David Maddox: Aunty's Bloomers

It's been one of those weeks in Holyrood where the main activity has been to spot the various gaffes.

In a week where the shocking level of illiteracy in Scotland was debated by MSPs we had two good examples of the problem. Firstly, on Wednesday, in his statement on the Aberdeen bypass John Swinney's speech writer managed to include the words "pubic transport" which the minister himself avoided saying after a quick intake of breath.

Then we had the SNP press release on Wednesday headlined: "MURPHY ON MANEAUVERS OVER CALMAN COP OUT" - that probably should be maneuvers, manoeuvres or manoeuvers.

Having said that, journalists are in no position to throw stones about typos, including this one.

The real bloopers came from the Labour and the Tories.

On Wednesday we had the extraordinary controversy about the spads (special advisers) - the party employees, usually spin doctors, on the government payroll. Labour claimed to have revealed plans by the SNP to have limitless spads ending the current Scottish Government cap of 12.

This was a great story until the moment we all realised that the reason for this was because of legislation being put through Westminster by the Labour UK government.

There was some irony that the revelation came from a question put to a minister by former Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander and the Labour press release attacking the SNP quoted another MSP David Whitton (pictured left). Before becoming MSPs both Ms Alexander and Mr Whitton were Labour spads. Hypocrisy did not really cover it.

Yet despite this farce, even Labour was to be outdone on Thursday by "Aunty" Annabel Goldie and her performance in FMQs.

She went on the attack about the cost of the Scottish Parliament only to be ruled out of order by a rather cross Presiding Officer Alex Fergusson (himself a Tory) because the parliament is not the responsibility of the government. We then had the following exchanges:

Annabel Goldie: Let me clarify for the First Minister that the Scottish Government allocates the budget for the running of this Parliament and that he leads a party that has a member who sits on the corporate body—
The Presiding Officer: That is actually incorrect, Miss Goldie. The Scottish Government does not allocate that budget.
Annabel Goldie: I apologise for any confusion, Presiding Officer.

At which point, somewhat flustered she appeared to be unable to construct a question.

Ms Goldie (pictured right) has many admirable qualities and is well liked, but she has not had a hit in FMQs for some time now. The last time was over links to the Megrahi release and Qatari loans.

It seems that a whispering campaign about her leadership has begun again. It will be interesting to see how things develop after the UK general election. Her job may depend on the Conservatives making some real gains in those 11 Scottish seats they have targeted.