Murphy's sanctimony comes back to haunt him again

Firstly, I'd just like to sincerely thank Labour for ensuring that the first big scandal of the general election campaign has occurred in a safe Nationalist seat, thus guaranteeing that the London-based media are forced to acknowledge - at least in passing - that the SNP do actually exist (always something of a painful process for them).

Secondly, I'm struggling to see how it can be denied that Jim Murphy has just flunked a very big judgement call. Reading through the original story on Stuart MacLennan in the Scottish Sun, it's very hard to see precisely what 'further information' could possibly have been required to determine that this man was not a fit person to be a parliamentary candidate.

Thirdly, I think we might just have heard the last from Scotland's Supreme Spiritual Guide, the Venerable Brother Murphy, on the subject of 'disgusting CyberNats'. Certainly, he's not going to have a lot of credibility in ever again trying to hold the SNP leadership responsible for the uncontrollable actions of a handful of anonymous supporters on the internet, when he is asking us to accept that it is perfectly plausible that he had no idea about the bile one of his own parliamentary candidates was pouring out on Twitter, in spite of the fact that the person in question was brazenly doing so under his own name, and that his followers included several prominent Labour figures, one of whom was the wife of the Prime Minister.

Incidentally, I also look forward to hearing at length from David Maddox about 'CyberLabs' for a change. (Sounds suitably sinister, like the sort of thing Tony Blair was desperately hoping might turn up in Iraq one day.)