Yet More Tearoom Gossip?

Last week I mused on the Political Rumour Mill and mentioned the persistent rumours on Blair being questioned. They didn’t turnout to be quite accurate, as it wasn’t until yesterday he was questioned.

This week has been no different and there have been one or two wee amusing incidents. Again many of them cannot be published and some are just plain mad. One that has been doing the rounds is that a certain backbench Labour MSP has been heard to complaining loudly to anyone who would listen about how poor a job Tom McCabe has doing as Finance Minister and that he’s out of his depth? This was heard by a good few people after McCabe’s performance in the chamber earlier this week where “he couldnae even answer a few bloody simple questions”, according to the backbencher.

The rumour-mill reasoning for such obvious displays of disloyalty to his colleague within the parliament is that when Jack goes, and the backbencher reckons sooner rather than later, the Labour leadership will be a fight between Andy Kerr and Tom McCabe and they are hitching their star to Kerr as early as possible so that they get an enhanced role in the future. Then again, as last weeks rumours show it might just be tearoom gossip.

Another rumour goes that a Minister’s constituency staff has been responding to a constituent’s enquiry about a topic in the Minister’s brief by saying that they wouldn`t take the enquiry forward as the Minister “won’t be in the post for much longer. If they don`t walk then they’ll be forced out eventually anyway”. Again we’ll have to see if they were just fobbing off a constituent or if there is something more to it.