THERE'S ALWAYS ONE, ISN'T THERE?

I suspect that when a Scottish election, with its hybrid voting system, throws up an unexpected result, and parties win seats, regional or constituency, that they never expected to win, there must be some candidates who weren’t actually expecting to be elected, and whom party officials had already advised not to give up their day jobs.

Some might be people who have a considerable amount to learn, put into an “unwinnable” seat to get experience. And in some cases there will be fillers. You know, the name on the ballot paper that, had they thought there was the vaguest chance of winning, would never have allowed their name to go forward.

I’m only guessing, but I suspect that Labour had a good few of them in regional seats. So spectacularly solid has been the Labour vote in West Coast constituency seats that using the D’hondt system to calculate the regional entitlement, there have been few or no Labour winners. Likewise in these areas the likelihood of the SNP triumphing in a constituency seat was small enough to be negligible.

Then along comes the election result to change the whole Scottish political landscape, and a few people who didn’t expect to be MSPs, suddenly find themselves taking the oath of allegiance.

It might be worthwhile considering a quick course for these people who may have been very faithful leafleters or envelope lickers, but who have no idea of what the job of MSP involves or of the pitfalls that are begging to be fallen into.

One of these pitfalls clearly would be the use of Twitter. (You’d have thought that the number of candidates that have been caught out Tweeting something hideously inappropriate, might have served as a warning to MSPs new to Holyrood, but it seems not.)

Clearly in the case of George Adam, that particular penny didn’t drop. Ex car salesman Adam clearly thought it amusing to put down the people of Inverclyde with a gratuitous Tweet about needing a “jab” (inoculation for foreigners!) to get out of Greenock.

It’s just the kind of thing that potential voters want to hear about their constituency, and it takes a special kind of stupidity not to realise that a Tweet is a pretty public thing, especially for a public figure.

So thanks, Mr Adam. You didn’t cost us the election; that was lost already. But you’ll certainly have contributed to it, and possibly to the feeling that the SNP doesn’t really care much for the West Coast working class voter. In short you may have undone goodwill and trust that it has taken the SNP years to gain

Well done to you. Lincoln said: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." I suggest you adopt that then adapt it to Tweeting, and see if you can’t redeem yourself a bit.

Pic: George Adam, the silly Tweet with the amusing teenage boy racer hairstyle which goes badly with the bags under the eyes and old man's teeth.