Notice board Labour’s embrace of Elphicke is certainly revealing

● Alec Ross will be in conversation with Jen Stout about her book Night Train to Odesa: Covering the Human Cost of Russia’s War at 5pm on Sunday as part of Boswell Book Festival at Dumfries House, Ayrshire. For ticket information see www. boswellbookfestival.co.uk

● The Blether-In, Forfar’s pro-independence hub, is hosting an event from 2pm to 4.30pm on Sunday in the West-End Social club. This will be a Q&A event on the question “Is Westminster relevant?” with MPs on the panel. Tickets are £5. Contact Linda Clark: 07917142622/mrsLindaclark@ btinternet.com

● There will be special screenings of Faslane/Coulport film A Guided Tour of the Unacceptable will take place at 6pm on Wednesday, May 15 at Eden Court, Inverness, and 7pm on Thursday, May 16 at the Ceilidh Place Venue in Ullapool. The events will feature an opening poem from Gerry Loose, an acoustic set from Ciaran Ryan and a discussion. All welcome.

● Free Highlight Talks continue at 2.30pm on Wednesday, May 15 at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway, with Roger Griffith discussing The Glencairn Aisle and Ayrshire’s Glorious Tombs. A memorial plaque at the Glencairn Aisle in Kilmaurs commemorates James Cunningham, the 14th Earl of Glencairn, friend and patron of Robert Burns. The other “Glorious Tombs” at Ballantrae, Largs, Dunlop and Ayr will also be addressed. Booking a free seat via Eventbrite is advised.

● Julie McNeill will launch We Are Scottish Football, a collection of poetry to get us fired up for the Euros, at a very special evening of football, poetry and music at 6.30pm on Monday, May 20 at The Scottish Football Museum in Glasgow. Free tickets are available from www.tickettailor.com.

LAST week I extracted big SNP positives from the English local elections. Now, I love being with my political people, folk who care about stuff that matters, but I recognise a metaphorical pat on the head when I hear one. This week I’ll happily swap the moniker Pollyanna for Cassandra.

Natalie Elphicke – politically to the right of Jacob Rees-Mogg (according to Jacob Rees-Mogg) – crossed the floor during PMQs to announce that she was comfy now with Starmer’s Labour.

For some of us, there is a whole heap of not surprise going on right now.

This is not akin to the Tory GP/ MP who did the same a few days earlier. Even The Times newspaper recently printed my letter about the appalling state of the NHS.

Elphicke was not motivated by a hollowed-out NHS – a victim of Labour’s introduction of the private sector under Tony Blair and subsequently underfunding and undermining by the Tories (anyone seen Boris Johnson’s 40 NEW hospitals, by the way?) plus the devastation of Brexit.

No, Elphicke is far to the right wing of a right-wing party and she sees herself in Starmer’s Labour.

SO – if anyone missed it – this is what I extrapolated for Scotland after the English local election results: “A Labour vote may oust a Tory government, but only SNP success will end Tory policies.”

Shout it loud.

Amanda Baker Edinburgh

SOMEBODY told me in my younger years that you can often judge people by the company that they keep. The two defections from the Tories during the past week indicate to me that the Labour Party is now keeping company with some very strange bedfellows.

James Finlayson via thenational.scot

ANYTHING to keep the right-wing Tory brand from dying. Vote Labour, get the same policies.

They’ll take anybody except left-wingers.

Roy Loughran via thenational.scot

ELIZABETH Carr-Ellis, a Hello! Magazine sub-editor in Canterbury is English Labour’s candidate for the new Scottish seat of Angus and Perthshire Glens, a mere 500 miles away. It’s like a scene from Blackadder, except it’s all too real.