David Maddox: True Grit

It has been a bitter winter in Scotland not least for the SNP leader of Fife Council Peter Grant (pictured right).
As the snow and ice have taken a grip on Scotland his council made UK headlines for running out of grit for the roads and being the worst prepared.
Things have got so bad that his own party - in the guise of Central Fife MSP Tricia Marwick - has called for an inquiry.
The press release did not apportion blame, but pointedly it only defended the actions of the Scottish Government.
It is very unusual these days for the SNP to publicly leave one of its own out in the cold as such, but Mr Grant is in many ways yesterday's man as far as SNP ambition goes, despite leading the party to breaking Labour's historic grip on the Kingdom in 2007.
He was the SNP's coming man in 2008 when the expectation that he would win the Glenrothes by-election was so great that two London based nationals ran early editions the day after the result proclaiming his victory.
Unfortunately for him and the Nationalists he not only lost but was thumped by Labour's Lindsay Roy by a massive 6,737 votes.
While Alex Salmond publicly took the blame for the humiliating result behind the scenes fingers were pointed at Grant himself particularly his policies to the elderly as council leader which undid what seemed to be a certain SNP victory.
Now his council's actions - this time its lack of preparedness - are under the spotlight again and it seems that the SNP is not in a mood to forgive.

Hamish Macdonell - Tories put a kilt on it, again

HOW to turn even the remotest story to your local advantage, part II.
After their embarrassment in trying to turn the election of Barrack Obama into a story about the kilt and the Royal Mile, the Tories have now decided to use the snow falls across southern and central Britain to make another point, this time about Prestwick Airport.
In doing so, they managed to publish one of the most convoluted statements of the year, here it is, from Ayr MSP John Scott, on Prestwick Airport's busy time in coping with flights diverted from elsewhere.
He said: "It's an ill wind that blows no good, so the heavy snowfall and the unexpected guests it has brought to southern Ayrshire as a result of their enforced diversion has certainly brought a welcome boost to local hoteliers at what would otherwise be a quiet time of the year."
Whether those travellers aiming for Manchester, Liverpool or London who end up in Prestwick instead feel quite the same way is another matter.
ends