Eck’s ear for listening

A CONVERSATION involves talking and listening – which was where Alex Salmond’s ill-fated National Conversation on independence came unstuck. Eck liked the sound of his own voice but did not use his ears – which may be why Nicola Sturgeon is calling her version the ‘biggest listening exercise ever undertaken by the SNP’. As SNP parliamentarians gathered in Stirling, one said the party would be ‘full of humility, ready to really listen’ to voters. Another quipped: ‘That’s obviously the difference between this leader and the last.’

WITH Labour in crisis, Kezia Dugdale was happy to go off to the States to enjoy herself with the SNP’s Jenny Gilruth and Conservative Ross Thomson on an all-expenses-paid ‘leadership programme’. The three had so much in common they later held a reunion in Scotland. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the EU referendum result in late June, it was Brexiteer Mr Thomson who appeared to party hardest.