Scotland Office aide

Lots of stuff in the Sunday papers, followed up in today's Mornings, about an email written by John McTernan (now a special adviser to Scottish Secretary Des Browne) when he was working at the Scottish Arts Council in 2002.

In the email, McTernan wrote to Karen Gillon MSP: 'If you've not been to Sweden before I think you'll really like it - it's the country Scotland would be if it was not narrow, Presbyterian, racist, etc etc. Social democracy in action.'

Des Browne has quite rightly dismissed this email, curiously released under FoI, as having no bearing on McTernan's current position.

It brings to mind Tom Nairn's quip, adjusting the words of Diderot, that Scotland would be reborn only when "the last Kirk minister has been strangled with the last copy of the Sunday Post".