Game on

Today we read the funniest comment on the whole election saga. It's a "tweet" (whatever that means) by Fraser Nelson, editor of The Spectator (a right-ish wing British weekly news mag that mayor of London, Boris Johnson used to be the editor of). This is it:-

"SNP negotiating team heading to London. Hope they have got some theatre tickets and dinner plans: Tories are not that desperate."

Seems I was wrong about the Gnats not wanting to join any coalitions. Turns out they're hot for it and have cooked up a deal with their partners in crime Plaid Cymru (the Welsh Gnats: it's pronounced "Plied" as in past tense of "ply" and "Cumrie" as in, er, "cumrie"), done some sums and worked out that, with some of the less obstreperous Irish bits and pieces on side, they could achieve a majority with Labour and the Liberal Democrats. SNP leader Alex "Fat Eck" Salmon has gone so far as to "call on" the Lib Dems to join his soi disant "Progressive Alliance".  I'm not making this up (you couldn't) - check it here if you don't believe me.

But the notion that they've gone down to London to gate crash the negotiations between the main players has had us in stitches all afternoon. Picture it - the elastic band of Adhar Feachd Aon is wound up outside its garage on the edge of Robert the Bruce International (until recently known as Edinburgh Airport) and Eck and his deputy, Nicola "Nasty Nick" Sturgeon, clamber aboard. Eck performs the miracle of the banishment of the volcanic ash cloud (yes, it's back again) and AF1 struggles aloft, it's rate of climb retarded by the weight of the bag of pies Eck's brought along to sustain him on his epic voyage.

But that's not a pie, Eck! That's the third member of your team, Stewart Stevenson! You can't eat him because his megalomaniac ambitions of getting the world to follow Scotland's climate change lead mean he's just the man to bang the heads of Messrs Brown, Cameron & Clegg (not to mention the crowned head of HM the Q) together and make them see sense.

There's just been another sensational "tweet" from Fraser Nelson:-

"Just bumped into leader of SNP coalition negotiating team: they have just "met the civil service". Full of optimism. Bless."

You can picture that too, can't you? Some harassed official is called down to the front door by security and says "I'm sorry but we're rather busy today - who are you exactly and who is it you think is expecting you?"

Gorgeous pouting Nick in a previous life

So having left their mobile numbers, our heroes repair to meet up with their Welsh chums in a grubby Bayswater B&B where they spend the afternoon carving up the great offices of state while waiting for the phone to ring. On Monday morning, an official at Number 10 finds the following message on the answering machine.

"Eh, this is a message for Gordon. This is Nicola from the SNP. Me an' Eck and Stewart have came tae engage wi yiz as a key stakeholder in forming a new government. Anyway, we've got tae go oot noo because Mamma Mia's starting soon. So we'll maybe hear fae yiz the morn. OK? Oh and if Eck kids oan he's gonnae be the Foreign Secretary, then that's pure rubbish because I bagged that first. Ages ago. Awright? OK. Bye." 

I think another Nick is being referred to here but you can see how confusion can arise ...