Eddie Barnes - The Dave and David show

If the gossip floating around Scottish Tory circles is to be believed, the event which took precedence in David Cameron's diary when he came to Scotland last week was not the party's one-day conference in Perth, but Cameron's lunchtime engagement at the Scottish Press Fund lunch in Glasgow which preceded it. The reason? Mostly because the event was being organised by David Dinsmore, the editor of the Scottish Sun, Scotland's largest selling daily newspaper.

The background to this episode goes back to last autumn when the English edition of the Sun decided to leap into bed with the Tories. Dinsmore, however, decided to play hard to get, declaring that he was "yet to be convinced". With the Tories polling only 20% in Scotland, it was not hard to see why. Nor is it hard to see why Team Cameron is now so keen to woo Dinsmore....if there's one thing about open doors, it's that you want to push them.

The Scottish Sun editor is clearly enjoying being a Tory tease - at the lunch last week, he made a few barbed comments in Cameron's direction about his difficult it was to get a date in his diary. Cameron responded with a light-hearted comment noting that, while he respected devolution, he hoped that in the case of the Scottish Sun, they would follow London's example. It was like watching a Jane Austen courtship ritual. It remains highly unlikely that David will actually agree to Dave's advances, but that's not to say the charm-offensive isn't working. Even Scottish Sun columnist Bill Leckie offers some grudging praise for Cameron in his column today.

Cameron isn't the first ambitious politician who has set out to win hearts at News International - and the rewards and the dangers remain the same. In Scotland, the reward within his grasp is the country's biggest-selling paper if not on his side, then certainly offering an open mind. That is probably as much as the Conservatives can hope for north of the border at present. The dangers, however, are that the courtship of one stable ends up enraging other media outlets, especially if they feel that announcements and interviews are drip-fed through certain favoured publications. As Labour long ago found out, this all soon spins horribly out of control, amid much gnashing of teeth - a noise which Cameron might have heard at the tables of certain newspapers last Friday.

In summary, the Sun might be creeping through the clouds for the Scottish Tories, but as is usually the case in Scotland, that doesn't mean it isn't raining elsewhere.