NOWHERE TO RUN TO BABY; NOWHERE TO HIDE

Poor old Iain Gray. He might have anticipated that the nice people from Citizens United Against Public Sector Cuts, who had hijacked Annabel and Tavish, would also want to ask how Labour were going to deal with London's Tory cuts.

Obviously, however, that didn't occur to the Labour Party machine. So poor old Gray turned up without a crib sheet.

With no answers to offer them, he took flight and hid in a Subway... the restaurant, not the metro. But they followed him. (If I'd been eating in that restaurant I'd have asked for my money back. The cabaret was bouffing [Scottish word for awful]).

Someone managed to get a black cab and get them out and away...

Later, despite having been described by witnesses of the run-in as looking shaken, Gray laughed it off. On no, said he, it didn't bother him. He'd worked in Mozambique during a civil war, walked the killing fields of Cambodia, arrived in Chile just after Pinochet 'demitted' office (he likes posh words does our Iain), and he'd been in Rwanda just after the genocide.

Maybe upon reflection he will consider that comparing, in any way, the Rwandan genocide with facing nine protesters, who potentially were on his side, in Glasgow, with minders and police present, a little on the insensitive side.

Here we have it a potential First Minister whose plan of action is to fold his tent and run for the cover of a sandwich shop.

Don't sleep in the Subway Iain, as Petula might be persuaded to sing!