Sunny Scotland and pavlovian dogs

It's been a good weekend so far.
On Friday the Labour group met to look in detail at the election results - it was interesting to see what professional sephologists made of it - and the information will guide our strategy over the next four years and beyond. I am struck by how united the Group is: small differences in opinion over detail but in the big things, thinking as one.

On Friday evening off to the cinema to see Ocean's 13 which was, I concede, pretty disappointing but bearable, if only because of Al Pacino who can make even the most superficial of characters seem complex. Then Saturday several hours wrestling with Mother Nature in the garden taming the havoc of several weeks of neglect, a good meeting with a local group who have some ambitious plans I hope to help them with and a lovely evening meal al fresco - Scotland on Saturday evening was just as warm as the South of Spain.

Then this morning reading the newspapers do a mea culpa over their slavish swallowing of Alex Salmond's agenda and news spin re the Libyan prisoner. It is obvious, even to the meanest intelligence, that our new First Minister will take every opportunity to sustain an agenda of anti-London propaganda. A story a week. It is his political raison d'etre: to create a climate of mistrust in the hope it will make a referendum on separation successful. What kind of politician predicates his power on making his nation mistrustful of another? It suits the media to be his pavlovian dog since it gives them headlines - to mix the metaphors, one can only hope he cries wolf too often.