THE Courier’s political editor, Steve Bargeton, has been ‘spilling the beans’ on his Holyrood fellow-hack, Alan Cochrane, the Dundee-born Scottish editor of the Daily Telegraph.
Steve has revealed that Alan, who once wrote for The Courier, has been debating with Holyrood’s Corporate Body, which is responsible for the smooth-running of the Scottish Parliament, about the description of certain root vegetables on the menu in the parliamentary canteen.
Specifically, swedes and turnips. Bargeton reported in his diary column that Cochrane raised the matter with SNP Corporate Body member, Tricia Marwick MSP – a former press officer of Shelter in Scotland.
Tricia confided to Bargeton: “Alan was raging that [the Holyrood caterers] do not seem to know the difference between a swede and a neep, and has asked me take the matter up.”
Bargeton concludes: “The outcome will be keenly awaited by parliamentary diners everywhere. Perhaps the Corporate Body will find there is indeed a requirement for the more precise labelling of foodstuffs.
“And, if they do, they may have to sort out their brassica napus from their brassica rapa. But ‘haggis, brassica napus, and mashed solanum tuberosum’ does not exactly set the juices flowing.”
