The SNP’s list of Holyrood candidates has potential as a warm-up act for the Glasgow Comedy Festival at which Nicola Sturgeon is already billed as an unlikely source of side-splitters.

Ms Sturgeon and her anointed successor, Humza Yousaf, have put their names down for 2026, presumably as insurance against unemployability in more alluring fields of endeavour. It keeps their options open, though I doubt if six more years of an occasional requirement to visit Holyrood features in either’s bucket list.

The electorate may also be invited to endorse Michael Matheson, of lap-top fame, which begs the question - is there really no limit to brass neck? It remains a mystery how an attempt to claim £11,000 of public money, in the absence of any grounds on which it could have been a legitimate expense, failed to attract the interest of Scotland’s legal authorities, or lead to his resignation as an MSP.

Instead, Mr Matheson returned to Holyrood under the patronage of John Swinney, and gained another two years of drawing a salary. One might have thought he would then count himself lucky and plan a quiet return to whatever he used to do. Not a bit of it – though the good burghers of Falkirk may take a different view.

Read more from Brian Wilson:

Then we have the cherry on the patriotic cake, Stephen Flynn, whose Westminster platoon of the Tartan Army disintegrated overnight from 43 down to nine under his shouty leadership. Now he wants to go to Holyrood while remaining an MP, for which there........

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