Alex Massie

I commend Fraser's most recent post on our part-time Chancellor of the Exchequer. But even my flabber was gasted (or my gast flabbered) by this paragraph: Being Chancellor in a recession is a very tough job. Osborne’s predecessors are amazed at the time he has to spend politicking across departments. I’m told that he is heading the campaign to defeat Salmond in a Scottish referendum, taking on yet another job to add to his other one of chief strategist. Emphasis added. There is no reason to doubt Fraser's information and assuming, as I do, he is correct one must wonder if Mr Osborne finds being Chancellor of the Exchequer - during a double-dip recession no less - too boring a job for a man of his restless mind and infinite political wisdom?

Political stocks can go down as well as up. Shares in Alex Salmond are hardly slumping right now but they're off their peak and flat-lining. The market is becalmed. Perhaps the launch of the independence referendum campaign will reinvigorate the First Minister but it also carries the risk - unavoidable for sure, but still a risk - that concentrating attention on independence will remind voters that the SNP is, at heart, a single-issue party. And single-issue parties tend to run into trouble.  There is a theory that the SNP have over-extended themselves. Even though they still hold more council seats than Labour (and so could claim their local election "failure" has been exagerrated) they still contrived to lose the "expectations game" earlier this month.

I see that, following Andy Coulson's detention as part of a police investigation into perjury at the Tommy Sheridan, er, perjury trial,  Tom Watson MP is up to his old tricks. To wit: After the detention of Coulson, Tom Watson MP reiterated his claim that Sheridan’s perjury conviction was "unsound". He said: "Tommy Sheridan was convicted on an eight to six verdict of a jury in a Scottish court. Mr Sheridan lost his liberty and is still the subject of restrictions on his movement. "The detention of Andy Coulson further highlights why Mr Sheridan’s conviction was unsound. It is now abundantly clear that members of the jury were not in full possession of the facts.

This week the SNP will launch their campaign for Scottish independence. Or, rather, it's the official beginning of what they term the 'Yes' campaign. Prefacing this, Joan McAlpine uses her column in the Daily Record to list ten reasons why Scots should endorse independence. It is an interesting list, not least because McAlpine, who is close to Alex Salmond, is one of the higher-profile SNP MSPs and someone to whom it is always worth paying attention. This is her list: 1. An independent Scotland would be the sixth wealthiest country on earth. According to the OECD, apparently. It's the Black Gold, silly. This is a very dubious statistic.

 Joe Klein complains that the Republican nominee is being beastly to the press.  Mitt Romney is clearly a candidate terrified by his own mouth. What other explanation for his campaign’s extreme efforts to prevent reporters from asking him questions? I know that there isn’t much public sympathy for journalistic whining – including my own occasional, stupid laments – about the lack of access. But Romney’s staff has clearly taken this to a new level, preventing reporters from even watching the candidate’s mini-town meeting with middle-class voters at one stop. Given how grim these events tend to be (and how repetitive life is on the campaign trail) one might think being excluded from Romney's events a blessing.

Watching Andy Coulson answer the Leveson inquiry's questions with a dead bat yesterday, the likes of Robert Shrimsley and Tim Montgomerie tweeted that viewing Coulson testify was akin to watching Chris Tavaré bat. Those of you who remember Tavaré will appreciate that this was not meant altogether kindly. This will not do. I concede that as a child no cricketer infuriated me more than Tavaré. He seemed to me, then, to be some kind of anti-cricketer, forever forgetting that scoring runs - preferably with style - was a batsman's chief objective. I fear I disliked poor Tavaré as keenly as ever any gum-chewing Australian did. There was, after all, so much to dislike.