Neil Hay as the SNP’s candidate?”

The FM’s tone suggested Mr Hay was one lost sheep she could live without.

“I condemn the language used and the comments made,” she replied. “Given that we face an election two weeks today, it is up to the voters to decide.”

But Labour had its trolls too, she added. In fact, party stalwart Ian Smart recently called the SNP “fascist scum”.

“For completeness, will Kezia Dugdale tells us what action Labour took against him?”

Ms Dugdale muttered that she took it “very seriously”, but then rushed on via a tortured segue to the SNP’s £8 billion plan for full fiscal autonomy, aka The Black Hole of Caledonia.

When would the FM publish full costings for the Hole?

“Bear with me while I try to work my way through that diatribe of utter nonsense,” huffed Ms Sturgeon, batting the question back with a demand to know the services Labour would cut after the election.

A minor rammy then ensued over the latest IFS figures, but by now Ms Sturgeon had recovered her TV debate mojo and simply ploughed through the opposition.

“What a total and utter ramble that was,” she said of Ms Dugdale’s best shot.

Tory Ruth Davidson was then ritually slaughtered for daring to raise the government’s dizzying array of justice U-turns.

Nat MSPs roared, Tories checked their shoes, and Ms Sturgeon was triumphant.

I wouldn’t want to be Paco McSheepie when she comes round with the shears.